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PARTNERS | HEALTHY CITY | HOW HEALTHY | VISION | SUMMIT | PRIORITIES | FUNCTIONS | CITY OF FALL RIVER |
Children
at the Frank M. Silvia Elementary School
were invited to spend time during their school day engaged in play on Global
School Play Day, February 1, 2017. According to Peter Gray of Psychology
Today, children are designed, by nature,
to spend huge amounts of time playing freely. That's how they develop
social, emotional, and physical skills, and it's how they become creators
and innovators. It's how they learn to take charge of their own lives. Today's
children have less opportunity to play than their parents had
and far less opportunity than their grandparents had, and we are seeing
the consequences. Rates of childhood anxiety, depression,
and suicide are
at all-time highs; creativity
is declining, and so is empathy.
With every passing decade, school and homework have occupied increasingly
large portions of children’s lives. And school itself, with its focus on
high-stakes testing and its sacrificing of recess, has become a less
playful place. This is happening not just in the United States, but
throughout the world. The Silvia School was one of hundreds of schools
across the world to take part in "School Play Day, spending about 45
minutes throughout the day using their imaginations and improving team
building. Click here for a six-minute |
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(Top row) Kindergarten teachers Anne Marie Silvia and Andrea Curran oversee two classes of children as they play with snow brought in from outside as Partners School Wellness Coordinator and Lead Physical Education Teacher Terry Mahjoory, right, join in the fun. (Rows two and three) Students play with fresh snow brought in from outside and engage in a variety of playful activities with board games, toys and blocks. (Rows four and five) Third grade teacher Sherri Carvalho watches as students work to stack cups using string, a rubber band, and teamwork. |
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