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Why Large-Motor Play?
September 6, 2013
Trauma recovery doesn’t come from a specific tool, but from countless interactions with trustworthy, calm, loving and supportive human beings.
-Louise Godbold, Executive Director, Echo
"In young children, motor experiences are essential to all aspects of development, wrote Jim Greenman in his classic design guidebook, Caring Spaces, Learning Places:  Children's Environments that Work.  He continued...

"Take climbing.  It not only strengthens muscles and develops postural control, it also builds self-esteem and allows children to see and feel the world from different perspectives.  Swinging and rocking force children to orient their in-motion perceptions to a constant world.  Jumping causes children to learn that a constant — the ground — feels very different relative to the height of their falls.  Hauling requires children to maintain balance while moving, and when they are unable to view their feet, to use a different perspective to avoid tripping.  Motor activities constantly challenge children to integrate body, mind, and space.  Children are scientists with their whole bodies.

"Large motor play has other values, particularly in a setting where one is very small, faces long days, and must fit into the schedules of adults and other children.  It is in climbing, swinging, sliding, and so on that experiences of ecstasy, unbridled joy or power, concentrated tension, and wild physical abandon are most likely to occur.  On the grayest of days, motor play affords children the opportunity for power and pleasure and emotional release."



Caring Spaces, Learning Places

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Comments (2)

Displaying All 2 Comments
Francis Wardle · September 06, 2013
CSBC
Denver, United States


I would like to add brain development to all the other advantages that Jim talks about. And I need to admonish programs that do not have swings "for safety reasons" and playground rules that prohibit running, rough-and-tumble play, and "climbing up the slide backwards"!

Peter Gebhardt · September 06, 2013
ece consultant
Dallas, TX, United States


Large motor play was always one of the most popular times of my public kindergarten classroom day. We were blessed with lots of wooden playground equipment. Every day in our all-day schedule, we would spend at least a 1/2 hr. outside, bringing bikes, balls, and sidewalk chalk. Cooperation and sharing skills and social interaction skills, and community-building...just a dynamic learning time for all, adults included.



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