This Report Card was developed by the ParticipACTION group in Canada. It discusses the vital role that families play in the physical activity outcomes for children. The family impact was highlighted even more through the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Play in the News
Welcome to Play in the News, articles and publications featuring PLAY from around Australia and the globe.
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Risk and Safety in Outdoor Play
In this chapter we discuss and apply Sandseter's (2007, 2009a) concept of children's outdoor risky play and discuss its conditions in light of the need to provide children with both safety and challenges.
https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/_/uMcmDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=…
The SAGE Handbook of Outdoor Play and Learning
Parents report decline in children's physical wellbeing, increase in screen time amid COVID-19, according to national survey
Decreased physical wellbeing, increased screen time and feeling disconnected are the most significant impacts of COVID-19 on primary school-aged children, according to a survey.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-09/parents-concerned-about-children…
Source: National outside-of-school-hours (OOSH) 09 Feb 2021
Inclusive Play – Guidelines for accessible playspaces
Updated 2021
State Government of South Australia 2021
The Fewer Toys Children Have, The More They Play
Two decades ago, a German project called, “Der Spielzeugfreie Kindergarten” (the nursery without toys) wanted to see what would happen if they took toys away from kindergartens. All toys from participating classrooms were removed for three months...
https://raisedgood.com/toys-children-less-play/?fbclid=IwAR1slcJoMNp42p…
Source: Raised Good Feb 2021
A reminder of the significance of Play in lockdown
But the truth is that no-one benefits if children or their parents are under constant stress. This is why finding some space and time for unstructured, open-ended play is so important. Play can act as a release valve that allows children to feel a sense of their own agency, and to make some kind of sense of their experiences on their own terms, with adult concerns fading into the background.
https://rethinkingchildhood.com/2021/01/11/reminder-value-of-play-in-lo…
Tim Gill - Rethinking Childhood January 2021
Penned in: How public space is failing our children
Young people need opportunities to socialise and find their place in the world. Yet the opposite is happening in our public areas, which seem to be increasingly hostile to their presence...
Source: Foreground
Mud, Mud, Mud! The internet’s largest list of muddy activities for children and families.
Muddy Smiles
The Pandemic Play Project
Where there are children, there is play. It is a universal impulse, as old as humanity. Physical play, verbal play, friendship play, solitary play – it is the exercise of body and imagination, marked by humour, challenge, invention and exploration. As essential to childhood as food and drink.
Dr. June Factor
Judy McKinty
In Britain’s Playgrounds, ‘Bringing in Risk’ to Build Resilience
The Richmond Avenue Primary and Nursery School looked critically around their campus and set about, as one of them put it, 'bringing in risk'. Out went the plastic playhouses and in came the dicey stuff: stacks of two-by-fours, crates and loose bricks. The schoolyard got a mud pit, a tire swing, log stumps and workbenches with hammers and saws.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/world/europe/britain-playgrounds-ris…
Source: The New York Times
The Things that Matter: Views of 8-12 year olds on life, school and community
South Australian Commissioner for Children and Young People
In praise of boredom: a lockdown story
Melbourne writer Doug Hendrie gives us a refreshing take on his family's learnings from the 2020 Pandemic. Doug's recent article featured in The Age, and speaks to how the lockdown gave him and his children the freedom to be bored!
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/in-praise-of-boredom-a-lock…
Source: The Age