Care Courses Blog

In today’s blog we will dis­cuss the role of play in children’s devel­op­ment and how you can facil­i­tate children’s learn­ing through play. 

Top­ics for pro­mot­ing play in ear­ly child­hood are cov­ered in detail in our course, Play and Learn­ing in Ear­ly Childhood.

The role of play in children’s development

Play can be defined as children’s spon­ta­neous, self-direct­ed, self-cho­sen, and self-paced activ­i­ties. Play inte­grates children’s expe­ri­ences in mul­ti­ple areas of learn­ing. For exam­ple, while play­ing “restau­rant” young chil­dren may scrib­ble orders, set prices, pre­tend to read menus, count play mon­ey, or apply the con­cept of quan­ti­ty to serve meals to a spe­cif­ic num­ber of “cus­tomers,” learn­ing a lot more than they would have by com­plet­ing a work­sheet, while hav­ing fun. 

Dur­ing play, chil­dren make deci­sions, are moti­vat­ed by their nat­ur­al desire to explore and under­stand the world around them, and become ful­ly immersed in the process. Dur­ing play, chil­dren fol­low their curios­i­ty, strength­en their prob­lem-solv­ing skills, exper­i­ment with a vari­ety of approach­es to reach goals, and keep try­ing until they feel successful.

Play accel­er­ates children’s brain devel­op­ment and pro­motes learn­ing in all domains. You can play an impor­tant role in pro­mot­ing the ben­e­fits of children’s play by select­ing appro­pri­ate play mate­ri­als, pro­vid­ing an excit­ing learn­ing envi­ron­ment, and being respon­sive to children’s interests.

Choosing play materials

A thought­ful selec­tion of play mate­ri­als helps max­i­mize the effec­tive­ness of play in pro­mot­ing devel­op­ment and learning.

• Open-end­ed toys can be used in many dif­fer­ent ways and pro­mote exper­i­men­ta­tion and cre­ativ­i­ty. Toys such as blocks, play food, dress-up clothes, and water tables allow chil­dren to exper­i­ment and use their imagination.
• Closed-end­ed toys have a def­i­nite use and end­ing point. For exam­ple, puz­zle and shape sorter activ­i­ties are fin­ished once they are assem­bled. They are good for build­ing atten­tion and learn­ing to com­plete a task.
• Loose parts are mate­ri­als that have no par­tic­u­lar or defined pur­pose. Hav­ing loose parts avail­able to chil­dren encour­ages cre­ativ­i­ty and imag­i­na­tion. Exam­ples of loose parts include card­board box­es, stones, scarves and fab­ric, and plas­tic bottles.

Vari­ety ensures that chil­dren enjoy many dif­fer­ent types of learn­ing expe­ri­ences. Include play mate­ri­als that offer vary­ing lev­els of dif­fi­cul­ty. Blocks are a per­fect exam­ple of toys that chal­lenge chil­dren at every lev­el of development. 

While ensur­ing that cer­tain toys, such as blocks, are always avail­able, rotate the array of toys and mate­ri­als avail­able for children’s use at any one time. Chil­dren will show much more inter­est in items that have been put away for a time than items that are always available.

Designing the learning environment

An invit­ing and func­tion­al play envi­ron­ment allows chil­dren to engage with play mate­ri­als to their fullest extent. When design­ing your play envi­ron­ment, con­sid­er the fol­low­ing questions:

• Are learn­ing areas clear­ly defined and easy to supervise?
• Is there ade­quate space for noisy and active play?
• Are active areas close to each oth­er and sep­a­rat­ed from qui­et spaces?
• Is there a cozy area for chil­dren to relax and enjoy quiet-time?

Facilitating play

Your respon­sive­ness to children’s needs and inter­ests is crit­i­cal in pro­mot­ing the ben­e­fits of play. When super­vis­ing children’s play, con­sid­er the fol­low­ing edu­ca­tion­al strategies:

• Offer play expe­ri­ences that cor­re­spond to children’s inter­ests, diverse abil­i­ties, and learn­ing styles.
• Engage chil­dren in mak­ing decisions.
• Care­ful­ly observe children’s play and judge the amount of time, sup­port, and guid­ance they need at any giv­en time.
• Observe and record each child’s devel­op­ment to assess their indi­vid­ual needs, mile­stones to be reached, and set goals.
• Fre­quent­ly reeval­u­ate and assess the play and learn­ing envi­ron­ment to ensure that it con­tin­ues to pro­vide appro­pri­ate chal­lenges as chil­dren progress along the path of devel­op­ment and learning.
• Sched­ule the day so that chil­dren have plen­ty of unin­ter­rupt­ed, unrushed time to engage in play and learning.

Care Courses’ Play and Learning in Early Childhood Course

Learn more about the fun­da­men­tal role of play in young children’s devel­op­ment, stages of play, ben­e­fits of dif­fer­ent types of play, and how you can sup­port children’s learn­ing through play in our course, Play and Learn­ing in Ear­ly Childhood.

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Please let us know how we can be of addi­tion­al assis­tance! Call us: 1–800-685‑7610, Mon­day through Fri­day, 9–5 ET, or email us days, evenings, and week­ends: info@CareCourses.com. We’re here to help!