After a long winter, spring is beginning to emerge. Over the next few weeks, the clouds will begin to part and the sun will come out, waking up the vegetation and bringing color back to the world. This provides a wonderful opportunity for children to begin playing outdoors more consistently. EveryDay Learners aims to encourage overall healthy child development. This necessitates time spent outside. The benefits to outdoor play are often too numerous to count.

Depending on the child, play may look different. Young toddlers often prefer playing on their own exploring cause and effect. Children around age 5 and older often enjoy playing with other children using their imaginations and learning cooperation. Wherever your child is at in their play experience, now is a perfect time to encourage play outdoors. Outdoor play encourages development of fine and gross motor skills, creativity and imagination, and positive social skills.

Motor skill development is one of the more straightforward benefits of outdoor play. A few examples of activities that aid in this development are:

• Drawing with chalk.
• Blowing bubbles.
• Playing in grass or sand.
• Painting.
• Swinging on monkey bars.
• Running.
• Climbing jungle gyms or trees.
• Hopscotch.

Activities that foster creativity and imagination can be some of the following:

• Creating imaginative scenarios like living in the woods/jungle/desert.
• Any pretend play.
• Scavenger hunt.
• Creating a game.

Doing any of these activities with other children allows for development of social skills. These will create foundational experiences for children to base future interactions upon. Other benefits of play can include positive self-expression, increased self-esteem, and better understanding of sharing and responsibility, all of which lead to a healthy and happy child.

United Way of Utah County is on a mission to help promote literacy and healthy child development. EveryDay Learners has several programs such as HelpMeGrow Utah, Welcome Baby and the South Franklin Community Center to support these efforts. Visit us at unitedwayuc.org to learn more about these programs or find any of them on our Instagram pages.