{"id":3441,"date":"2026-10-28T15:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T15:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/?p=3441"},"modified":"2026-10-28T15:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T15:47:09","slug":"why-imagination-matters-in-childrens-play-and-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/?p=3441","title":{"rendered":"Why Imagination Matters in Children\u2019s Play and Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this video, #TeamOUsport researcher Linda Plowright-Pepper discusses her PhD research into children\u2019s lived experiences of physical activity. Her work explores how imagination, creativity and enjoyment shape the ways children move, play and stay active in everyday life. Through research with children aged 7 to 11 acting as co-researchers, the study revealed that physical activity is often driven by imaginative challenges, playful exploration and the joy of movement, rather than structured exercise alone.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Why Imagination Matters in Children\u2019s Play and Exercise\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lX8FUsPth2A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this video, #TeamOUsport researcher Linda Plowright-Pepper discusses her PhD research into children\u2019s lived experiences of physical activity. Her work explores how imagination, creativity and enjoyment shape the ways children move, play and stay active in everyday life. Through research with children aged 7 to 11 acting as co-researchers, the study revealed that physical activity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3442,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions\/3442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/OU-Sport\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}