The Challenge of Time Time is one of the biggest challenges for teachers who want to use play as the foundation for their curricula. Curricula may be divided into segmented blocks of time that may be inadequate for optimal focus and engagement. Consider children playing with blocks. Block building involves a developmental sequence of increasingly […]
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Types of Activity Centers Materials Play requires materials that children can use to explore their physical limits, to learn about natural phenomena, to employ imagination and make believe, and to develop language and conceptual understandings. An extensive commercial market offers an array of choices targeted to the needs and interests of young children. However, a
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Types of Activity Centers Dedicated Space Play Focus Dramatic play Pretend play with props (themed materials) that allows children to take on roles and develop play scenarios about familiar themes Construction Building with blocks and other materials that can be put together and taken apart; woodworking Language and literacy Reading, listening to tapes and
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Play as an Organizing Element of the Curriculum Ross Whitaker / Getty Images Classroom space is defined for specific activities, in this case an area for block play. A convincing body of evidence confirms the importance of play in the setting of early childhood education. As the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) stated in a
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Social Perspectives In 1932 Mildred Parten described a continuum of four increasingly interactive social levels of play. She named these solitary, parallel, associative, and cooperative to correspond with children’s level of involvement with others during play. Although the time frames Parten initially described have been shown to be more fluid than was first thought, early
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Cognitive Perspectives Piaget described qualitative changes to play over the early childhood period; he saw play development as a series of stages that paralleled the child’s increasing complexity of thought and reasoning. Practice play is characterized by reflexive, repetitive, or functional actions, as when a toddler pounds large pegs into a block of wood with
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What might you expect to learn about a child’s cognitive, physical, or social development from observing the child at play? Much has also been learned over time about the role of language as children develop play scripts (Bateson, 1976). When one child announces to another, “Let’s play veterinarianI’ll be the doctor and you be the
Benefits of Play Neuroscientists have become increasingly focused on the connections between play and brain development. A theory of mind has emerged that describes how the child’s process of understanding the difference between reality and the abstract develops through symbolic play (Bodrova & Leong, 2007). When a 3-year-old begins to use wooden blocks to represent
What Is Play? Most early childhood educators agree that play is an active and enjoyable activity that is internally motivated, process-oriented, and directed by the players. The International Play Association (2009) has this to say about play: [It should be] controlled by children rather than adults, and . . . undertaken for its own sake
The Importance of Play Smith Collection / Getty Images All children are motivated to play. In 1989 the United Nations expressed the conviction that every child has a right to play. Whatever their needs, we know that all young children learn through all their senses, and that a good curriculum will provide activities that encourage
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