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Type: ArticlesLinksPlay Tips

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Making Outdoor Play Fun And Safe For Children With Visual Impairments
By: Renata Bursten, Dragonfly Staff

Helpful hints for families, caregivers, and teachers.

Children develop gross motor skills when they partake in 'outside' play. Outside play, or outdoor activities, could involve play structures, swings, sandboxes, tricycles, ect. All of these activities involve large coordinated movements, with many muscle groups working in concert. So, gross motor activities involve the coordination of many muscles, and clearly outside play time is gross motor play time.

Children with visual impairments need some adaptations to the environment for safety and orientation to take full advantage of outdoor play time. Here are a few simple strategies designed for childcare or school settings involving children with visual impairments:

1. Familiarize the child with the equipment and activities ahead of time. Don't be stingy, but instead spend enough time so that the child becomes truly familiar with the activity and the setting.

2. Try to provide sound, tactile, and bright visual markers for equipment. For example, add jingle-bells to trikes, paint climber ladders bright colours, or offer balls that make a sound as they move or roll. (Try the Wiggly Giggly ball, its a real hit with the young ones.)

3. Mark the edges of paths either by using textures or bright colours. This is especially important on bike tracks!

4. Make all bike paths one way, or stick to one way bike paths.

5. Put safety guards or fencing around swings.

6. Be sensitive about glasses. They can fog up in cold weather, get smudged, or fall off . Some children may need sunglasses for outside play. It is important to research and obtain proper eye wear for some outdoor activities before the activities begin.

7. An adult needs to be monitoring the exercise. Especially at the outset of a new exercise, children with visual impairments may need close supervision while they get familiar with the program.

Get outside, get some fresh air, and enjoy some coordinated big muscle play time!