Supporting climbing in playful early learning environments is crucial because it significantly enhances children’s physical development. This activity helps children build strength, coordination, balance, and spatial awareness. These physical skills are foundational for overall health and are essential for engaging in more complex movements as children grow. Additionally, the physical challenges posed by scrambling up a tree encourage children to push their boundaries and develop resilience and perseverance, important traits that extend beyond physical activities into other areas of learning and personal growth.

Moreover, allowing children to climb fosters vital social-emotional and cognitive development. As children climb, they engage in problem-solving, critical thinking, and planning, which are key components of cognitive development.

This is the first in a series of posts highlighting the developmental benefits of common early learning activities.

The Climbing PDF

This interactive PDF looks at the benefits of climbing during children’s real play.

Feel free to use and share this document as you see fit.

Related Images

There are lots of ways to climb. Early learning environments should offer various developmentally appropriate climbing opportunities for children to self-select.

Wrap-Up

As the above PDF shows, climbing in early learning environments offers multifaceted benefits, enhancing physical strength, fostering cognitive skills, building resilience, and more.

Please share any thoughts on this topic in the comments below. I’d love to hear about additional playful benefits I failed to list so I can make updates.

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Post Author

Jeff Johnson

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Jeff Johnson is an early learning trainer, podcaster, and author who founded Explorations Early Learning, Playvolution HQ, and Play Haven.

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