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The formal operational stage is the last of four stages proposed by Jean Piaget to describe the cognitive development of infants, children, and adolescents. The formal operational stage occurs with children from 12 years into adulthood. Emerging abstract thought and hypothetical reasoning mark this stage of cognitive development.
Emotional development refers to the ability to recognize, express, and manage feelings at different stages of life and to have empathy for the feelings of others. Emotional development is largely affected by relationships with parents, siblings, and peers.
Peer pressure occurs when an individual experiences persuasion to participate in the same activities as those in their peer group, or to adopt similar values, beliefs, and goals as the group. For a child, their peer group is usually, but not always, of the same age group.
Children move through a developmental progression in the acquisition of motor skills. There are four phases of motor development: the reflexive movement phase, the rudimentary movement phase, the fundamental movement phase, and the specialized movement phase. The fundamental movement phase occurs between the ages of 2 and 7 as children gain control over their gross motor and fine motor skills.
People
Friedrich Froebel was truly a pioneer in early childhood education. He established a new type of school for three and four year old children in 1837, which he called a child's garden or kindergarten. Prior to this there had been no educational training for children under the age of seven.
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a social and educational reformer and writer in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He believed that society could best be changed by education and that reform began with assisting the individual students to help themselves.
Play
The Highlights magazine is a children's publication dedicated to assisting them in acquiring basic skills and knowledge, developing the ability to think and reason, fostering creativity, encouraging sensitivity to others, and choosing high ideals as a way of living.
Flexibility refers to the body's ability to effectively bend and move without injury. Improving flexibility allows the body to increase the range of motion at a particular joint as well as improving bone, ligament, and joint stability. Flexibility can be improved with stretching. Children develop their flexibility naturally through play.
Founded in 2002 by Sascha Joffe and Alan Groves, Jungle Play (formerly traded as Art Dinouveau) is a commercial art and sculpture company specializing in nature-inspired play equipment and botanical concept furniture. Their larger-than-life range of artistic play sculptures has been designed in their jungle-surrounded studio in Queensland, Australia.
The National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) is committed to promoting safe play environments for children. When the National Playground Safety Institute (NSPI) was formed as part of NRPA, the NPSI Board of Directors along with their instructors prioritized a list of what they considered to be the top twelve safety issues that result in playground injuries.
An important recreation pioneer, Ernest T. Attwell extended the "quality as well as quantity" of recreational opportunities for minority groups in the first half of the 20th century. Ernest T. Attwell was inducted into the Robert W. Crawford Recreation and Park Hall of Fame in October of 1989.
