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The importance of play in early childhood education
The importance of play in early childhood education
The importance of play in early childhood education
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The resources that support my curriculum plan are described in these articles. The first article that I chose to read is The Power of Play. The article focuses on the importance of how children can learn and grow through playand self-directed play as well as how play is vital to young children’s development.According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), play is a vitally important part of child development and is essential for every child’s health and well-being. Play provides a wide range of benefits, including socio-emotional health, physical health, social learning, improvement of problem solving skills, and improved self-regulation. Self-directed play also, creates success in creativity, problem solving, and decision making skills.
Many theorists have tried to define play as a concept, however, no two agree on a set definition. Their backgrounds and induvial lifestyles influence the way they see the importance of play. Reed and Brown also believe that there isn’t an agreed definition of play because is something that is felt rather than done (Reed & Brown, 2000 cited in Brock, Dodd’s, Jarvis & Olusoga, 2009). In spite of this, it is clear that most theorists uphold the ethos that play is imperative to a child’s learning and development. There is a wide range of different studies and theories which helps us develop our own perception of what play is. In my personal experience I have found play to be a way of expressive our emotions, exploring and learning new things, thus
Levin, D and Carlsson-Paige, N (2006). The War Play Dilemma . 2nd ed. New York: Teachers College Press.
An Article by Dr. Leong and Dr. Bodrova (2016) stated that play is beneficial to children’s learning especially when it reaches a certain degree of complexity. When they engage in play activities most of their early years, they learn to delay gratification and to prioritize their goals and actions. They also learn to consider the perspectives and needs of other people and to represent things significantly to regulate their behavior and actions in a cautious, intentional way.
My desire for children in my care is that their learning journey would be meaningful as they explore the ideas and activities they are interested in. This means that I believe that children are naturally motivated learners and should have the opportunity to learn through their own explorations and through collaboration with other children and educators. I believe this can be done through both teacher-initiated and child-initiated activities and supported through play. I also believe that play is a natural and enjoyable means through which children learn. In my practice I aim to encourage children’s natural ...
Play is importent for kids, as it helps develop emotional health, imagination, and problem solving. With the ever increasing screen time among kids, play is being put on the back-burner, which results in limited imagination and problem solving skills and stunted emotional wellbeing. This issue can be delt with, with frequent play dates, interspersed with infrequent to no screen time for the children.
Play supports children’s physical development as when they are playing they are being active and exercising their body. It is important that children develop strength and stamina from a young age and through
Children have a natural inclination to play, alongside a natural instinct to learn and to be curious and inventive, which are characteristics of the human race in general. This quote taken from Janet Moyles is a good starting point for this essay. It is well known that children love to play. If a child were to be left to his/her own devices they would happily play and create new worlds anywhere they were left. It has been well documented and researched that children learn excellently through play. However they are not always given the opportunity to do so, instead being told to, ‘finish your work and then you can go play’. Obviously this is not always the case, but the fact that it is a common practice shows that we do not all fully appreciate the importance of play to children’s learning. This essay will attempt to show how children learn through play, making reference to current theory and practice. I will also give examples from my own first-hand experience of how children learn and develop as people through play.
To start off, I will talk about what skills creative play helps children devolop. Some are self expression, critical thinking, problem-solving, and independent thinking which are just a few of the skills they will devolop. Many will argue and say they won't learn how to be resposible adults, But as children they should'nt be resposible for much. They will have time later in their life like high school to join organized activities and devolop those skills at an age where they will be needed more.Also creative play helps them learn as they play. I stongly believe in this becasue children love to play.
What is play? Play is defined as engaging in activates for enjoyment & recreation rather than a serious practical purpose. Playing is a disorganized voluntary spontaneous activity, which may include objects, one’s body, symbol usage, and relationships. Play is flexible, individualize, grouped, motivating, self-directed, open-ended, or self-directed. (Smith, 2013) (Saskatchewan Ministry of Education, 2010)
..., J., & Garzoli, E. (2007, November 11). The Effectiveness of a Play-Based Curriculum in Early Childhood Education. Retrieved from http://teachplaybasedlearning.com/8.html
My topic links to the curriculum for Excellence as it emphasises that children learn through active play such as spontaneous play, planned, purposeful play along with investigating and exploring. (Scottish Executive Education Department,
Children develop normally when they are exposed to different types of play that allow them to express themselves while using their imaginations and being physically active. According to the Center for Health Education, Training and Nutrition Awareness, “Play is child’s work”; this is true because it is a child’s job to learn and develop in their first few years of life, in order for them to do this, they play. Not only is playing a child’s full time job, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights listed play as a right of every child. Through their full time job of play, the children develop emotionally, socially, physically, and creatively. Children need to participate in child-led play in order to facilitate healthy development of their minds, body, and creativity.
I am very much the type of person that prefers hard copies such as books, magazines, or newspapers so I started there. I looked at past textbooks I have used during my time in school and found two that were extremely helpful; the first titled Play, Learning and the Early Childhood Curriculum by Elizabeth Wood and Jan Attfield, and the second titled Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School by Edward Miller and Joan Almon. After finding two books, I decided it was time to look on the Internet. Instead of using the normal Google search, I decided to use Google Scholar as a way to find dependable sources. I used the key words pay based learning, childcare, and teaching styles. From those key words alone I found many scholarly articles and experiment papers. One article I really liked was by Ageliki Nicolopoulou, a professor from Lehigh University located in Pennsylvania. What stuck out about her article was that she also used the text by Miller and Almon. Another source I reference in this paper is How Dramatic Play Can Enhance Learning by Marie E. Cecchini, which I quickly mentioned above. Dolores A. Steglin wrote the last article I used. Her article Making the Case for Play Policy: Research-Based Reasons to Support Play Based Environments was really helpful when I started to link the NAEYC Code’s and Early Childhood Educator Competencies to play based learning strategies. I also used
My question is about what skills children are learning when they play during recess their period? Playing serves several valuable purposes including building social skills, developing physical fitness, and strengthening intellectual and emotional capabilities. When a child plays she or he will be creating and preserving friendships. Playing also helps children develop problem solving skills, by allowing them to sort out issues that arise during play independently amongst their peers. Because of the importance of playing, schools typically give a recess period during the day to allow children time for active movement and free play. This period ideally occurs outdoors, but sometimes schools may have recess periods inside a classroom or gymnasium
Holistic development of young children is the key determination and through play they are able to survive and become physically healthy, able to learn, and emotionally secure and into where they progress into responsible and productive adults with positive reinforcements in the future. When there are societal issues that are barriers such as “technology, childhood obesity, culture, etc.” (Gaston, A, Module 1, Unit 1, 2016), children are then unable to revel in freedom of movement in where play is adventurous and brings out positive behavior. “Play supports the holistic development through the development of intellectual, emotions, socially, physical, creative and spiritual” (Gaston, A, Module 1, Unit 2, 2016), signifying that holistic development is an important factor to be aware of as the child grows. An example would be when in Workshop 1 of Social and Cognitive Styles of Play, we had to play in the given activity for the time being and observe our members and distinguish what kind of cognitive play it was. And one of the assigned question to