Play: Good for Kids!

Post by Valerie Oguss, Education Director at Kidspace Children's Museum

Did you know that just 1 hour of vigorous play can boost your child’s cognitive, emotional and physical skills?

The Alliance for Childhood is a non-profit organization that promotes policies and practices that support children’s healthy development, love of learning and joy in living. Their work includes making the public aware of critical issues affecting childhood including:

• the loss of creative play and hands-on activities in children’s lives
  
• the decrease of face-to-face engagement with children, adults and the natural environment due to the lure of electronic entertainment
  
• the increase in standardized testing in schools and its negative impact on academic performance
  
• the commercialization of childhood by marketers.
  

Recently the Alliance published a report entitled “Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School” which discusses how the decrease of play in kindergartens in lieu of longer instruction time and standardized testing has affected childhood health.

The report also includes informative fact sheets and guides for parents, as well as an overview of Play research. To read the report and learn more about the importance of play in childhood education, visit here.