This article offers interpretations of play, in a school playground, where adult regulation and surveillance framed its enactment. Children, well aware of being watched, negotiated this through various forms of play, circumscribed by, but also playing with, adult supervision. The children were also subject to the rules governing particular age…

The overall aim of this study was to assess the diversity of primary school children's physical activity (PA) during outdoor recess. The study was grounded in a mixed method approach, assisting in the identification of multifaceted predictors of children's PA, including insights to social behaviours during break time. Data were obtained from…

It is easy to understand that fun is one of the key ingredients to any playground activity. But what one may not realize is that play systems--including slides, tunnels, activity panels, and more--encourage a lot more than just fun: there is learning at work in playground play, as well as the opportunity to include children of all abilities in…

This paper explores the place of the school playground in the lives of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We discuss the physical environment, school systems and practices that support the development of social competence and increased peer interactions for children with ASD in their school playground. Highlighted issues include the…

The school playground experience is an inevitable part of school life for primary school children. For most children, the experience is a positive and enjoyable one that contributes to their physical and social well-being and has been associated with enhanced attention and learning in the classroom. For some children, however, the playground can…

This paper reports the results of risk reframing, an intervention to offer parents and educators a context for building new and complex perceptions of risk in children's outdoor free play. Our objective was to alter these adults' perceptions of risk to increase the sustainability of an innovative child-centred playground intervention. Qualitative…

The incidence of childhood obesity amongst preschool-aged children has increased dramatically in recent years and can be attributed, in part, to a lack of physical activity amongst children in this age group. This study explores the social factors that stand to limit and/or enable children's physical activity opportunities in outdoor settings in…

This study examined the correspondence between children's indoor and outdoor play in a preschool environment to investigate whether the children maintained a tendency to engage in a particular type of play irrespective of the environment, or whether they changed the type of play according to the environment. Play behaviours of 18 three-year-old…

Taking students outside is a great opportunity to make art. In this article, the author describes how her students collaborated with forms in nature to create their own visual structures to communicate ideas. This lesson can be done on the beach, in a sand box on the school playground, in grassy areas, or nature can even be brought into the…

Playgrounds beget an unrivalled context which, through play activity, can foster children's growth. The foremost function of all playgrounds is to provide for safety. In the present study, our primary focus is to determine the degree of adequacy as far as playground equipment is concerned, including estimates of imminent dangers and the level of…

This study examined play and learning in the natural environment and on the playgrounds of Slovene preschools. It included 140 preschool teachers and 264 parents of children who attended preschools in 21 Slovene towns. Data were collected through questionnaires with questions referring to time spent outdoors, children's outdoor activities,…

Research Findings: This study explored the relationship between play and child development at the Grade 1 level. As previous research has noted a sudden curtailment of classroom play during this period, the relationship between play at home and children's school grades, behavior, and creativity scores was examined using correlational and…

To better understand peer exclusion in young children, 42 four- to six-year-olds were observed in an outdoor setting, and their verbalizations were recorded using wireless microphones. The frequency of peer exclusion and social aggression, the various techniques children used to exclude their peers (unmitigated, mitigated, ignoring, and planning…

The attention being given to the problem of childhood obesity has placed greater emphasis on students' eating more healthful diets and getting more exercise. "Children need 60 minutes of play with moderate to vigorous activity every day to grow up to a healthy weight," says the federal government's "Let's Move" initiative to encourage students to…

The objectives of this study were: (1) To determine factors which inhibit and facilitate child and adolescent use of outdoor spaces for healthy physical activity by race and ethnicity in four Houston communities; and (2) To propose guidelines for encouraging and maintaining child and adolescent outdoor physical activity. Using local health data…