Numerous studies indicated that outdoor play and learning could improve development of children and more and more preshool teachers and other professional workers are aware of that. Despite this, researches indicated that today children spend outside much less time and that they are losing the contact with nature consequentially. My master thesis is based on findings of authors on play in nature, spending time outside, forest educational sciences etc. I introduced results of some Slovene and foreign researches that are emphasising importance of outdoor play and learning. As it is important to include also perspective of children in life of preschool education, I write also about participation and research with children.
With qualitative research I was exploring outdoor play and learning in two preschools located in different surroundings – one in urban and other in suburban. The term outdoor play and learning refers to any kind of play outside on a playground or in nature, walk in nature or into a town, visits of important and interesting institutions (for example museums, library, farm etc.). Main goal was to look into preschool teachers' and children's opinions and to expose barriers when planning and organising outdoor play and learning. With partly structured interview with three teachers from each preschool I was gaining data on their view of outdoor play and learning, how much time they devote to it, how they plan it, what are their practices and what barriers they are challenging. I also prepared questions for the conversation with children where I was finding out how they were experiencing outdoor play and learning. I supplemented findings with choice of photograph of their favourite place and their drawings. Results indicated, that children like spending time outdoor very much and that preschool teachers are aware of meaning of outdoor play and learning but their behaviors are sometimes limiting child play and learning outside. Beside barriers as the distance of natural environments, weather, parents etc., I think the reason for eventual lack of outdoor play and learning is also lack of consciousness of all possibilities of use and advantage of outdoor and lack of belief that outdoor learning is equivalent to indoor learning, if not yet more important, or that both types of learning complete each other. With the research I wanted to contribute to awareness of preschool workers on importance of outdoor play and learning and to the improvement of practice on this field. Findings could contribute also to better participation of children.
|
