Obstacle Course Learning

 

It is amazing to think we have reached the halfway point in Term 4 already, but what a great time to reflect on the learning interests of our tamariki over the past 5 weeks. One repeated, enjoyed and developed interest for a number of our tamariki this term, the obstacle course, has remained a consistent favourite at Mairtown over a period of years. I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight the awesome learning tamariki gain as they engage repeatedly in this fun activity, watching, experimenting and taking risks; stretching themselves and each other during repeated experiences over an extended period of time.

Hanrahan and Duncan (2019) explain  children need ‘managed’ opportunities to explore and engage in risky play, as this will enable them to manage future risks independently and to develop an understanding of safety. Exposing children to a range of opportunities to engage in risky play promotes their ability to assess risk and learn how to self-regulate. The development of these skills supports children’s growing confidence to manage risks as they mature into adulthood. A positive outcome of a risky play venture can be the delight in overcoming fear and mastering a specific skill, whereas a negative consequence can be failure or physical injury. While skill mastery and overcoming fear are rewarding in themselves, failure from risky play endeavours also helps children learn to cope with disappointments, building resilience and promotes self-confidence.

Our obstacle courses at Mairtown are created using a range of loose parts, including A frames, planks, wood rounds, tyres,  ladders, jumping mats, boxes and a rope bridge. These are constructed, de-constructed and re-constructed in different ways and incorporating different features of our outdoor area. In this way they continue to provide challenge and variety while also promoting the establishment of a degree of familiarity and repetition, important for tamariki working towards developing their mastery of skills. A child must first learn fundamental skills before they can acquire speed, increased confidence, and mastery. It is through repetition that possibility becomes ability. Learning requires electrical energy to create neural connections. The less ‘automatic’ something is, the more energy is required to create the connection. In children, these neural connections are only beginning to be formed. Repetition is a necessary building block that allows them to strengthen the connections in the brain that help them learn (Montessori Academy 2016).

 Every time we watch tamariki interacting with an obstacle course, we see them analysing the various challenges involved, forming an assessment and making choices as to their strategies, their route, their speed, and the degree of risk they are prepared to experience at that time. It is wonderful to watch as they grow in confidence, moving with increasing speed and visibly growing in self-confidence, gradually using the resource in more complex and imaginative ways. It is especially rewarding to watch the learning cycle unfold as a skill or tactic is demonstrated to an uncertain tamaiti by their more experienced tuakana, who, after building their own skill level and self-confidence, then steps up to become tuakana to the next teina. The desired outcome of participating in risky play is for children to grow into adults who have competent decision-making and risk assessment skills and who are able to consider the wellbeing of others while celebrating their own endeavours (Curtis, 2010).There is nothing more exciting for a teacher than to see tamariki making you redundant!!

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Gametime.com (2020) provides a great descriptor of the wide-ranging learning benefits of obstacle courses, which include…

Strength and Balance: When children encounter the obstacles in an obstacle course, they develop and enhance strength and balance. The strength and balance skills developed on an obstacle course transfer effectively to other sports like soccer or gymnastics.

Memory and Problem Solving: In life and school, kids need to be able to remember lots of information. While engaging with an obstacle course, children learn how to solve problems based on sequencing information and actions. Obstacle courses help children solve problems as they learn how to manoeuvre up, over, or through challenges They also learn how to adjust to changing conditions, and memorize the fastest way to progress through the course. These skills will help them throughout their life.

    

Sensory Processing: An obstacle course is a great opportunity for children to develop sensory processing skills. For example, they encounter linear (up and down), sagittal (side to side), and rotary (spinning) inputs as they run through the obstacle course. Learning these senses, and how to adjust to them, helps them develop motor skills, coordination, and adaptation.

Motor Skills: Fine and gross motor skill development is essential during childhood development. Fine motor skills help children learn how to hold a pencil or grip small objects. Gross motor skills help children walk, run, jump, and climb. Obstacle courses are the perfect environment for children to learn and enhance these vital motor skills that will benefit them for a lifetime.

                                            

Coordination: Complex coordination, sometimes called bilateral coordination, involves moving separate body parts at the same time to complete a task. Think about the many muscle groups and body parts required to climb over a barrier or weave through an agility obstacle. Obstacle courses provide a lot of opportunities for children to develop complex bilateral coordination. Developing these coordination skills improves overall health and fitness as well as supporting literacy skill development, helping kids for years to come

Another important aspect of our flexible obstacle courses is the opportunity they offer tamariki to become the constructors of their own learning environment. As tamariki become active participants in choosing the course’s components and location, and solving the various problems which are always faced in ensuring the course is safe, stable, challenging, usable and enjoyable for a range of skill levels, their sense of agency is enhanced. Keiki early learning (2019) describes a sense of Agency as being able to make choices and decisions to influence events and to have an impact on one’s world. To help build a child’s sense of agency, we should recognise that they are capable of initiating their own learning and empower them to make their own choices and decisions. Having a sense of agency in the early years is very much linked to each child’s sense of belonging. A sense of belonging develops when a child has developed trust both in the adults around them and the environment. Developing a trusting bond with infants and children is driven by our image of the child. The offering of choices and supporting each child’s sense of agency sends a message to the child that they are strong, capable and curious with capacity to make choices for themselves. Fostering each child’s sense of agency is more than providing them with choices. When children have a sense of agency they feel more in control of themselves and develop an understanding of their influence on the people and spaces around them. When we listen with respect to children’s voices, their words, and their ideas we model trust and collaboration showing them that they are heard and their ideas matter.

                 

                                            

Our tamariki thrive on the challenge of making a course sit stable and level on our environments many uneven surfaces, the shared decision making around the possibilities, choices and order of challenges, the responsibilities of ensuring the connections are secure before the play begins, and the self-regulation necessitated when exercising those patient muscles as the wait for all systems to be go, and them negotiate their way co-operatively around a course being used at different speeds and in different ways by a number of tamariki.

In an empowering environment, children have agency to create and act on their own ideas, develop knowledge and skills in areas that interest them, and increasingly, to make decisions and judgements on matters that relate to them. (Te Whāriki 2017)

One of the natural joys of utilising our natural resources and environment as an integral part of our obstacle courses is that there are always those beautiful opportunities to stop, explore, discover and share ideas about their natural world as they move around

"No, look, It's an ant!"

"Hey, It's a spider!"

                             

To sum up, I believe our obstacle courses reflect the statement within our Mairtown kindergarten philosophy statement, that literacy, numeracy, physicality, science, social science, and the arts are interwoven throughout our learning environment. We honour the holistic manner in which tamariki learn and grow. We support tamariki in developing their social and emotional learning through enabling then to experience the values of turn-taking, sharing, resilience, risk-taking and empowerment. And we in turn are filled with pride as we watch them grow and see themselves as the amazing learners we know them to be.

When children take risks they start to open up to the world and realise their capacity to shape it. There’s magic in that for them and us. (Karen Young, 2016)

 "This is so scary, it is the scariest bit but I can do it! Wow, this is so balancy, but I didn't fall down!" Nikau

"Do you want to watch me - this feels different, it is soft" Lennox

"I will fall...I did it - I can do it!" Jackson

"There's more than one way - I can go this way and they can go that way" Tori

"We need to make a jump here - I need to jump!" Owen

"How do you do this? Wow, I can do it. This is wobbly, I like it, I'm going to do it again!" Lennox

"You have to wait while they go past but then you can go again" Joash

"Wait, I'll check - Stable!" Taikura

Mauri tū,

Mauri ora

An active soul is a healthy soul

Mā te wā

Anne