Search

Hopping, skipping, jumping and sprinting are common tasks in both active play and competitive sports. These movements utilise the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC), which is considered a naturally occurring muscle action for most forms of human locomotion. This muscle action results in more efficient movements and helps optimise relative force generated per motor unit recruited. Innate SSC development throughout childhood and adolescence enables children to increase power (jump higher and sprint faster) as they mature. Despite these improvements in physical performance, the underpinning mechanisms of SSC development during maturational years remain unclear. To the best of our knowledge, a comprehensive review of the potential structural and neuromuscular adaptations that underpin the SSC muscle action does not exist in the literature. Considering the importance of the SSC in human movement, it is imperative to understand how neural and structural adaptations throughout growth and maturation can influence this key muscle action. By understanding the factors that underpin functional SSC development, practitioners and clinicians will possess a better understanding of normal development processes, which will help differentiate between training-induced adaptations and those changes that occur naturally due to growth and maturation. Therefore, the focus of this article is to identify the potential underpinning mechanisms that drive development of SSC muscle action and to examine how SSC function is influenced by growth and maturation.

By ensuring the teaching environment provides authentic learning experiences, there is a greater likelihood of broadening student’s view of actual ‘life situations’ and the skills required. The inclusion therefore of active play in developing effective children’s sport coaches was achieved through experiential learning. This exploration recalls the impact of ‘revisiting’ of play, the games used and the associated emotions which emerged from adopting a learning through play philosophy.

Many international studies have highlighted reduced opportunities for young children’s risk-taking and associated physical activity in home, neighbourhood, and early childhood education contexts. At the same time parents and educators express positive attitudes towards children’s engagement in challenging, physically active play. In the early childhood education context, the mismatch between expressed intentions of educators and what happens in the outdoor environment is attributable to a number of factors, including the difficulties that educators experience in theorising about the outdoors. In this chapter we examine the current status of physically active play in Early Childhood Education settings. We then consider contemporary approaches to affordance theory, with a particular emphasis on the contributions of E.J. Gibson, J.J. Gibson, Heft and Kytta. We argue that affordance theory provides an important approach for active play research and pedagogy.

One of the preeminent aspects of the early years is movement. Young children use movement to explore their environment, practice physical skills, and interact with people and objects around them. Through movement, children also develop active and healthy bodies, which may significantly affect their quality of life in later years. The indoor and outdoor environments in early childhood settings facilitate opportunities to move and play. It is therefore essential to design appropriate environments that would accommodate children’s movement needs. This chapter will focus on the importance of appropriately designed and well-managed indoor and outdoor spaces for promoting movement in the early years. The chapter will also provide some prominent characteristics of designed spaces and identify the physical and spatial implications for movement. Lastly, there will be a discussion about how movement may be integrated into children’s daily routines, vis-a-vis early childhood education, in a manner that is substantially appealing for teachers.

This article examines the characteristic of affordances of different outdoor environments, related to the influences of children’s physical activity levels. Qualitative observation studies in a Norwegian kindergarten were conducted of 3- to 5-year-olds into the natural environment and in the kindergarten’s outdoor area. An ecological approach was important from both an analytical and theoretical point of view, using concepts from Gibson’s (The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin Company, Bosten, 1979) theory of affordances. The concepts of affordances in an environment can explain children’s movement behaviour. The findings reveal that situations with high physical activity levels among the children are more often created in natural environments than in the kindergarten’s outdoor environment. Natural environments offer potential qualities that are a catalyst for physical activity. The study shows that certain characteristic of the physical outdoor environment are important for children’s opportunities and inspiration for physical active play. The findings also show that social possibilities and opportunities, human interactions, in the environment have the greatest influence on the duration and intensity of physically active play. The need for knowledge on physical and social opportunities in outdoor environments, educational practice and the content of outdoor time in kindergartens should be given greater attention.

Children’s toys are the material culture that reflects their play, games are the form their play takes, and stories articulate their play. Archaeological finds are not always clear about the artifacts they give up, and what we see as toys may have had some other purpose. If no explanatory documentation exists, and only the artifact or a single image exists, we can only guess at the purpose of the “toy” or how a game may have been played. Fortunately, many toys and games have a long history, and how children play today, and how they played centuries ago, are strikingly similar.

What is the value of outdoor play? This chapter explores the value of early childhood educators providing a curriculum for children to engage in physical activity. While free play has value, it is important to ensure a balanced curriculum so that all children develop the skills and dispositions to lead a healthy and active life.

This paper presents an interactive platform called TANGO:H (Tangible Goals: Health) for the creation of social active play with gestural interaction. This platform has been specially designed and adapted for its recreational, educational and rehabilitation use in children at hospital. The platform has a game editor called TANGO:H Designer, which allows the creation of physical and cognitive exercises in single and multiplayer, so that children can play sequentially or simultaneously both competitively and collaboratively. Similarly, the design of the platform was taken into account various criteria of playability and gamification to maximize the user experience with the game. This article presents the requirements that have been followed in the design of Tango-H, and the developed solution.