Suitability of Children’s Outdoor Play Environment in City ECD Centers for Their Physical Development

Play is a child’s way of living and an imperative element of childhood. Outdoor play for children is regarded not as a crucial part of children’s developmental stage but also important for their holistic development. This is because it involves cognitive, imaginative, creative, emotional, physical and social aspects. Since most of the children nowadays spent most of their time in school (ECD centres), the outdoor play environment in these centres should be well equipped and well designed to ensure their holistic development. This is especially important for children’s physical development since most are active and in the rapid - growth stage.This study therefore set to investigate the status of play environments in Early Childhood Development (ECD) centers in relation to physical development of the children. The main concern of the study was to establish whether the ECD outdoor play environments were suitable enough for the children’s physical development. The study was done in Kisumu city in Kenya. The city has 512 ECD centers with the majority of these being public and run by Parents Teachers Associations (PTAs).  Purposive sampling was used to select all the 20 urban ECD centers within the city. Data was collected from the all the head teachers and the teachers in all the 20 selected centres by use of interviews, an event observation schedule and observation checklist. The data that was collected was mainly qualitative and thus was analyzed descriptively. The findings showed that play materials were available in most ECD centers, though they were few and not varied. Bean bags, balls, ropes and blocks were common in most ECD centers. This means that materials had to be shared between many children. Additionally, the results showed that children had limited opportunities for physical development in the outdoors. In the majority of the ECD centers, children mainly had opportunities for physical development, though in a small scale. The study recommends that teachers and head teachers should plan for enough space, opportunities, equipment and materials, and also design outdoor environment to enable the children engage fully in play for their physical development.

Play is a child’s way of living and an imperative element of childhood. Outdoor play for children is regarded not as a crucial part of children’s developmental stage but also important for their holistic development. This is because it involves cognitive, imaginative, creative, emotional, physical and social aspects. Since most of the children nowadays spent most of their time in school (ECD centres), the outdoor play environment in these centres should be well equipped and well designed to ensure their holistic development. This is especially important for children’s physical development since most are active and in the rapid - growth stage.This study therefore set to investigate the status of play environments in Early Childhood Development (ECD) centers in relation to physical development of the children. The main concern of the study was to establish whether the ECD outdoor play environments were suitable enough for the children’s physical development. The study was done in Kisumu city in Kenya. The city has 512 ECD centers with the majority of these being public and run by Parents Teachers Associations (PTAs).  Purposive sampling was used to select all the 20 urban ECD centers within the city. Data was collected from the all the head teachers and the teachers in all the 20 selected centres by use of interviews, an event observation schedule and observation checklist. The data that was collected was mainly qualitative and thus was analyzed descriptively. The findings showed that play materials were available in most ECD centers, though they were few and not varied. Bean bags, balls, ropes and blocks were common in most ECD centers. This means that materials had to be shared between many children. Additionally, the results showed that children had limited opportunities for physical development in the outdoors. In the majority of the ECD centers, children mainly had opportunities for physical development, though in a small scale. The study recommends that teachers and head teachers should plan for enough space, opportunities, equipment and materials, and also design outdoor environment to enable the children engage fully in play for their physical development.