Importance of children’s recess play exploration within school outdoor environment

Playing at recess time in school gives a lot of benefits for children in both physical and social aspects, such as supporting physical, health, and cognitive improvement, and enhancing their learning motivation. Moreover, the outdoor school environment helps to bring back the children’s health condition after the pandemic event that has led to health problems such as obesity and screen fatigue. The physical layout of Indonesian public elementary schools is intended to offer children a learning and playing environment. However, many outdoor school environments are not specifically designed to facilitate children’s play. This study was undertaken at SDN Mendungan 2 to determine how children use outdoor areas in public elementary schools as play spaces during recess time using behavior mapping approach. The results demonstrate that boys tend towards being more active than girls and children with younger age demonstrate play more than the older. Furthermore, results show characteristics of outdoor play spatial characteristics areas used by children in specific play types and are important toward children’s health, growth, and development.