Basic motor skills of children attending regular kindergartens and children in forest kindergartens

The paper aims to examine how the specific conditions in forest kindergartens may affect motor development of young children and to identify other daily life factors that may have an impact on motor development. A test of motor skills was used to compare results of children from forest schools and regular kindergartens. The work is based on theoretical knowledge about children's motor development, motor skills and abilities and various ways to test them. A set of motor tests was compiled to measure the level of motor skills in both types of kindergartens. The theoretical part provides the reader with characteristics of both types of schools to show how the conditions may vary and assess the differences. The comparison of the results of the tests shows that natural conditions for physical activities in forest kindergartens do not lead to better results in motor skills tests. The parents of participating children were given a questionnaire and the provided answers were then compared with the children's performance in the tests. This method proved that neither time actively spent with parents nor exercising in extracurricular activities have a significant effect on the motor level development of children. Key words Forest kindergarten, regular kindergarten, motor development, motor skills and abilitie