The Importance of Play-Based Activities in Children's Learning

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I remember how I felt on the first day when I entered my placement. It was not the first time I had associate with young children but somehow it felt different. I always thought children were the easiest beings to communicate and that I can easily understand them just by looking at how they act. Unfortunately, I had so many things I did not know about them and I was perplexed just by handling one crying child. This booklet is created for early year’s practitioners that are just starting and it is aimed to provide practitioners about children, early year’s documents and play.

As an early years’ practitioner, there is much information that is useful to know. For example, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework is a framework that all settings in the United Kingdom (UK) have to provide for children and babies by the Department for Education. The EYFS ensures that all children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe according to the statutory standards that are set for the early years providers to meet (DfE, 2012). The EYFS aims to provide a secure base that will ensure all children with good progress through school and life, quality and consistency in all early years setting, partnerships between practitioners and parents or carers and equal opportunity for all children (DfE, 2012). Secondly, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) document shows legal responsibilities towards children and their families and it is an international human rights treaty that sets out a comprehensive set of rights for children and young people (OGL, 2014). The document contains 54 articles that include the health, political, civil, social, health, economic and cultural rights of children. For practitione...

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...//www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf (Accessed: 9 April 2014).

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Hoorn et al. (2006) Play at the center of the curriculum. Ohio: Pearson.

Janet, M (2012) A to Z of Play in Early Childhood. England: McGraw Hill.

Ginsburg et al. (2006) The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds. Available at: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/1/182.full#sec-2 (Accessed: 10 April 2014).

Cynthia, H (2008) Let's Play! Using Play-Based Curriculum to Support Children's Learning throughout the Domains. Available at: http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=453 (Accessed: 8 April 2014)

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