Preschool can do so much for a child…they learn how to get along with other kids, as well as how to sit and pay attention to their teacher. These skills will always come in handy later in grade school. However, an often-overlooked part of preschool, the one where, for many kids, doesn’t even seem like “school”, or learning, is the pre school playground. Playgrounds at a daycare center can not only promote physical fitness, but they help children develop better social skills as well.
A four or five year-old child sees the playground as one thing…fun!!!! They do not see it as learning, or fitness, or “learning social skills”. They see it and their eyes light up and they want to go and play. They see slides and swings and climbing walls. They do not see that they will be learning sharing, and taking turns, and what is acceptable and what isn’t, or even that everyone is not the same as they are. They will simply run out and play. Of course, they are not alone…all the kids want to play!!! While having fun, which is what children this age want to do, play, and while doing it, they are learning important social skills. Each child cannot just do what they want to…there are rules to follow, and someone else might be doing it.
Children learn early, that it is important to get along with others, and they do not learn this from a book, or from being yelled at. The best place to learn this is the playground. A child learns that the reason that she cannot walk up the slide is brcause someone else might be coming down. If she does up the slide while someone else is coming down, all the childres know what they are “supposed” to do…go Up the steps, DOWN the slide, and she will be told this by all the other children, that what she was doing was wrong, “not fair”, and that she needs to ‘play by the rules”. These social skills, from the preschool playground, are skills that will help greatly later in life. Children learn how to act from both the adults in their lives, and from other children.
At the playground, kids are interacting with many different children, not just the ones that the adults in their lives arrange for them to play with. By doing this, they are experiencing life, and getting along with other people. the child who does not play with other children, when they first meet someone different, will stare and act amazed. The child who has met many different children, will realise that everyone is different. Even if a 4 year old does act amazed when they see someone different from them, it is ok for them to do it at 4, it is not ok for them to do it at 12 or 14. This is the perfect age to learn social skills.
While running and playing, not only is the child having activity and becoming physically fit, they are also actively participating in learning social skills that they will need. The child who did not go to preschool, and instead sat home with a tv, does not learn this. This is the child who later on may withdraw, preferring to sit and watch tv, instead of participating in activities with their peers. The child who played at the playground, and learned these social skills early, has a much better chance at becoming a social, physically fit, active, happy child.
