Children need to remain active throughout the day. Promoting outdoor play allows them to get fresh air and explore their environment more.

Outdoor play improves physical development and physical skills which are important for growth, physical coordination and the movement of the body. When children play outdoors, they increase their ability to balance, jump, climb, throw, run and skip.

The outdoors is the very best place for preschoolers to practice and master emerging physical skills. It is in the outdoors that children can fully and freely experience motor skills like running, leaping, and jumping. It is also the most appropriate area for the practice of ball-handling skills, like throwing, catching, and striking.

Children can perform other such manipulative skills as pushing a swing, pulling a wagon, and lifting and carrying movable objects.
Additionally, it is in the outdoors that children are likely to burn the most calories, which helps prevent obesity, a heart disease risk factor that has doubled in the past decade. With studies showing that as many as half of American children are not getting enough exercise-- and that risk factors like hypertension and arteriosclerosis are showing up at age 5

The outdoors has something more to offer than just physical benefits. Cognitive and social/emotional development are impacted, too. Outside, children are more likely to invent games. As they do, they're able to express themselves and learn about the world in their own way. They feel safe and in control, which promotes autonomy, decision-making, and organizational skills. Inventing rules for games (as preschoolers like to do) promotes an understanding of why rules are necessary. Although the children are only playing to have fun, they're learning and well! it is just great to play outside.   

​