Children playing together. Playing can involve manipulating objects
Play is much more than just fun. It is actually incredibly significant for a young child’s development and learning. In fact, the importance of play in early childhood cannot be underestimated. Play is one of the fundamental aspects of healthy brain development. It is through play that children at a very early age engage and interact with the world around them, and it provides a vehicle for them to derive meaning from their experiences.
Play takes on many guises, but generally speaking it can be divided into five different types: physical, object, rules, symbolic, and pretend play, which all contribute to the development of knowledge and skills in humans.
Physical play is exactly as it sounds. From climbing to chasing, pushing to pulling, physical play strengthens gross and fine motor skills, and keeps children active. It also offers strong emotional and social benefits. For example, so-called “rough and tumble” or tickling games can be lots of fun for both parent and child, deepening their bond.
Playing with objects doesn’t just mean playing with toys; it can mean whatever interesting thing a child can engage with and manipulate. This type of play is an exploration for the senses, and encourages fine motor development. It also gets the mind thinking, by stimulating creativity and problem-solving skills.
Games with rules, be it “tag”, board games or team sports, provide children with an entertaining way to learn social skills like turn-taking, sharing, and empathy. Games with rules can further develop language and communication skills, and are a wonderful way for families to spend quality time together.
Children use pretend play to understand and make sense of the world around them, discover more about their own identity, and to understand experiences and regulate emotions. Pretend play also really lets the imagination out for a walk, whether it’s mimicking a real-life person, or spending the afternoon with an imaginary unicorn.
The definition of symbolic play sometimes blends with pretend play, but in this instance it means how children play with language and other forms of communication. It could be a child calling a sheep a “baa”, drawing a picture of mummy, or making marks as if they were words. This form of play allows children to make sense of things around them and develop skills to express themselves, such as writing, drawing or playing an instrument.
All these types of play work together to ensure that children learn, develop and grow up with the skills required throughout life.
Michael Renvillard is initiatives lead, South Africa, at the LEGO Foundation
Play provides the foundation for understanding mathematics
Mathematical concepts that children must be exposed to in the early years in South Africa is described in the National Curriculum Framework for children Birth to Four. Children need to explore through play numbers and counting, sorting, classifying, making comparisons, problem solving, and discovering shape, space and measurement.
Laying the foundation for mathematics starts with exploring numbers and counting. When picking up toys to tidy up, children can be encouraged to count the toys as they are packed away, and songs and rhymes that include counting and numbers are fun ways to learn the names of numbers and to practice counting. Understanding number concepts is reinforced through everyday activities such as fetching paintbrushes for children around a table; one child counts how many friends are around the table and then fetches the corresponding number of paintbrushes.
During play there are multiple opportunities for children to sort toys, blocks, and play materials according to colour, size or shape. A number of games require children to classify pictures into groups or to make comparisons. Building puzzles require children to create the picture by matching colours and shapes and rotating puzzles pieces to interlock — all skills which are related to, and encourage problem-solving skills.
Learning about the different kinds of shapes, its characteristics and discovering patterns are learned while the child plays with a game containing shapes and an adult interacts with the child. Children learn the names of the shapes, discover patterns and are given the vocabulary to explain the properties of the shapes as a result of the child and the practitioner’s conversation during play.
Learning about space happens when children play outside and make their way through an obstacle course. A tin can, a bundle of sticks, and chairs packed to create a tunnel is a perfect play activity to learn spatial words such as going around the can, jumping over the bundle of sticks and crawling through the legs of the chair. The sandpit is the perfect play opportunity to learn about measurement. As the child scoops sand into a bucket, asking the child how many scoops fill the bucket, is your bucket almost full, how many more scoops do you think can fit into this bucket, encourages mathematical learning. This kind of conversation turns everyday play activities of children into opportunities for learning mathematical concepts and skills.
Understanding measurement, space, numbers and the world of mathematics happens when children are provided with rich play opportunities where the adult is able to join in or extend children’s play, linking it to what young children should be understanding about early mathematics. Painting, building puzzles and constructing with blocks or children crawling through an obstacle course are perfect playful mathematics early learning opportunities. Understanding mathematics through play should be advocated for and implemented by all who serve young children.
Monica Stach is COO of Cotlands
About PLAY
The world of Powerful Learning around You is captured in a loaded four-letter word: PLAY. The department of basic education, Unicef, Cotlands and the LEGO Foundation partnered in South Africa to enhance early learning through the power of play. This is done through the PLAY in-service training programme for 150 000 early childhood development practitioners and teachers responsible for grades R, one, two and three over the next two years. PLAY is a free in-service training course that compliments existing and formal training, where trainees complete the coursework online at their own pace. After completion each trainee will receive a certificate linked to credits associated with continuous professional development. Interested individuals can SMS “PLAY” to 30594 to receive more details about enrolment.