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!!
\
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
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"No, look, It's an ant!"
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"Hey, It's a spider!"
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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
