3 minute read…
By: Beatriz Martinez
Psychologist & Early Childhood Educator
- In a play-based education, children are presented with experiences and invitations to play. There are different types of play that stimulate the development of different skills: dramatic or pretend play, sensory play, creative or artistic play, kinesthetic or movement play, construction play, rough and tumble play, etc.
The invitations to play that are presented to them have an objective behind them. One that is broader than just teaching letters and numbers or other academic concepts.
Children in play-based settings will invariably learn these concepts, and they will also learn so much more.
In a play-based setting, instead of emphasizing the need to learn letters and numbers, teachers focus on the acquisition of skills.
For instance, instead of traditional activities around numbers, play-based teachers will come up with experiences that foster mathematical or logical thinking, which are much more relevant and meaningful.
In a play-based setting, these invitations to play have many objectives all at once. Invitations to play are hands-on, meaning that children are the ones doing them themselves, using the tools and materials, choosing where to play, and for how long.
- This leads me to another defining aspect of play-based education: Choice.
In a play-based setting, education is child-led or child-directed. This means that the interests of the child are KEY to what the teachers present to him or her. Like adults, not all children have the same interests at the same time, and why should they? A child might be interested in building towers over and over again with the blocks, while another one enjoys water play and another one is interested in lining up trucks and yet another one spends long periods mixing paints to create great works of process art.
Play-based educators know that their students will have different interests and that these are to be encouraged. A child’s interests inform you about his personality, strengths, and aptitudes, about his ability to learn.
Also, a child learns much more easily when he or she is interested and engaged. In play-based learning, you offer opportunities to work on the same concepts than in traditional schooling, but in a way that is engaging to each student and inclusive of all children.
Without choice, it cannot be considered play.
- Another defining aspect of play-based learning is the role of teachers. In a play-based setting teachers are companions, facilitators of experiences, nurturers, mediators, play-mates, and also learners.
In a traditional setting, the teacher is the loudest voice in the classroom and the “source of all knowledge.” Play-based teachers know that they are not the source of all knowledge, because children are capable beings and they will learn much more than what an individual teacher can offer.
Play-based teachers are there to spark a child’s interest and love of learning, to support the development of skills through relevant interventions, to model appropriate behaviors and ways of solving problems, to inspire children to be creative, to show new ways of playing and also to be amazed by what children come up with on their own.
A play-based teacher is not someone who offers “fun activities.” Many activities can be fun and that does not necessarily mean they are play-based. Why not? First of all, because fun is subjective. What is fun to one child might not be for another one, and we can’t standardize play like that.
A play-based teacher aims to provide play opportunities that are high-level. This means that they put the child in a mental state that is key to learning and integrating lifelong concepts.
High-level play is play that engages the child and his senses, that puts him in a state of thinking, that teaches him problem-solving and creative thinking.
- This takes me to another important factor of play-based learning and that is enjoyment. For something to be considered play, it must be thoroughly enjoyed by the child. This does not mean that it will not sometimes be challenging or that it lacks difficulty, but it has to be something that generates wonder or joy in the child. Only when the child is in a state of wonder, will the brain successfully learn and integrate knowledge.
Read the next article to JUMP IN the Play-Based Method!