Skip to Main Site Navigation Skip to Content Skip to Footer
Back To Top
decorative element

Ready to Climb

Bringing the Climbing Walls to the CFDRC

 

Watch video

Arrow
A child climbing on the climbing wall with the help of college students.
Play

In 2013, Eastern's Child and Family Development Resource Center was able to acquire two climbing walls through the generous support of the ECSU Foundation. The climbing walls serve two important purposes: 1) support children's cognitive, social-emotional, creative, and physical development; and 2) provide critical experiential learning opportunities for Eastern students who hope to work with young children in their careers.

View video transcript.

decorative edge

How the climbing walls support children's development:

  • Physical development: Preschoolers are developing upper body strength, increasing their hand-eye coordination, and developing a better sense of how to move their bodies in a space.
  • Social-emotional development: Children are learning how to work collaboratively and cooperatively, gaining a sense of accomplishment, and building self-confidence.
  • Cognitive development: Children are developing spatial awareness, developing problem-solving skills as they make their way across the wall, expanding oral language, and developing literacy and numeracy skills through magnetic letters, numbers, and shapes on the wall.
  • Creative development: Preschoolers are getting the opportunity to move their bodies in expressive ways and fostering pretend and imaginative play.
decorative edge
Experiential Learning for Eastern Students
The two walls are providing Eastern students with important opportunities to learn how best to support young children. Health and physical education students are learning how to develop and implement lesson plans to teach young children to use climbing walls, including individualizing for children's needs. Early childhood education students are gaining experience in both supporting children's physical development and in using physical activities to support children's growth in other developmental domains.

  • Ready to Climb was produced entirely by Eastern Communication students in a Documentary Production class. Students gained hands-on experience in directing, field shooting, conducting interviews, editing, and other production skills.

    Student production team: Sarah Pierce, James Nixon, Dylan King, Attah Agyemang
    Documentary production professor: Dr. Denise Matthews
    Health and Physical Education (HPE) students appearing in video: Teresa Rozycki, Mattie Brett, Josh Tamosaitis
    HPE Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Darren Robert
    Featured teacher and administrator: Claudia Ahern, Niloufar Rezai

decorative edge
Please help us make better videos!
Tell us what you like about this video and how you plan to use it.
decorative edge