Play in Structured and Unstructured Environments

This week I went to Aldo Leopold Elementary School in a Kindgarten classroom. It was definitely not as unstructured play-based of an environment that I would have expected considering the schools history. The teacher, Nathan Knight, made a remark that made sense. He was saying the since it is a Kindergarten classroom, there needs to be a little more control over the environment just because it would be absolute chaos if there wasn't any structure. I was there during their literacy center times and I rotated from center to center. I connected with the children right away and hope to continue building the relationship with them in order to understand and observe them in a meaninful and authentic way.


During class, I really liked the video we watched that presented different environments (the country, the suburbs, and the city) and discussed the pros and cons that these environments have on child development. I liked that the movie said "Bring the children back to play", and talked about the importance of nature and play in early child development. It also made a very good point when it discussed the fact that many children are growing up in a world that is steered by the mass media.

Children are interacting with one another via text, email, facebook, and other forms of technology instead of face to face interaction; we are transforming the ability of intimate relationships for abstract ones. I, myself, grew up in the country and I was always outside interacting with nature. I feel that that has definitely benefited me in my development and can only hope that our society's children are able to get those opportunities before it is too late.