Study:Playtime for preschoolers essential

 "Daily physical activity is essential for preschool age children both for preventing obesity and for their development - their physical development and their cognitive development," says Dr. Kristen Copeland from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Ohio.

When kids are running, skipping and learning to ride tricycles, they aren't only exercising their bodies, they're also exercising their minds, which is why playtime is so important, experts say.

"If you're [a child] taking turns and you're playing 'Duck, Duck, Goose,' and you're running outside playing 'Hide and Seek' and counting to 10, you're got a lot of cognitive skills added in there," says Dr. Laura Jana. "They are applying what they learned in a book; they are projecting out and figuring out or making up rules. All of these things are cognitive skills."

How much playtime do children need?

Pediatric experts recommend that preschoolers get 90 to 120 minutes of gross motor activity daily, and be taken outdoors twice a day. But Copeland found that children spent only 2 to 3% of their time engrossed in vigorous play during an 8 hour day in child care.

Reference:CNN