Effects of an Unstructured Free Play and Mindfulness Intervention on Wellbeing in Kindergarten Students

Abstract

Play is known as the core occupation of young children as it lays a foundation for their early development and physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Literature suggests that unstructured free play and mindfulness interventions may independently promote wellbeing among preschoolers. However, there is no clear evidence of their combination in supporting wellness in early learning environments. We conducted a quasi-experimental study with 42 children aged four to six years, attending two kindergartens in Hong Kong. The intervention included unstructured play with non-directional loose parts (play materials), conducted outdoors for one hour daily followed by a mindfulness intervention for 10 min per day indoors. The intervention lasted for five consecutive days. We examined happiness and aspects of playfulness before and after the intervention, finding a significant increase in all areas. Given greater freedom in play choice, children showed more disruptive behaviors during unstructured play than the control group engaging in recess as usual. We conclude that unstructured play in addition to mindfulness intervention is effective in promoting students’ happiness and playfulness, both of which may help maintain mental health and wellbeing amid stressors such as transition and separation. The increased disruptive behavior requires additional investigation.

Effects of Body-Oriented Interventions on Preschoolers' Social-Emotional Competence: A Systematic Review

“…Improvements were also found for social interaction (Hashemi et al, 2012;Goldstein and Lerner, 2017;Tersi and Matsouka, 2020), social cooperation (Hashemi et al, 2012;Loukatari et al, 2019;Tersi and Matsouka, 2020), social independence (Hashemi et al, 2012;Tersi and Matsouka, 2020), social assertion (Loukatari et al, 2019), friendship skills (Ozyurek et al, 2015), sharing (Flook et al, 2015), and peer relations problems (Deneault et al, 2020). No differences were found in Theory of Mind (Goldstein and Lerner, 2017), emotion expression (Lee et al, 2020), emotion identification (Richard et al, 2019), functional emotion regulation strategies (Richard et al, 2019), delay of gratification (Flook et al, 2015;Robinson et al, 2016;Murray et al, 2018), cognitive flexibility (Flook et al, 2015), altruism (Goldstein and Lerner, 2017;Richard et al, 2019), peer acceptance (Anna et al, 2016), and social avoidance (Richard et al, 2019). Contradictory results were found for emotion attribution (Goldstein and Lerner, 2017;Richard et al, 2019), emotion regulation (Flook et al, 2015;Ozyurek et al, 2015;Goldstein and Lerner, 2017;Richard et al, 2019), self-regulation (Chinekesh et al, 2014;Cheng and Ray, 2016;Duman and Ozkur, 2019;Loukatari et al, 2019), inhibitory control…”

“…All the studies used BOI as the study intervention. Control groups were inactive in 17 studies (Lobo and Winsler, 2006;Ortega et al, 2009;Hashemi et al, 2012;Chinekesh et al, 2014;Flook et al, 2015;Ozyurek et al, 2015;Anna et al, 2016;Biber, 2016;Cheng and Ray, 2016;Robinson et al, 2016;Murray et al, 2018;Duman and Ozkur, 2019;Loukatari et al, 2019;Richard et al, 2019;Deneault et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2020;Tersi and Matsouka, 2020). In the remaining 2 studies, the BOI was compared with block building and story time reading activities (Goldstein and Lerner, 2017), and a play-based program following a teacher-directed approach (Solomon et al, 2018).…”

“…The types of BOI in the included studies were creative dance/movement (Lobo and Winsler, 2006), group play activities (Ortega et al, 2009), gymnastics (Hashemi et al, 2012), group play therapy (Chinekesh et al, 2014), mindfulness-based activities (Flook et al, 2015), gamebased activities (Ozyurek et al, 2015), psychomotor program Reported by teachers. (Anna et al, 2016), folk dance (Biber, 2016), child-centered group play (Cheng and Ray, 2016), motor skills intervention (Robinson et al, 2016), pretend play games (Goldstein and Lerner, 2017), progressive muscle relaxation (Murray et al, 2018), play-based activities using a teacher-centered approach (Solomon et al, 2018), embedded learning-based movement education (Duman and Ozkur, 2019), structured playful activities (Loukatari et al, 2019), pretend play-based (Richard et al, 2019), symbolic sand play (Deneault et al, 2020), loose parts play and mindfulness activities (Lee et al, 2020), and structured play activities (Tersi and Matsouka, 2020).…”

“…Improvements were found regarding play (Ortega et al, 2009), specifically on interaction with communication on child-directed play (Ortega et al, 2009), number of groups on teacher-directed play (Ortega et al, 2009), interaction with communication on teacher-directed play (Ortega et al, 2009), play disruption (Lee et al, 2020), play disconnection (Lee et al, 2020), play interaction (Lee et al, 2020), happiness after play (Lee et al, 2020), play extent (Lee et al, 2020), play intensity (Lee et al, 2020), and play skill (Lee et al, 2020). No differences were found in the group composition on child-directed play (Ortega et al, 2009), number of groups on child-directed play (Ortega et al, 2009), group size on child-directed play (Ortega et al, 2009), group size on teacherdirected play (Ortega et al, 2009), and group composition on teacher-directed play (Ortega et al, 2009).…”

Contributions to Sustainability through Young Children’s Nature Play: A Systematic Review

“…Respectful interactions with nature [69] Stewardship of/caring for plants, wildlife, living creatures, and/or nature; compassionate care for nature [59,60,63,65,66,70] Sharing environmental knowledge with others [71] Modeling/monitoring for pro-environmental behavior with peers and family (such as making sure family recycles, teaching other children about how to treat animals) [51] Citizenship, civic skills [65] Approaches to Learning Creativity, creative thinking, imagination [54,59,74,78] Curiosity [2] Languaged and non-languaged exploratory behavior [70,72] Exploratory skills [60,63,65,72] Focus, attention [54,55,74] Persistence, perseverance, determination [32,55,60,67] Processing and using information [59,60] Engagement [67,68,71] Motivation [55,59,67] Feelings of competence [55,76] Positive attitudes toward learning [55] Risk analysis [59] Cognitive: General…”