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Article: Outdoor Preschools Bring Affordable Education to Parks
Preschool settings are shifting from indoor classrooms to outside at local parks. The open-air setting increases children's engagement in nature and also provides parents with an affordable preschool alternative. Run by city park departments, privately, and by organizations such as Tiny Trees, outdoor preschools provide a new experience for children to progress in education as well as advocate for healthy lifestyles.
Read more about this new wave of outdoor schooling from the article Outdoor Preschools Bring Affordable Education to Parks!
Play! by Crozier offers outdoor play equipment for the little ones to encourage imagination, creativity and social and cognitive development. See our full line HERE!
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GameTime releases 2016 Trends Guide in Outdoor Recreation
GameTime, North America's largest manufacturer of playground equipment, has been leading the way in creating new and exciting play opportunities since 1929. With more resources available than their competitors, GameTime is constantly developing new research programs to better understand how children play and to continuously evolve their play environments.
Part of GameTime’s ongoing commitment to enriching childhood through play is to identify key trends in outdoor recreation. They’ve hit the mark with the 2016 Trends Guide, which outlines the Top 10 Trends in Play! The 2016 Trends Guide is the result of dozens of interviews with park and recreations directors across the country, as well as with parents, children and other community stakeholders.
As the proud supplier for GameTime in Manitoba, Ontario, NWT, Nunavut and the Maritimes, Play! by Crozier is happy to keep you informed with the latest trends in outdoor recreation by offering the 2016 Trends Guide to you FREE of charge!
NatureGrounds: Offering rich outdoor education during playtime
Research reveals a strong relationship between daily exposure to nature and healthy mental and physical development. The problem – children and families aren't getting enough of it.
Author Richard Louv first coined the term "Nature-Deficit Disorder" in his book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder”, where he describes the risks of being disconnected from nature. Some of the potential human costs are listed as: attention difficulties, obesity, lowered use of the senses and a weakened ecological literacy of the natural world. Thankfully, this can be reversed.
Conservation Authorities play a pivotal role in environmental education by offering a place where people can explore the wonders of nature while learning about important environmental issues affecting our world today. Knowing that today’s youth represent the future in environmental decision-making, these nature centres continue to drum up fun ways to give children a greater understanding of nature.
Reconnect kids to nature by blending play equipment with landscape
Think back to some of your fondest childhood memories involving nature play. Do you remember your excitement and laughter as you built your first tree house, splashed in the creek, dug dirt holes and swung on branches?
PlayCore, whose mission is to advance play through research, programs and partnerships, recognizes the multiple positive impacts that unstructured nature play has had on children generation by generation.
Increasingly packed schedules, the allure of electronic plugged-in play and a lack of unregulated green space are threatening the future of nature play. Thankfully, PlayCore has stepped in with a solution with NatureGrounds: Creating & Retrofitting Play Environments: Best Practice Guidelines.
Snug Play
Snug Play helps children come together, leave their comfort zones, learn about each other, recognize their similarities and differences, meet physical and social challenges, and…
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