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Play is not only critical to healthy brain development, but it’s also how children learn to engage with and respond to others. It allows them to use their creativity, develop their imagination, and strengthen their critical thinking. In the resources below, you’ll learn about the lasting impact of play-based learning and how you can best support children’s growth through play in your child care program.
Kids don’t need fancy toys or certificates to play. They need time, space, and freedom to explore the ideas that interest them. No matter what it looks like, when children play, they learn.
During play, kids stretch their imaginations. They create make-believe games or get lost in pretend worlds. These are helpful skills for navigating life and developing relationships with others.
Unstructured play is the time when kids direct their own play. They are not bound by schedules or activities directed by adults. Unstructured play helps a child’s brain develop in positive ways.
Through play, children learn how to navigate the world in a way they can understand and process. They explore how to work in groups, to wait and take turns, to negotiate, and to speak up for themselves.
Starting from birth, children build language and literacy skills through play and interactions, like back-and-forth conversations, sharing books together, and pretending.
Solitary play allows children to experiment with their own creativity and ideas. When alone, and even bored, children’s brains take up the challenge. They find new and exciting ways to entertain themselves.
Children have a very strong need for physical play, which is any type of play that gets them moving. It’s part of how they learn to use their bodies and strengthens connections in the brain.
The first true stage of play begins after the newborn period and lasts through age two. This is the stage when a child plays alone and appears to be uninterested in what others are doing. This is an important stage of play, because it teaches children how to entertain themselves.
During this stage, a child begins to watch other children playing but does not play with them. They will often use language to find out more about play and seem curious about others. While this type of play is common in two-year-olds, it can take place at any age.
When a child plays alongside or near others but does not play with them, we call this parallel play. They may have similar toys and copy each other, but they do not play cooperatively together. At this stage, children are learning social skills through observation.
Between the ages of two and three, play changes and children become more interested in playing with others than with toys. They may talk and engage more with one another, practice turn-taking and trading toys, and begin developing negotiating skills. However, as children are figuring out what it means to play with someone else, there are no rules to their play and conflict may arise. Stay close and help them develop problem-solving and cooperation skills by giving them the words to use and help calming down.
Social play means children are interested in both the people and the activity, and play becomes more organized. They want to know what is happening around them and what their friends think. Pretend play becomes more complex as groups have a more formalized leader and children are assigned roles as they work together to accomplish goals developed by the group. Think about children playing house – the “leader” assigns roles to each child (the dog, the mom, the baby, etc.), and they work together to cook and serve food or take care of the baby.
For many caregivers, what they fear the most about risky play is injury. However, allowing little ones to take developmentally-appropriate risks can actually make them safer, because they learn how to safely navigate their environments and what their bodies can and cannot do. Risky play does not mean handing a child a saw and letting them to go town. It means allowing children the opportunity to explore developmentally-appropriate risks and develop their own risk management skills.
There are six categories of risky play:
By giving children an opportunity to explore developmentally-appropriate risks, you’re allowing them to develop their own risk management skills.
Other benefits include:
Think about where and how you played when you were a child. Most of us spent our childhoods playing outside and in nature. Risky play was much more accepted a few generations ago! Keep this in mind when you’re attempting to loosen your boundaries and engage in appropriate risky play. Here are some other tips:
Time outside daily is important for children’s physical and mental health. It’s part of how they learn to use their bodies and strengthens connections in the brain. Additionally, children who spend time outdoors have a greater ability to self-regulate their behaviors and impulses. No matter the weather, put kids in layers and outdoor clothes so they can get in their green time.
Art is a sensory experience for young children. It is about the process of exploration – not about making a product. Choose materials that are safe and non-toxic, because young children like to learn by touching and tasting!
Approach art like open-ended play. For example, provide a variety of materials and see what happens as a child leads the art experience. Think about the materials, rather then the outcome, and let children create without step-by-step instructions or samples to follow.
Focus on the experience and on exploration of techniques, tools, and materials, like:
Playdough is a classic way to encourage creativity at home. Children have the opportunity to sculpt, knead, cut, roll, and design. Not to mention, they are developing their small muscles needed for handwriting. Make your playdough at home! Try adding:
Young children can learn important math skills while playing! As the teacher, you can support them by modeling counting, creating problems to solve, and providing toys that encourage sorting and measuring.
Young children can learn important literacy skills while playing! As the adult, you can support their literacy by modeling reading and letter recognition, creating problems to solve, and providing toys that encourage story-telling.
A foundational part of literacy in early childhood is language development. Starting in infancy, one of the best ways to support language development is talking and listening to children.
By adding materials or posing a challenge, building play can provide the perfect opportunity to practice critical thinking and problem skills. Try one of these ways to enhance your child’s learning when building!
Curious about play-based learning but unsure where to start? Check out this video series by Ontario Science Centre.
