OUTDOOR PLAY

P1 have been enjoying all the lovely sunshine this week.

The outdoors is the very best place for our children to practice and master emerging physical skills. It is in the outdoors that children can fully and freely experience motor skills like running, leaping, and jumping. It is also the most appropriate area for the practice of ball-handling skills, like throwing, catching, and striking. Children can perform other such manipulative skills as pushing, pulling, lifting and carrying movable objects. The outdoors has something more to offer than just physical benefits. Cognitive and social/emotional development are impacted, too. Outside, children are more likely to invent games. As they do, they're able to express themselves and learn about the world in their own way. They feel safe and in control, which promotes autonomy, decision-making, and organizational skills. Inventing rules for games  promotes an understanding of why rules are necessary.

Although the children are only playing to have fun, they're learning and we will find out how much fun it was in the Newry Democrat this week.