Understanding the Concept of Play

Introduction

Play is more than just have fun, it is actually much more than that. Play includes free choice, motivation, creativity, imagination, active participation and orientation. We can say that children learn through play and it is through playing that children develop many abilities, attributes and skills that will help them in life. The truth, according to Henninger (2002) is that it is difficult to choose one definition that clearly defines play. There are so many different perspectives of play and it takes time for an Educator to choose one perspective to support.

As it was mentioned above, play include free choice and it is natural for children; by playing children start to understand the world, their social roles and their community. Furthermore, it is through playing that children can also learn how to communicate effectively and how to express themselves through language. It is during this valuable moment that children learn rules and moral values, which will help them to solve problems and manage emotions.

Unfortunately, some barriers can lead children in a life with less play than they should have. Some of those issues are childhood obesity, outdoor play, technology, culture, poverty and consumerism and each one of them can affect good quality playtime.

There are many researches about children’s brain development. The researchers say that children’s brains develop during the early years and this development depends on biology and environment factors. Moreover, children’s experience help the brain growth so we can say that if exposed to a rich environment where they can explore it can help “the children to become self-regulated, thoughtful and a productive member of family, community and society.” (Perry, 2004) and the opposite happens in case they do not have this experiences.

Components of play

There are three components of play, which are intrinsic motivation, active engagement and attention to process rather than product. The first one is related to curiosity and it is important to say that every child has their own internal motivation which means doing what is enjoyable. Challenge, curiosity and fantasy are what make intrinsic motivation flow. We can see that when children can choose their own material and they are challenged by it, it also leads them to a fantasy world and it helps them to visualize all new possibilities. The second one, which is active engagement, help them to develop skills to manage stress and the third one shows us the importance of the process instead of the product, as the educator can really know what the children are thinking by observing the process of their creation.

The play process and Piaget’s Stages of Play

Each play is different and it depends on the children age and developmental level combined with materials and experiences provided (Dietze and Kashin, 2012). In contrast, there is also Piaget’s theory, which, believes that every stage builds up the children cognitive domain. We can see on the table below how both processes correspond to one another. In the first one children will go through 5 phases of the play process being the sixth only during adulthood as in the second one they go through three stages.

Social Play

Essential for children as it is for educators, social play can help children develop many skills as sharing, taking turns and group work and help educators to support the children as well.

Social Play is divided in 5 stages. The first one is solitary play, which consists of playing without interaction with other children or sharing objects. The second one is onlooker play, in this stage the child watches others to play and do not get involved, this might happened because the onlooker is not feeling the sense of belong to join the group to play. The third one is called parallel play and is happens when children share the same materials but each one are still playing and making their own creations, there is no interaction. The fourth stage is known as associative play and it happens when children start to share material and interact with each other but there is no cooperation or a main goal; each one of them work on their own project. The last stage is called cooperative play, in this stage children play together, negotiate roles, interact with each other and work to achieve a main goal.

An example of Solitary Play

Holistic Development of the Child

The holistic development of the children has to encompass the following aspects: intellectual, social, spiritual, physical, emotional and creative and it is through play that those can happen.

The child can develop in all or some areas at once. The balance between the skills are very important for the children, the educator is the one in charge of providing different materials so the children can be curious and challenged by them so they can develop in many different holistic aspects.

The educator also have the role of observe the play process because this is the only way to know what they are thinking in order to support them with provocateur questions to lead them to the next level. That is how the learning happens.

I can mention a situation that happened in my class to provide you with a clear picture of it. The children were building their town and I (the educator) asked them: “What could you incorporate into the town to make it beautiful and GREEN?” The children instantly said that trees would make the town green so another question was asked, “How can you make trees for the town using everyday classroom materials?” The students then grabbed pipe cleaners and pinecones and placed them throughout the town. By asking those question and supporting their play we can notice challenge, curiosity and imagination development.

5 Ingredients of Active Learning and 4 Foundations

Last, there are also the 5 ingredients of active learning (choice, language, adult scaffolding, materials and manipulation) and the 4 foundations (belonging, well-being, engagement and expression), those are very important in order to make learning happen in the classroom. Furthermore, another situation that happened in my classroom is great example that support both of them. During the play, I provided the students with a box full of materials, the students could choose anything from what was available to create whatever they what to, I provided the students with 2 straws and animal stickers which means adult scaffolding and after that students manipulated the materials and created a tower, a princess and a prince. All of the students were engaged on the task, with the sense of belonging as everyone was working together and feeling good about themselves and the community and were able to express themselves throughout their ideas and creation.

References

Dietze, B. Kashin, D. (2012).Playing and learning in early childhood education. Pearson Canada Inc, Toronto, Ontario.

Henniger, M. (2002). Teaching young children. An introduction (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:Pearson.

Perry, B. (2004). Maltreatment and developing child: How early childhood experience shapes child and culture. Inaugural lecture. Retrieved January 2010, from http://www.lfcc.ca/mccain/