Revitalizing Outdoor Play: A Game-Changer for Preschoolers
A year ago, the back lot of Normont Early Education Center was little more than a bare, heat-radiating expanse of asphalt. Outside, the Harbor City preschool reflected its industrial neighborhood: scant grass, little shade, amid a block of warehouses full of grinding machinery. However, this has changed with the introduction of a new $3.3-million playground, a gift that is far more than sandboxes, grass, and gardens.
To get to campus, parents must shepherd their children through a concrete labyrinth, past auto body shops and steel manufacturers. At times, the noise of grinding gears can obscure the soprano whoops and wails of the preschoolers. But on Monday, the children of Normont stepped into a friendlier scene on campus and were off and running on their new playground.
The Importance of Outdoor Play
Funded with money from a voter-approved, $9-billion bond and part of Los Angeles Unified’s pledge to increase green space at urban schools, the playground is particularly important to this cohort of preschoolers, who desperately need more outdoor play spaces, said Deborah Aguet, principal of Normont Early Education Center, which serves 2- to 5-year-olds.
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Most of these children were born during the pandemic and spent much of their infancy quarantined indoors, their earliest socialization filtered through the blue light of tablets and television, Aguet said. Dr. Angela Breidenstine, a senior psychologist at the Child Mind Institute, emphasizes that outside play teaches toddlers about risk, allows them to test boundaries, and promotes compromise with others.
The new outdoor classroom offers a variety of activities.
(Gary Coronado / For The Times)
Benefits of Outdoor Play
“It gives kids an opportunity to really test their boundaries a little bit in a safe way,” Breidenstine said. “Whether it’s going to try to climb higher or going to try to run faster and get into some kind of age-appropriate competition with each other…. They have opportunities to support and encourage each other, and even build their empathy.”
