‘Play’ is the work of a child. Over my many years of teaching and working with young children, I know it to be a given fact that play supports learning and is a very important to a child’s development stages. Play helps children learn and develop their cognitive, physical, communication, emotional, social, and creative skills. When children play, it helps to build self-worth because it’s fun and they can become very much more engaged when the choice is theirs, rather than when chosen by an adult.
You may ask how play supports learning…
Cognitive Skills:
Children learn to think, read, reason, remember and pay attention while interacting with their peers.
Physical Skills:
All children benefit from playfully engaging in active physical activities, which enhancing eye-hand coordination, muscle control, coordination, balance, and fine-motor skills.
Communication Skills:
When children play, they are learning to communicate with others, giving opportunities to develop speech and language skills as well as listening skills. The joy of communicating freely helps children to be exposed to and use more vocabulary on a day-day-basis.
Emotional Skills:
Play helps children to explore, challenge and control emotions like fear, frustration and anger and aggression, helping them to develop, self-awareness, empathy and understanding.
Social Skills:
“Playing with my friends” is providing children with opportunities to interact with one another, learning to help, share and take turns. They learn the consequences of their behaviour choices, which promotes good social skills.
Creative Skills:
Children love and enjoy the freedom of using their imagination as they create and role-play, using their unique ideas to find their own solutions to challenges. Be it with others or by themselves, it’s wonderful to see when a child is fully focused, exploring and leading their own direction through their play.
Teachers and parents can also use children’s motivation and interest to explore concepts and ideas through play to acquire and practice important academic life skills – present it in a playful context and watch them engage and thrive!
Look at some of the play that the children are doing in our Preschool class to support learning at their level and enjoyment…
