Nowadays, children (and adults) spend more time inside, often on the screen, which is not good. Playing outdoors has many benefits, but playing indoors is lacking. Read more about what the study from the Harvard University says about the benefits of outdoor play.

5 reasons why children need outdoor play

1. Sun

Children (as well as all people) need sun exposure for our bodies to make Vitamin D. Vitamin D is important in terms of the immune system and bone development. So, our bodies work better if they get some sun every day!

Remember sun lotion, hat, and sunglasses to make playing in the sun safe!

2. Exercise

Different countries seem to have their own guidelines about how much time children should exercise per day but the golden line is that all children need some active exercise every day!

According to the Harvard University, children should move 60 minutes actively per day.

According to a Finnish UKK-institute, the timelines are higher. Children under 8 years should move around 3 hours a day. One hour should consist of active physical play and exercise (eg. jumping on the trampoline, running, swimming). Children should also get two hours of light exercise on top of that (eg. walking in the forest, swinging, cycling).

3. Executive function & Self-regulation

According to the Harvard University executive function and self-regulation skills are important mental processes that enable us to: plan, focus, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks. These skills are crucial for learning and development, and they enable positive behavior.

Children are not born with these skills but with the potential to develop these skills. To develop these skills it is important to encourage children to creative play, involve vigorous exercise, and over time, provide opportunities for directing their own actions with decreasing adult supervision. Free outdoor play promotes all of this.

The global demand for high-quality early childhood education is on the rise, prompting preschool owners everywhere to seek innovative solutions to enhance educational quality, increase enrollments, and improve staff retention. Integrating Finnish educational methodologies—renowned worldwide for fostering creativity and holistic development—could be the key to distinguishing your preschool in a competitive market.

Kindiedays Pro Program: Building Teacher Competencies and Retention

Continuous professional development is crucial for adopting and sustaining new educational practices. The Kindiedays Pro Program is designed to enhance teacher competencies through:

As India’s New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 reshapes the educational landscape, preschool business owners face both exciting opportunities and significant challenges. With an emphasis on early childhood development, the NEP 2020 creates a demand for high-quality, innovative early education that aligns with the best practices globally, including those from Finland, renowned for its exemplary educational system. For Indian preschool owners looking to increase admissions and retain top-quality teachers, implementing these changes effectively is key to success.

Embracing Finnish Educational Practices

Finland’s education system is often lauded for its play-based, child-centric approach, which emphasizes holistic development rather than rote learning. This model nurtures creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking—highly valued skills in today’s globalized world. Indian preschools can draw inspiration from these methods to enhance their educational offerings, making them more appealing to discerning parents and creating a stimulating environment that attracts and retains skilled educators.

Steps to Renew Your Preschool

Emotional skills are one of the most important skills for children to learn. Socio-emotional skills help children majorly in life. Socio-emotional skills are needed for example for forming healthy relationships with friends and family, managing own behaviour, understanding other's behaviour, managing stress, and succeeding in school.

Naming emotions, recognizing emotions, and talking about the roots + consequences of certain emotions are vital skills for children to understand when forming friendships and communicating with others.

Download a brochure by Pathways about the development of Socio-Emotional skills

What do emotional skills help children with?

Children who have healthy socio-emotional skills are more likely to succeed in school, work, and life.

According to Pathways Socio-emotional skills help children to:

• Make friends and keep friendships
• Gain confidence
• Resolve conflicts
• Manage stress and anxiety
• Learn social norms
• Make appropriate decisions
• Resist negative social pressure
• Learn strengths and weaknesses
• Gain awareness of what others are feeling

How can children learn emotional skills?

Children learn to express their emotions better through play, tasks, games, and storytelling. By practicing emotional skills, children get along better, show more empathy for others in the group, care more about the environment, and overall feel happier!

Children need to learn to name emotions to express how they feel to others. With the help of this EMOTION MEMORY GAME, children will learn different names of emotions.

Games about Emotions

• EMOTION MEMORY GAME. Memory game is a classic game that improves not only memory and concentration but this time also emotional skills. Discuss the emotions while playing.

How to play Emotion memory game?

1. Print, cut, and laminate the cards. Make sure you have 2 of each card.
2. Put the cards on the table face down.
3. One by one, each player can turn two cards.
   • If the cards match (=two same pictures) the player can have the cards for himself and have a new turn.
   • If the cards do not match (=two different pictures), the player puts the cards back and tries to memorize their locations for later.
4. The one with the most pairs in the end is the winner!

This memory game is suitable for children aged 3-6 years.

Read further in order to get all the 16 emotion cards!

For students in Finland, the journey of becoming lifelong learners starts before school, in Finnish kindergartens and preschools. With no homework or mandated standardized tests, they spend their time playing, exploring, and learning to learn. As a result, Finland has a 100% literacy level, high performers in international assessments, and children who love going to school.  

Claire Sanders from FunAcademy asked kindergarten and preschool teachers to break it down. FunAcademy kindly permitted Kindiedays to repost their findings as we share the same views and have built Kindiedays preschool solutions on the same strengths.

1. Play-based learning

“Children play a lot. We do have a curriculum and preschool plan. But teachers are free to create our way to work.” – Anna from Tampere, Kindergarten Teacher.

Preschoolers in Finland spend their days in kindergarten playing and exploring. There are of course different types of play such as digital play, active play, creative play, social play, and free play. While some of it is structured, for the most part, children are encouraged to play freely and independently with their peers. According to extensive studies, play, and exploration are children's most natural forms of acting and thinking characteristics. Therefore, with a predominantly play-based approach Finnish kindergartens integrate different types of play to optimize children’s learning experience. In other words, they have mastered the art of making learning fun!

2. Spending quality time outdoors