Benefits of Outdoor Play

Media kindly brought to you by Gazillion Bubble Rush

Oh, to be a child again. To see the world through the eyes of excitement, surprise and wonder with innocence, curiosity and awe. The formative years of a child’s life are the most precious and establish the foundation for their life ahead. As parents and carers, it’s our role to fill our children’s hearts and minds with beautiful memories and life experiences that evoke beautiful feelings.

The Aussie backyard has long been a haven to create these memories; this is where the magic happens: fairies meet superheroes and football stars. We are fortunate enough here in Australian that our climate allows children to play 12-months of the year outdoors. However, since the introduction of iPads and various other screen devices, parents have to make a conscious effort to ensure children have balance and are developing healthy outdoor play habits.

“Playing with a toy activates a child’s brain in a way that computer screens and television simply cannot. Toys are tactile, interactive and most importantly, require imagination.”

Jodie Benveniste, psychologist and author.

When children are inspired by exciting and creative outdoor play ideas, the physical activity assists in laying the foundations for a healthy life ahead. Amongst many benefits, the activity can promote healthy growth and development. It can help children achieve and maintain a healthy weight and build strong bones and muscles. Additionally, it can help improve concentration and thinking.

Jonathan Zimbler, President of the Australian Toy Association, mentions: “Play is essential to your child’s brain development and contributes to the development of motor skills, perception, attention, emotion regulation and coping with stress. Children who experience positive play and attention are more likely to experience a rich childhood, both intellectually and socially.”

Bubble play provides the perfect combination of magic, movement and anaerobic exercise for outdoor play. It is an inexpensive outdoor activity; whether it is for an only child or a child with siblings and friends, it encourages family bonding while promoting outdoor play in the sunshine.

“Playing Outdoors helps children with fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, muscle strength and overall health and wellbeing. Through physical activity and creative play, they develop coordination through running, jumping, skipping, and playing ball games along with greater confidence,” says Zimbler.

Bubble toys are an inspirational idea that is great for everyday play, birthday parties, special occasions, or to keep the children busy at BBQs. Bubble machines encourage children to be outside and play, which means it helps them to stay physically active.

Zimbler suggests “Toys that promote physical activity can make a big difference in your child’s development. Physical activity allows them to learn new life skills from babies reaching for a toy just out of reach to a child playing with balls, bikes, or toys that involve different types of movement and physical activity. These activities can all strengthen their bodies and help develop coordination”

Pets have a fascination with bubbles as well. Many of our four-legged friends become mesmerised by these floating balls of air as they run and chase in the attempt to bite and pop them.

Bubble play is fun, inexpensive and infectious.

Bubble play helps promote imaginative play. Zimbler mentions “By giving a child an open-ended toy, it requires their creativity to come into play and encourages them to use their imagination and enhance problem-solving techniques, social skills and creativity through using their brainpower.”

The experience of playing with bubbles assists children to develop a wide range of developmental skills, they include:

Hand-eye coordination: Stomping on a bubble to reach up high to try and touch one, or to squat down low to try and pop a lower bubble.
fine motor skills: small movements of hands and fingers
visual Tracking: following objects with both eyes
gross motor skills: running, jumping, reaching up, stomping to pop the bubbles, squatting, changing direction and shifting weight
sensory processing: as the liquid drops onto the children it can feel strange, a little bit like a science experiment
pattern recognition: recognising the floating movement of bubbles along with the anticipation of waiting for them to pop helps children identify patterns and to predict and expect what is coming

Bubble Play is a valuable opportunity for children to practice focusing attention on a single task, it also helps children develop cognitive and language skills such as

Vocabulary: forming the b for bubbles or p for pop. Bubble play can help parents teach descriptive words to children in a fun way; this, in turn, can help expand their vocabulary. You can use words such as light, float, fast, slow, transparent, round, high, low, big, small.
social and communication skills: explore counting, distance, speed, direction and to experiment with different language to describe range – “how far have the bubbles travelled?”
creative thinking
planning and decision: making develop problem-solving skills and gets children thinking, ‘If I want to burst that bubble, I can do it with a clap.”
Body part identification: this is mainly for younger children “look the bubble touched your nose’ ‘reach your arms up to pop that one’ ‘Burst that bubble with your finger’ ‘stomp the bubbles with your feet’.
reasoning
communicating: children who squeal in delight, look at parents in anticipation for more

George Khoury from Funrise mentions: “Gazillion Bubble Rush helps develop healthy outdoor play habits for children”.

“Gazillion Bubble Rush is a new machine that takes away some of the pain points of bubble play – it’s easy to clean, less wasted solution, but still fun.”

“The new generation machine is the best on the market as it is designed to make playtime easier for mums and dads. The no-spill modular design is economical as it has a recycling tray, plus includes a removable and washable top,” says Khoury.

Bubbles are equally beneficial for adults also. They instantly put you in a good mood, which in turn helps our brain release serotonin and lower our stress levels.

All in all, it’s hard not to be happy when you’re around bubbles, they fundamental in many memorable moments in our lives from champagne to a relaxing bubble bath. Bubbles may also take you back to a happy place and help relive moments from your childhood.

Much like the sparkle in a child’s eye, bubbles are magical moments of perfection. As sunshine glistens through their round sphere with a technicolour rainbow, the brief moment they exist is filled with bliss.

The floating, shimmering, delicate little round orbs are a small piece of heaven on earth. The joy and delight on a child’s face when they watch bubbles float effortlessly through the air is nothing short of priceless.

A bubble machine provides money can’t buy moments. It is a must for every Australian household.

The Gazillion Bubble brand is a premium bubble brand in Australia, available at Big W, Kidstuff, Toymate, Amazon, Toyworld and other leading toy shops.