would you consider what Barney is doing child-directed play or teacherdirected activity?
| Differentiating Play From Other Activities
Based on the details provided, would you consider what Barney is doing child-directed play or teacherdirected activity? Verify your answer by referring back to the basic definitions of play or by reviewing Table 5.1: Characteristics of play. What answers would confirm the child’s activity as play? What responses would be indicative of activity that is not play? Next time you are in an early childhood classroom, use Bodrova and Leong’s four guiding questions to differentiate play from other types of activities. |
Now that we have considered what people in our era define as play, we will take a look at the ways in which theorists and researchers have theorized about the topic, starting with the so-called classical theories, those that have provided the historical foundation for today’s thinking.