How does play support childrens learning?

Question

How does play support childrens learning?

Answer 1

I do not know why anyone would question the benifits of play for children but if you need a list here is a list of things you can teach children through play. Physical games like catch and moving things about teach large and small muscle control, eye-hand coordination, and foot-hand coordination  sorting games teach color recognition, and shape recognition.  Musical games and dancing teach audio, visual concepts and soft or smooth plastic and cloth toys teach tactual perception.   Many game depend on positive thinking exercises  and developement of locomotor skills to become more fun, some require the creative development of the imagination and beginning problem-solving solving skills to master.  Childrens brains are hungry for concepts and fact based experiances.  The worst thing we can do is leave them in isolated situations with nothing to stimulate their minds.  Reading to children greatly helps them in memory development skills and letting them finish the line in a prepracticed song or paragraph greatly assists them in their pre-reading skills.  Any thing we encourage them to do with crayons or pencils or clay and chalk helps them gain prewriting skills.    Games are the work of childhood. And skills are their paychecks.

As they grow they will learn to modify their playing behavior to get the results they want from others and these social skills pay off big time when they reach headstart and kindergarden.

Answer 2

you need to look at Tina Bruce, her work identifies the types of play and why it is the only way that young children learn. Play allows children to experiment and explore. They are active learners, they need to be able to move around and be fully engaged in what they are doing. They learn by watching and copying adults and other children. Play, especially when it's facilitated by sensitive adults, extend children's thinking skills. they effectively learn to learn by using the skills they develop through playing. OK?? :-)

Answer 3

They figure things out for themselves while having fun.  We all should be so lucky.

Answer 4

Play is vital in helping children to learn about relationships.  The ability of the infant to co-operate in interacting with others in play is instrumental in developing a sense of self and of others as being separate from self.

When children play together, as they do in a more and more co-operative fashion after the age of three years, they are demonstrating a range of skills.  During play, they are engaging in a highly co-operative way and demonstrating a sophisticated level of intersubjectivity. (shared focus of attention).  One of the most important venues for children to interact in this way is at preschool, which provides excellent opportunities for them to utilise and sharpen these skills by providing the opportunity for them to engage in co-operative and pretend play with their peers.  

One of the features of play in children in their third year is the way in which their pretend play, which until now has been based within a role of compliancy, becomes more social and shared with other children.  There is evidence that the nature of pretence in play is to allow the child to gain an understanding of his own emotional life.  It has been demonstrated that children’s representations during pretend play originate from significant emotional experiences in their lives.

The very act of pretence requires a sophisticated knowledge of both self and other people, because the child must demonstrate the capability of taking on the role of a pretend person who may have emotions and thoughts which may not coincide with his or her own.  This clearly shows the child’s growing ability to understand the mental states of others and is supported by other evidence, such as the fact that during the second half of the third year, children do begin to speak about their own and other people’s mental states.

  

In addition, the level of intersubjectivity and metacommunication witnessed in pretend play scenarios, requires colossal co-operation between playmates.  The co-operative play and pretend play fostered by the ‘preschool’ situation is of great benefit to children as they gain the opportunity to sharpen the skills, which will enable them to achieve a better understanding of themselves and others.  To highlight this point it is interesting to consider the fortunes of children who have difficulty with co-operative and pretend play.  

Children have a need to be able to understand the perspective of others in order to accurately predict their responses, in addition to guiding their own actions; - Many researchers call this ability 'theory of mind' and it is an ability, which is notably lacking in many children who suffer autism.

Autistic children tend not to engage in cooperative and pretend play and so do not learn to understand the perspectives of other people. - They do not develop 'theory of mind.'

Answer 5

Hi!

I am Teacher of Pre-school in Brazil...

Here, in Brazil, we have the RCNEI (Reference National Curriculum for Children's Education) to help us...

RCNEI’s part

"The game promotes the self-esteem of children, helping them to gradually overcome their purchases so creative. Contributes Free Play thereby to the internalization of certain models of adult, in the context of various social groups."

Where there is joke, of course, there is joy! They go hand in hand! A good educator should "bring" joy for your classroom!

The joy "promotes" the interaction, which in turn facilitates the learning, as well used!

Examples:

- "Free play little house";

- Imitate the characters of a program child;

- Listening to a story (without illustrations) and represent it with a dramatization or drawings.

Well, this is!

Carmen

Answer 6

They get to learn the basic social skills, like sharing, talking to peers, cooperating with others, etc.

With free play, they are able to learn on their own, discovering how things work, pretending, etc.

Without play, children would not be children; they would be robots.

Answer 7

It allows them to discover things in a safe environment and having fun is surely the best way to learn anything?

Plus there's collaboration and communication etc. etc.

Answer 8

play is THE way children learn... reading writing maths, it all starts as a game... it also builds their social skills

Answer 9

All play is learning.  Without play as a basis for all learning everything else will be lacking.  A child needs creativity, which is not encouraged later on in our facts and knowledge based education system .  Emotional development needs ownership of creative play.

Play is the only way to learn.

Answer 10

In her article "The Play's the Thing: Styles of Playfulness", Betty Jones, notes the many ways children learn through play...

They make appropriate choices among many possibilities......

    They use their imagination, to improvise, to think flexibly, and explore new options......

    They learn to be aware of their own real interests, without being distracted by other possibilities: to say "yes" and to say "no.".....

    Children learn to solve problems, both with materials and with people......

    They learn to cooperate with other children in the creation of mutually satisfying projects......

    Children learn to work through their feelings in creative, non-destructive ways......

    They begin to pay attention to a project until it's done......

    They  use something — a dramatic action, a word, a toy, a set of blocks, a collection of marks on paper — to represent something else — a real experience, a powerful feeling. Practice in these sorts of representation is essential in the process of becoming literate, which is another form of representation......

    They begin to see themselves themselves as competent and interesting people, with useful skills and good ideas......

Answer 11

You know how they always say that when animals are still babies they play to prepare and learn things about growing up? Well humans are the same. Playing helps develop motor and social skills.

Answer 12

it allows them to discovers things in a safe enviorment. i spelled emviorment wrong didnt i. well can sopmeone tell me how to spell it please. my answer is that 1st sentence up there.

Answer 13

It develops enquiring minds that are able to solve problems.  Also great for social skills eg cooperation, negotiation etc.