A comprehensive new report from UNICEF Canada asked children how their lives are going. The results show that Canada is a tough place to grow up. Only 55 per cent of children in Canada report a high level of life satisfaction, with 27 per cent feeling sad or hopeless for long periods of time and 1 in 3...
Thank you to Amber Fyfe-Johnson, ND, PhD (Washington State University) & Pooja Tandon, MD, MPH (Seattle Children’s Research Institute, University of Washington) for providing this post. The preschool years are a critical period in life for growth, development, and for laying the foundation for healthy eating and physical activity behaviors. Research suggests that many preschoolers in early...
Are you looking for a Breath of Fresh Air? The first national Outdoor Play Summit is only 50 days away! Join us September 27-29th, 2019 for a national forum on outdoor play, taking place in an open-air environment, located at the Ottawa Forest and Nature Schools and Wesley Clover Park’s Campground, where thought leaders, practitioners, researchers and...
Have you ever wondered how much daily weather conditions can actually impact physical activity levels in children and on which days of the week the impact is more prominent? To date, there is strong evidence that moderate-to-vigorous physical activity is associated with many health benefits in childhood. In Canada, insufficient physical activity in children remains...
Play Outside NS shares a common goal of promoting, facilitating and communicating the importance of outdoor play in the early years, to foster health and well-being. In July and August 2019, they hosted “Summer to PLEY” (Physical Literacy in the Early Years), a series of knowledge sharing events showcasing work from the PLEY project. They...
These days the primary goal of most home buyers is to maximize the size of their home, even if it sacrifices outdoor yard space. But how does this affect our children’s outdoor play? A recent Australian study published in Public Health Research & Practice, titled “Associations between the home yard and preschoolers’ outdoor play and physical activity,” discusses...
Outdoor play is increasingly recognized as a foundation for children’s healthy social, cognitive, emotional and physical development. As such, outdoor play has now been added to the Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development, where experts have weighed in on 9 outdoor play related topics from play-based learning to designing cities to support outdoor play. The chapter recognizes the...
The Lawson Foundation is a National family foundation which focuses on the healthy development of children and youth. One of their major goals is to support children’s access and opportunity to connect and play in nature. In October 2018, the Lawson Foundation brought together 125 experts and leaders from various sectors at the Outdoor Play and Early...
During the school week, children and youth spend half their waking hours at school. Schools share the responsibility for making sure students get outside and get active during those times. Alongside instruction and programs, the built and natural environment of the school makes a difference for students’ health. Schoolyards Count! is a citizen-science project. A researcher...
The Canadian Public Health Association recently released a toolkit composed of infographics, research summaries, decision-making tools, promising practices, and a discussion document. The toolkit provides excellent resources and information on the importance of unstructured play, how to develop policy to facilitate play within schools and communities, and current research in the field of risky play....
