When we think about child development, we tend to think books, pencils and blackboards, before we think of the playground. But time spent building castles and mimicking animals is just as important to a child’s social and intellectual development as learning to read and write. Play is the interaction with others that helps us to experience and make sense of our world. As a major key to active learning, which is using the brain in many ways, play-based learning is encouraged throughout all stages of childhood. Play-based learning is defined by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace as a ‘context for learning through which children organise and make sense of their social worlds, as they actively engage with people, objects and representations.’ For this reason, growing up isn’t all work and no play. Read on to learn about the benefits and impacts of play-based learning. What is play? Make-believe, talking, toys and tumbling – there is no one definition of playtime. Child development experts do agree on, however, a number of characteristics. Play looks like: • Enjoyable and pleasurable activity, where fun is the key feature • Solitary, partner or cooperative group activity, in which the child assumes a leadership or team member role • Structured play with rules, or unstructured and improvised symbolic ‘make-believe’ play • Active play that involves physical, verbal or mental engagement with material, people and the environment. What happens during play? We might not remember our own experience of play and how it has shaped our adulthood behaviour, but we can observe its role in our children’s development. Joy Cottrell from Joy’s Place for Children in Southport, who has been an early childhood educator for 46 years, says play is an allinclusive educational experience. “Children learn absolutely everything in play. Socialising, fine and gross motor skills, compassion, language – there is nothing they can’t learn during play.” Whether equipped with Barbie or a set of blocks, children are undergoing similar learning processes: • Exploring the natural and social world • Thinking and expressing themselves freely and creatively • Expanding and challenging their fine and gross motor skills • Absorbing and reacting to social situations with or without language • Experimenting with ideas • Developing their identity and relations with others. During this time, the job for educators and childcare providers is to recognise the strengths and curiosities in the children every day. “As the kids play, we can see how they develop an interest or an aptitude for an activity. For example, we might see how a group of children are playing with foliage and pretending to serve it as food. So we respond by taking them to the vegetable garden that afternoon to talk about permaculture and healthy food,” explains Joy. “You can’t script playtime; the children play and pretend without boundaries. Numeracy, creativity and cognitive skill are all developed in this kind of incidental learning.” Skills gained during play According to researchers, all evidence agrees that playtime has a critical role in children’s learning and development, regardless of culture or Children ’s Hea lth language. During play, children gain some of the social and communication skills and behaviours that set them up for life. • Positive attitudes • Self-motivation and self-direction • Cooperation • Respect for others and property • Curiosity, persistence and concentration • Language and numeracy • Group values. Brain development Research makes many connections between play and intellectual capacity, as well as the structural design of the brain. Lester and Russell, prominent researchers in this area, show that play increases the brain’s flexibility and improves the potential for learning later in life. Earlier research also links colourful and play-oriented environments with bigger brains and higher cognition. Make-believe, or ‘sociodramatic play’, also improves children’s performances in cognitivelinguistic and social activity, as well as their capacity for creative problem solving. Experts attribute children’s ability to solve divergent problems (problems with multiple solutions) to regular imaginary play, in which the child thinks outside the box. Think about the last time you lost your temper, or the last time you consoled yourself – your ability to feel, control and express your emotions was once learnt through play. Research shows that frequent engagement with other children in make-believe spaces has led to stronger selfregulation and negotiation. One child cannot play make-believe without the other’s cooperation, and therefore we see how they negotiate rules and behaviours to play without specific instruction. In her Considering Counterfactuals paper, professor of psychology and child development expert, Alison Gopnik from the University of California Berkeley, illustrates how play and exploration lead to a child’s revision of casual theories. pindaramagazine.com.au Pindara Magazine 43
Pindara Private Hospital Magazine - Issue Five
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