Preschoolers need to get a move on

Study: Preschoolers need to get a move on - USATODAY.com

I read this and hear the Pink Floyd theme playing in the background  - poor little buggers, who can't skip?

Studies are great! Usually they just quantify the obvious, the things that most people who work in Early Childhood Education already know. They're a bit like statistics, great to have in case you ever need to back up points in a paper your writing but unless something eventuates from them they're just cheap wrapping paper or doomed to the bargain book bin.

Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above 

Most children at child care centers, preschools and nursery schools spend hours doing sedentary activities and aren't spending much time playing outside, research has shown.

A new analysis suggests possible reasons include concerns about injuries and parents' pressure on schools to pursue academic pursuits such as teaching kids shapes, colors and the ABCs.

"We know children learn through play, including vigorous play," says Kristen Copeland, a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and the study's lead author. "They practice fundamental motor skills like skipping, playing with balls, jumping and climbing." Physical activity helps prevent excessive weight gain and helps children develop healthy habits that can last them a lifetime, she says. But such play is getting squeezed out because of other priorities.

"These kids finish preschool and don't know how to skip, and that doesn't upset their parents as long as they know their ABCs and can count to 10," Copeland says.

The study, published today in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that educators said they know vigorous activity is important to children. But they cited several barriers, including concerns about injuries, focus on academics and limited outdoor space and playground equipment.

It doesn't take a lot of expensive equipment for children to be active, Copeland says. "They just need to be taken outside and given the time, space and freedom to run. Many kids spend all day in child care, so this may be their only chance to be physically active."

Angela Mollard: To the wild yonder

Angela Mollard: To the wild yonder | thetelegraph.com.au

I wonder as I read this....If this is what happens to someone who has only been exposed to the "Tech revolution" for a short period what is the the effect going to be on a child who has been weaned on an Ipad ? (see
In 2012, be kind to your brain, Babies with Ipads, iPhones | Steve Jobs | Nature Deficit Disorder, iPadding toddlers: When is it too soon?, Too much screen time eating into playtime, Babies and toddlers should learn from play, not screens, Smartphone on wheels for a fascinating ride in the back seat, VINCI | Why VINCI?)

Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above  

FOR a year now, I’ve had a little quote pinned above my desk. “Tell me,” it says, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” On a particularly joyless day, I scribbled a response: “Make lunch boxes.”

....recently I’ve felt disconnected, which is absurd because last year I received 13,506 emails, sent 432 tweets and became Facebook ‘friends’ with someone I kissed in 1989. I’m so connected that I go online the second I wake up. I’m linked in, favourited, retweeted, liked.

Trouble is, all this click-and-flick stuff isn’t nourishing me or the people I care about. .....I miss being transported by a great book, enlivened by a lengthy conversation, wearied by a long walk. I crave smiles made with mouth muscles, not emoticons. I yearn for the stillness and soft foot of nature. Late last year, sitting with my husband beside a lake in the rain, I cried. Not because I was upset, but because I’d sat still long enough to feel something.

Tech torpor, nature deficit disorder, digital ADHD - call it what you like, it’s fracturing our lives. How many couples spend their evenings on separate devices? How many babies looking up from their prams see their parents’ faces masked by an iPhone? New research shows Australians are less inclined to embrace adventure and try new things, with 80 per cent blaming technology and social networking for their inertia. Add to that the 130 million days of stockpiled annual leave and you get the sense there are a lot of people visiting life rather than living it.

So, this year, I’m going trekking in Nepal. It’s a long-held dream, conjured before children and mortgage and responsibility, and put on hold for more than a decade. I signed up before they told me it would be so cold at night I’d have to pee in a zip-lock bag, and before reading that altitude can affect co-ordination (I’m challenged at sea level).

For me, the appeal is as much nature as nurture. My screensaver is an inky blue mountain iced with snow, wild and precious. It’s time I did more than just look at it.

Trailing, can do better: report needs answers

Trailing, can do better: report needs answers

'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'  allegedly Benjamin Disraeli

'We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.'

Albert Einstein.

Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above

When Julia Gillard was in Sydney this week to announce extra schools funding for students with disabilities, she stressed the need for Australia to win the "education race" against its Asian neighbours.

The call followed the lament by her Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett, over disappointing results from last year's national literacy and numeracy tests. There has been no marked improvement, and performance of top students is going backwards.

The brightest and most socio-economically advantaged children are concentrated in independent and public selective schools; the disadvantaged and poorest academic performers are in the public system.

For 10 years under the Howard government, Australia suppressed data comparing the performance of independent and public schools.

Sue Thomson, from the Australian Council for Educational Research, says the latest OECD snapshot revealed, for the first time, no significant differences in test scores from public and private schools after they were adjusted for the socio-economic background of students and their school peers. This confirmed the performance of Australian students is linked to the family background of students and their peers – not the school they attend.

Data from other OECD countries consistently showed public schools performed as well or better than independent schools after socio-economic factors were accounted for. The Australian private schools lobby rejects the research as flawed.

"Any supposed performance advantage from going to a private school is entirely due to the fact they come from advantaged backgrounds and are concentrated together."

But money will not solve all the problems. High-performing countries recruit high-calibre teachers with masters degrees. They do not focus on standardised testing and "teaching to the test", which teachers complain of in Australia.

"What goes on in Chinese classrooms, for example, is a process of teaching kids to think and not a process of just drumming in facts," Sweet said.

Barry McGaw, who heads the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, is concerned schools are not stretching the top students.He believes there has been too much focus on developing basic skills to meet minimum standards.

He found students in south-west Sydney were studying lower levels of mathematics and English than those in northern Sydney, despite being of similar ability, because "south-western Sydney schools weren't offering the higher level courses".

Force of Nature

Force of Nature - Bethesda Magazine - January-February 2012 - Bethesda, MD

Outside the box, my favourite place. Whether that box be a screen, a building, a life style or an idea, that's where I believe creativity exists. Anyone who is of the belief that play and learning cannot coexist..... read on MacDuff! 

I'm somewhat jealous reading this article as I was brought up in a strict factory type preschool that locked you in a cupboard if you drew outside the lines of the stencil .... products for Mummy and Daddy.  Ahh...those were the days.

Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above

'A boy, just 4, leaps into a puddle. Mud splatters high across his boots and pants. The boy races from puddle to puddle, leaping, splashing and laughing. He is exultant as he discovers his own power in the mud-puddle universe. He’s also gleaning an early physics lesson: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. At a lot of nursery schools, that reaction might include chiding the child for making a mess. 

“We like to get dirty,” the boy’s teacher, Lorrie Clendenin, says, smiling. “We like to explore. The parents know that we are all coming home messy. We dig. We take hikes when it rains and snows. We’re always out.”

In the 79 years since the Outdoor Nursery School was founded, the nation has changed in ways that make the school profoundly countercultural. American children today spend dramatically less time outdoors than they did in 1933 for a host of reasons.....Television has redefined Americans of all ages as consumers of both hawked goods and time spent sitting transfixed in front of the electronic screen.

The suburbs—once marketed as bucolic and expansive escapes from the confines, ills and dangers of the city—are now developed in ways that sharply limit open land where children can play and explore.

Parents who grew up roaming freely in the neighbourhoods of their youth are often afraid to let their children do the same. Schools pressured to reduce budgets and raise test scores cut recess and physical education. Teachers assign ever more homework, effectively tethering children indoors after school.

Jane Clark, a University of Maryland professor of kinesiology, coined a phrase to describe today’s physically constricted youths: She calls them “containerized kids.”

There is a nascent movement to free containerized kids to spend more time exploring the natural world..... although nursery schools designed around teaching children outdoors are relatively rare nationwide.

Teachers at both nursery schools remark how calm their charges are after time outdoors. On the coldest, bleakest days of winter “even the 2-year-olds love to go outside,”......By the time we get back in, everybody is pretty wet. But now they happily settle down and do whatever they are going to do next. It’s calming being outside.”

Watching these preschoolers, it’s easy to believe that even in modern-day suburbia, an evolutionary memory of roaming the land is hardwired into our brains—and we deny it at our peril.'

Health and safety culture is keeping children from nature, says Sir David Attenborough

Health and safety culture is keeping children from nature, says Sir David Attenborough | Mail Online

Excerpts below -the full article can be read from the link above

"Britain's health and safety culture is discouraging children from 'roaming the countryside', Sir David Attenborough said yesterday. He said Britain risked losing the next generation of naturalists because of unfounded fears over safety.

'Fear and laws ruining fun': Sir David warned that the next generation of naturalists was being deterred from observing nature

He added that children had become 'out of touch' with their own environment and were likely to know more about exotic animals than those domestic to the UK. 'I dare say they know more about East African lions and game than they do about foxes,' he said."

Standardized Tests - Your Rights and the Impact on Your Child

Standardized Tests - Your Rights and the Impact on Your Child

My thanks to Melissa Taylor from Imagination Soup for drawing my attention to her post which detailed an interview she had with Susan Ohanian. Susan is a staunch opponent of Standardised testing in the US and commentator on how the fixation has caused a trickle down effect that's gradually eroding undirected creative play and the development of any non-quantifiable skills in pre school environments.

You may ask why am I posting about a US problem and how does it relate to naturalistic play and environments? I'm glad you asked. Australia has always had a habit of scouring the world for ideas that have been tried and failed dismally in other countries and then attempting to implement them in the face of logic and generally at great cost and frustration of the community.

Currently we have NAPLAN, which, according to its million dollar website....tests Australian School children  in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. It tests the types of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life, in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy...(and) is the measure through which governments, education authorities and schools can determine whether or not young Australians are meeting important educational outcomes..... This report shows final NAPLAN results by gender, Indigenous status, language background other than English status, parental occupation, parental education, and location (metropolitan, provincial, remote and very remote) at each year level and for each domain of the test.

I could go on at great length about the egrerious mistake that is NAPLAN but Google the words NAPLAN and funding and you'll see what it's about -Money.

The passages below are Susan Susan responses to questions about the purpose, validity and efficacy of Standardised testing in the US.  

'The standardized tests are taking over more and more of every child’s day. Some districts have pre-K screening–so parents can know if their children are “on track” for the rigours of the kindergarten curriculum. Kindergarten, which means “children’s garden,” was intended as a place for children to engage in creative play, learning important social and developmental skills, a place where they learn to care about one another and help one another. Now it is a place of worksheets, homework, and curriculum rigour. Look that word up in the dictionary and ask yourself if you want that for your child at any age.

Research shows that test scores are a much better measure of family income than of student ability. We don’t need grades based on standardized tests to determine how schools are doing on those standardized tests. We can look at the zip codes of the students and predict the rating by the poverty index of the community.

In an effort to boost test scores, teachers often feel pressured to devote more time to test prep, thus narrowing the curriculum. When curriculum is reduced to subjects that are tested, children are deprived of the varied experiences that allow them to find new interests and talents.....More testing means more testing. It means that a child’s opportunity to experience a rich and varied school experience is reduced to the narrow range of items that can be tested.

Hiding behind a smokescreen of “preparing workers for tomorrow’s global economy,” these so-called education reformers treat children as commodities and teachers as mere functionaries in an accounting system. We need to protect our children, and this means asking for schools that nurture curiosity, imagination, independence, laughter, joy.'


Finally I'll let Sir Ken Robinson make my point for me about what happens when you stifle creativity.

Threat of toxic playgrounds

Threat of toxic playgrounds - Sun Herald

Wow! You can certainly say this about the Australian press, if it's a contemporary global topic, they're sure to pounce on it -six months to a year later.

I have posted previously on this issue, see Dangers of Artificial Turf  and while we're looking at potentially dangerous surfaces in childcare centres/services lets not be myopic, see Schools and Daycare Are Top Sources of Kids' Toxic Chemical Exposure.

We have used artifical turf in natural playspace projects in the past. Generally it was used in projects where because of exceptionally high foot traffic, excessive shade, extreme weather conditions, or being positioned in an area that would not allow the installation of real turf (raised slabs, rooftop playspaces etc) it was the more practical and safe alternative.

Like most things you get what you pay for and we recommend people who intend to install artificial turf do their research (see the questions to ask in  Dangers of Artificial Turf ) and chose a manufacturer/installer who can provide proof of the safety of their product and abides by the ANZ safety and quality standards. In the past we have used the Australian manufacturer and supplier Flexitec.

The American Society of Landscapes Architects Magazine, LAM  (01/2012) provides a  detailed article entitled "A Shopper’s Guide to Fake Grass", which gives an analyse of the physical make up of various artificial grasses, different methods of grass construction and an insight into contemporary safety hazards.

The text below is an extract from the Sun Herald article.

'At Montessori East pre-school and school in Waverley, the principal, Bill Conway, said he was worried about artificial turf and it was being removed. Montessori's new playspace was designed by Tessa Rose and constructed by Jaime Miller Landscapes, photos can be viewed here later this week. 


An oncologist with the Yale Cancer Centre in Connecticut, Barry Boyd, who is also a consultant to the Environment and Human Health Inc, has said: ''While fear of raising concerns may be an understandable motive for limiting public information about risk, the long-recognised goal of limiting childhood exposures to environmental hazards must take precedence.''

Artificial turf has gained popularity in Australia in the past decade as a way of extending playing hours???? and cutting maintenance time and costs. Schools, councils and sport groups have opted to use it to replace grass.

One professional turf adviser, Martin Sheppard, who consults councils and other groups on the use of artificial turf, dismisses concerns about safety, saying it poses fewer environmental dangers than the street. Mr Sheppard, who has been advising on artificial turf for 30 years, says the turf has been used since 1965 around the world. If there are serious health risks, he argues, they would have been identified. Correct. If anyone was looking for them.

Yet across the US, schools have been digging up the turf and reinstating grass, concerned about toxic chemicals and heavy metals, including lead, which was used in some of earlier generations of turf.

Gavin Edwards, of the school of chemistry at the University of NSW, said lead no longer appeared to be used in new versions of the turf. Dr Edwards said concerns about emissions of toxic components could be minimised by pre-treating some of the components, including the crumb rubber from car tyres. Shouldn't that be done already. Is it OK to sell a product that you know may pose a potential health hazard, until your caught, then take remedial action? He agreed there should be some standards to regulate what materials can be used in the turf.

''Over the past 50 years technological advances have seen artificial turf mature from a product with many problems, to one that is becoming used more widely,'' Dr Edwards wrote in a report in 2010 commissioned by Turf Australia. ''Nonetheless, even with the latest 'third-generation' surfaces, problems still exist and questions remain unanswered.'' Obviously the answer is YES.

Dr Edwards said an overlooked issue was the heating of the turf to temperatures that could cause injury. He quoted a study by Brigham Young University in Utah that showed it reaching temperatures much higher than grass and in some cases almost three times the air temperature, recording 93.3 degrees.

The same study said one coach developed blisters on his feet, despite wearing tennis shoes, as a result of the extreme temperatures and that the New York State Department of Health had issued warnings.'