The Benefit of Climbing Trees for Children

Author: Nancy Loftus
Posted on the local website, Seacoast Moms, Pre-K teacher, Nancy Loftus, describes the new robust outdoor learning curriculum our Pre-Kindergarten students are using this fall.
This fall, Pre-Kindergarten students (who range from ages three to five at Berwick Academy) engage in our outdoor classroom experiences. While outdoor play and learning have long been cornerstones of the Berwick experience, additional inspiration for this current school year’s programming was found during my summer academic work with Antioch University New England in Keene, New Hampshire. With this knowledge and information, this school year’s Pre-Kindergarten program of outdoor activities stretches children’s physical capabilities and self-confidence through activities such as rock scrambling, stick play, hiking, fort building, mud kitchen play, slackline crossing, and tree climbing. Our Pre-Kindergarten students, as well as our Kindergarten and First Grade students, enjoy regular outdoor classroom work. These adventurous activities are strategically introduced to students and increase in difficulty as children gain confidence. 

As the families of our sixteen students readied themselves for this school year, which includes ample play throughout an 80-acre campus and at our outdoor classroom, we encouraged parents to think back on their own childhood play. To remember that feeling of accomplishment and the thrill of doing something courageous: climbing trees, rock scrambling, sledding, riding your bike fast, digging deep holes in the dirt, playing with sticks, using real tools to hammer or saw, etc. We also know that research informed by parents and teachers of Forest Kindergarten programs indicates that children thrive on taking safe-risks in play, especially while in nature. Children can explore many challenge levels at their own pace, allowing for a more holistic approach to child development.

So, what are some of the ways that outdoor play - and climbing trees - enhance children’s skills?

  • For example, the unpredictability of a child’s first encounter walking on our woodland trails where rocks and tree roots are abundant requires a heightened awareness of their senses. Children use balance and core strength to stay upright - something not required of them when walking down hallways or on sidewalks. 

  • It gives various opportunities for sensory experiences. Teachers can use guiding questions such as: What do you notice? How does it feel? What do you hear?

  • Children also collaborate and learn teamwork with peers as they build forts using sticks and branches, move natural objects, or solve problems such as building a bridge over water. 

  • Outdoor play also helps students learn to regulate how much force is needed to complete a task, such as playing tag without hurting another child or holding something fragile with appropriate gentleness. Working outdoors, such as digging in the dirt, or pulling a wagon with heavy rocks or pails filled with stones or shells, activates this sense.
  • And finally, climbing trees requires motor planning, problem solving, patience, judgment, and persistence. Whether it’s a child climbing to the top, or one who is happy to hang from a branch with their feet inches from the ground, the thrill is theirs for the taking. Adults can then inquire with children such things as: What is wonderful about trees? What do we need to be careful or mindful of as we play? How will we stay safe?

As an early elementary educator, the enjoyment I witness in children as they explore the outdoors and gain confidence, communication skills, and awareness of self is of equal value to what they gain cognitively through these grounded experiences. Even as we head into the colder winter months here along the Seacoast, we can continue to think about outdoor activities that nurture our children’s minds and bodies: shoveling and digging snow, pulling and riding a sled, studying the changes in nature as seasons progress, and even winter hiking or snowshoeing. 

For more reading about the benefits of outdoor play experiences, read Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children by Angela J. Hanscom. 
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Berwick Academy

Berwick Academy, situated on an 80-acre campus just over one hour north of Boston, serves 550 students, Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 12 and Post-Graduates. Berwick students are from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and several countries. Deeply committed to its mission of promoting virtue and useful knowledge, Berwick Academy empowers students to be creative and bold. Berwick strives to graduate alumni who shape their own learning, take risks, ask thoughtful questions, and come to understand and celebrate their authentic selves.