In Finland we had more than 60 000 observations, of which more than 23 000 included peer relations. Helsingin Sanomat reports on our findings August 31.
Peer relations in ECEC
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Category Archives: Physical activities
Media interest
Our project was the main headlines in 17th August in the Finnish main quality newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. Early years education matters! The text is in Finnish, try it with Google translate. At least you can enjoy the inspiring pictures!
Physical activity lessons from Finland?
Unfortunately our results describing children’s physical activity in Early Education are published only in Finnish. The first small article about our latest results in English has just been published in Nursery World. Even though there are still a lot of things to enhance in Finland, there may also be some things that could be used in other countries too, see Jyrki Reunamo: Physical activity: some lessons from Finland).
Strenghtening ties
Cooperation between Finland and Taiwan has been strenghtening already for nine years. On Wednesday 2016.12.21 Da Ai Television reported about the cooperation between Tzu Chi University and University of Helsinki. Both partners have learned a lot from each other. The video includes inspirational examples of combining learning with physical activity. By the way, the tree house in the video has been build solely by the pre-school staff and children without any extra help. Building a strong and practical tree house is not an easy task as anyone who has tried to do it can tell! The video can be seen by clicking the link below.
Recommendations for physical activity
The Finnish national recommendations for physical activity in early childhood are now availabe in English. The publication Joy, play and doing together; Recommendations for physical activity in early childhood is available at https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/78924.
Workshop in Taipei
The workshop in Taipei on Sunday 20 November collected together the teachers, who had participated in the observation and data collection. The main content of the day was the sharing of teachers experiments and examples of their development models based on the research results. Many of the development tasks were related to outdoors and physical activity. Taipei is a cramped metropolitan, in where the pre-schools may not have a proper outdoor yard of their own. It was very inspiring to see creative solutions for fun and creative physical activity in constricted environment. Of the participating researchers were included, for example, Hui-Chun Lee (Tzu Chi University), professor Li-Chen Wang (Chang Gung University), professor Doris Cheng (Tung Wah Collegesta Hong Kong) and professor Karen Liu (Indiana State University). As an example, in Sanmin pre-school, the children go to the park every day. The group collects smiles from the people they meet in their way. They get smiles a lot! There were people waiting for the children to pass by. For example, a choir of senior citizens were waiting for the children and performed a song for the children. In the park the activities were fast, but the path to park and back took a long time, because there were so many familiar and unknown things to explore.
Yilan-Hualien area workshop
The workshop in Hualien on Saturday 19 November 2016 collected together the project early childhood educators participating in the data collection. The teachers presented examples from tree houses to using stumps in math. We also compared the Finnish and Taiwanese research results. In the workhop the teachers input, examples and sharing were essential. There were researchers from Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Turkey and Finland. Participating researchers included professoriHui-Chun Lee (Tzu Chi University), professor Li-Chen Wang (Chang Gung University), professor Doris Cheng (Tung Wah College of Hong Kong), professor Shu-Shuan Shih (Taitung University), professor Hui-Hua Chen (Dong Hwa University), Yeni Rachmavati (Pendidikan University), Mehmet Sahin (Dong Hwa University) and Wei-Chen Zhang (Dong Hwa University). The natural resources, Pacific Ocean, rivers, mountains, plants and animals give the pre-school settings a unique environment, which calls for respect and exploration. Thank you for the participants for a very inspiring day!
Plan – Act – Share
In Taiwan children spend time outdoors on average only 29 minutes a day and they are highly physically active only 23 minutes a day. In several pre-schools, the teachers have chosen as their development task increasing both outdoor activities and physical activity. In the picture there is a map of the pre-school yard. Before children go out, the map and outdoor possibilities are discussed with children to enrich children’s ideas. The time of outdoor activities has been extended from 30 minutes to one hour. Both children and teachers feel good. The weather is hot and the children sweat a lot! All teachers are outdoors together with children. After washing up children come indoors and the map is used again to deepen the experiences. In the photo, teachers of the group share their experiences with the teachers of other pre-schools and new ideas are developed. For example, the heavy rubber tiles that have been removed may not be thrown away, they can be used in building, math and exercise. The map can be left on floor for children to play and deepen their outdoor horizon.
Scientific justification for the recommendations for physical activity in early childhood
The recommendations for physical activity in early childhood have been based largely on scientific justification. The articles for the Scientific justification for the recommendations for physical activity in early childhood (2016, Ministry of Education and Culture 2016:22) have just been published. The Orientation project results and insight have been a major contributor in this process, see:
Laukkanen, A., Määttä, S., Reunamo, J., Roos, E., Soini, A. and Mäki, P. Perheen tärkeä rooli [The important role of the family], p. 22-26.
Reunamo, J. Lapsilähtöinen toimintakulttuuri edellyttää lapsen kuuntelua [Child-initiated action culture requires listening the child], p. 27-31.
Iivonen, S., Laukkanen A., Haapala, A. and Reunamo, J. Motoristen taitojen kehitys [The development of motoric skills], p. 32-37.
Soini, A., Laukkanen, A., Mäki, P. and Reunamo, J. Fyysistä aktiivisuutta ja liikkumista edistävä ympäristö [An environment that enhances physical activity], p. 44-48.
Kyhälä, A-L. and Soini, A. Organisoitu liikunta [Organized excercise], p. 49-53.
Reunamo, J. and Kyhälä, A-L. Liikkuminen varhaiskasvatuspäivän osana [Physical activity as part of everyday activities in early childhood education], p. 54-58.
Hopefully the articles will be translated in English as soon as possible!
Recommendations for physical activity in early childhood
The new Recommendations for physical activity in early childhood have been published in 7th September 2016. The recommendations for physical activity in early childhood inform about the amount and type of physical activity for the under eight-year-olds, roles of the physical, psychological and social environments, and planning and implementation of guided physical exercise and education on exercise as part of early childhood education. The Orientation project results and insights have been integrated in the recommendations in many ways. Hopefully we get the English translation for the recommendations as soon as possible!