Browsing by Subject "physical education"

These days the physical activity of children has been reduced and the research show that most of the children are not active enough to fill the physical activity guidelines. The culture of kindergartens should change along the changes in society. There should be more physical education and children's physical activity should be added in everyday life and kindergarten's learning environments. This study is about how the learning environments inside the kindergarten could be more physically activating, and what the staff thinks about changing the environments physically more activating. This study is based on a qualitative research method, using theme interview. Four people who work in a kindergarten were interviewed. In the kindergarten they were about to start a project in order to develop their learning environments to be physically more activating. These four staff members were interviewed before the project started. They were asked questions about their opinions on physically activating indoor learning environments and how those environments could be improved to encourage children's physical activity. The results of this study show that the physical activity in learning environments depends mostly on the attitude of the staff; do they allow children to be physically active in their everyday life or do they prohibit their physical activity in the interest of safety, and do they offer opportunities for children to be physically active indoors. Other things that effect on increasing children's physical activity indoors are the rooms of kindergarten and the sporting equipment, the timetable of the day and human resources. The overall attitude towards physical education and children's physical activity among staff was positive and enthusiastic, but still until now the children hadn't been allowed to move indoors so that they would become breathless. This is the same result as in the former studies that have been done about children's physical activity; children aren t physically active enough in the kindergarten. All the interviewees thought that the project would be beneficial and could have a lasting impact on the culture of physical activity in their kindergarten. So the most important thing in developing learning environments to be physically more activating is to change the attitudes of adults so that they would allow children to be physically active indoors.