Play and Child Development

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Play and Child Development
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Definition of Play

• To engage in activity for amusement
• New Websters Dictionary (Canadian Edition)
• work of childhood

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• Play has a legitimate and important role to play
  in Kindergarten and can be used to further
  childrens learning in all areas of the
  Kindergarten program.
• The Kindergarten Program Ministry Document

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Play is

• Intrinsically motivated
• Freely chosen
• Pleasurable
• Non-literal
• Actively engaged

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Through play children can develop

• Creativity
• Convergent thinking
• Divergent thinking
• Problem solving
• Representational skills and concept development
• Language and literacy development
• The Kindergarten Program Ministry Document

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Types of Play

• Sensory play
• Play with motion
• Rough and tumble play
• Language play
• Dramatic play
• Constructive play (play with games and rituals)

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• Play provides opportunities for learning in a
  context in which children are at their most
  receptive. During play with others and with
  materials and equipment in their environment,
  children become immersed in activities through
  which they learn about themselves and explore
  their world.
• The Kindergarten Program Ministry Document

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The Teachers Role

• Create a developmentally appropriate environment
  to facilitate childrens exploration and
  interaction with the environment
• Promote active engagement between child and
  classroom environment
• Provide scaffolding if needed
• Promote independence and a self-extending system
  of learning
• Ensure students are working at an appropriately
  challenging level and adjust the amount of
  support based on each childs ability

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• It is important that teachers develop an
  understanding of how children learn through play
  by observing and analyzing childrens play. Such
  an understanding will allow them to plan
  productive play activities that have specific
  learning goals and to provide appropriate and
  stimulating resources. Teachers should monitor
  play activities carefully and be available to
  assist with or extend the activities as
  appropriate.
• The Kindergarten Program Ministry Document

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Observe, Observe, Observe!

• Selection, approaches, and completion of task
• Routines
• Interactions in groups, on playground, in gym, on
  field trips, etc.
• Originality, creativity, curiosity
• Use of manipulatives

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Assess for

• Strengths
• Needs
• Interests
• Growth over time
• Planning
• Evaluating
• Celebrating

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Diagnostic Assessment

• Direct observation
• Interacting/conferencing with the child
• Talking with parents
• Early and ongoing identification information
• Portfolios
• Previous report cards
• Developmental profiles
• Self evaluation
• Anecdotal notes
• Checklists
• Rubrics

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Play and Cognitive Development
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Exploratory/Functional Play

• Children are able to actively explore materials
  and environments
• Develop sense of accomplishment and independence
• Do something over and over until they have
  mastered it, feel good about their newly acquired
  skill
• Examples
• -pounding playdough
• -running fingers through sand or water
• -mixing paint to find primary/secondary colours
• Children are more likely to learn if they are
  able to be involved in hands on learning

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Constructive Play

• Child uses objects or materials to create a
  representation of something
• Symbolic thinking and elements of pretend
• Hands on experiences once again
• Examples
• -building a fort with blocks
• -building a sand castle
• -building a car for unit on structures
• Good outlet for emotional energy

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Dramatic Play

• Child uses objects, actions, and language to
  create imaginary roles and situations
• Connection between real and pretend
• Emotional outlet, creativity development
• Examples
• Playing house
• Re-enacting a story/drama activities
• Puppets

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• Cognitive Skills Enhanced During Play
• Measurement
• Equivalency
• Balance
• Spatial concepts
• Conservation
• Decentration
• Reversibility
• Logical classification

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• Play and Social Development

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Solitary Play

• Independent activities
• Examples
• -Puzzles
• -lining up toys
• -dolls
• Early form of play
• Teaches children to be creative, and amuse
  themselves
• Development of independence

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Parallel Play

• Children use similar toys or engage in similar
  activities but do not play together
• Child will notice what other child is doing and
  may mimic what they see
• May work their way into other persons play
• Can help child understand that everyone is
  different and everyone has their own ideas and
  way of doing things
• Example
• -two child sitting side by side lining up
  different animals

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Associate Play

• Children engaging in similar, somewhat organized
  activity
• May talk about what they are doing, share toys
  and ask questions
• Children do not engage in joint efforts
• Teaches child to share and ask questions
• Example
• -two children playing side by side lining up
  toys, one child asks to borrow one of the other
  childs toys to continue on with own play

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Cooperative Play

• two or more children interacting with one another
  toward a common purpose
• different roles and responsibilities,
  contributions made by all
• child learns to work together, share roles,
  compromise, cooperate, etc.
• Examples
• two students working together on a puzzle
• a group of students completing a science
  experiment
• -Children playing house and assigning roles to
  each person

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• Not all play activities should be initiated by
  the teacher, however. Children need
  opportunities to engage with their peers in play
  activities of their own devising, through which
  they can express themselves and explore things of
  special interest to them.
• The Kindergarten Program Ministry Document

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FREE PLAY!!!

• Decision making skills
• Learn about themselves, and others in the world
• Concentration skills
• Rationalizing

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• Choosing Materials

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Blocks

• Measurement
• Unit iteration parts from a whole
• Subdivision whole into parts
• Equivalency
• Balance

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Blocks

• Spatial concept
• Piaget and Inhelders Euclidean Spatial Concept
  (space is thought of as an overall network,
  independent of the number or the arrangement of
  elements within it)
• Building up and out
• Grid patterns
• Logical classification
• Sort by features
• Putting things away by shape and size

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Clay

• Piaget (Conservation)
• Regardless of change of appearance, the amount
  stays the same if nothing is added or subtracted
• Dividing and combining

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Water Play

• Floatation
• Bubbles
• Measurement
• Conservation of liquid (Piaget)
• Decentration
• Reversibility

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C Mr oe va et mi ev ne t

• Schemes (Piaget)
• Consistent action patterns that are the childs
  earliest concepts
• Enactive Representation (Bruner)
• Information about the world can be encoded
  motorically instead of, or as well as, mentally
• Any subject can be taught through the medium of
  movement

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• Fluid Construction Toys
• Paints and clay to create unspecified product
• Perceptual performance (drawing, block building,
  puzzle forming, right to left orientation)
• Structured Construction Toys
• Blocks, legos, puzzles
• Verbal, perceptual, quantitative and memory
  development
• Microsymbolic Toys
• Toy cars and trucks, dolls and toy buildings
• Enhance memory
• Macrosymbolic Toys
• Child size play equipment
• Memory, perceptual performance, quantitative
  skills

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Free Play 10 Benefits to Children

• Muscular development and control of large
  muscles, fine motor skills and eye-hand
  coordination.
• Speech development
• Social development
• Language skill development
• Problem solving and creative thinking
• Increased consciousness of the cause and effect
  involved in a sequence of events.
• Therapeutic value
• Opportunities for self talk
• Development of self-confidence
• Learning cooperation and values
• Sheila G. Flaxman (Play An Endangered Species)

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What do others have to say about play?

• Rousseau
• Locke
• Freud
• Erikson
• Bruner
• Sutton-Smith
• Vygotsky
• Piaget

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Classic Theories

• (Hebert Spencer, G.T.W. Patrick, G. Stanley Hall,
  Karl Goos)
• Play as instinctive mechanism that either
  promoted optimal physical development or
  reflected the evolutionary history of human
  species
• Discharge pent up energy
• Renewal of energy
• Natural way of preparing body for the tasks of
  adult life

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Jean Jacques Rousseau(1712 1784)

• Transformation position
• Children are good but become corrupted through
  their contact with society
• Philosophy of naturalism
• Education should let the childs inner nature
  unfold
• Little harm would come from allowing children to
  play without excessive adult supervision
• First twelve years of life should be a time of
  leisure
• Childhood glorified and innocence celebrated

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John Locke(1632 1704)

• Transmission position
• The mind as a tabula rasa (blank slate)
• Education is a process of habit formation
• Repetition and drill important
• Each child is unique and valuable, developmental
  needs need to be realized by adults
• Knowledge comes through the senses
• Gentle and respectful approaches to help children
  develop their own internal controls
• Moral education
• Did not condemn play, play helped child develop
  rationality and discipline

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Sigmund and Anna Freud

• Play is primarily emotional, reduction of stress
• Objective anxiety
• -fear of the external world (helplessness,
  abandonment, etc.)
• -play gives the child the illusion of power and
  control
• Instinctual anxiety
• -unwelcome feelings
• -ego related
• -play allows for the exploration of various
  feelings without adult repercussions

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Erik Erikson

• Play has an ego-building function
• Development of physical and social skills which
  enhance self-esteem
• Three main goals of play
• Exploration of childs body (autocosmic play)
• Mastery over objects (enhances the ego)
  (microsphere play)
• Social interactions (understand culture and
  social roles) (macrosphere play)

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Jerome Bruner and Brian Sutton-Smith

• Play facilitates intellectual growth
• Provides a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere
• Learn to solve problems

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Lev Vygotsky

• Play is essential in the formation of the childs
  symbolic abilities
• Role playing, stereotypes, rules of behaviour
• Acceptance in social situations

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Jean Piaget

• Adapt to environment
• Assimilation and accommodation
• Play as a consolidation of newly learned
  behaviours
• Play facilitates learning
• Games of construction (area of transition between
  symbolic play and nonplayful activities)
• Play facilitates learning in that it exposes a
  child to new experiences and new possibilities
  for dealing with the world.

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School Age Children(Intellectual, Social, and
Personality Development)
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• Intellectual
• Childs thinking is becoming more orderly, more
  structures and more logical
• Play becomes more realistic and more rule
  oriented
• Reflect a developing need for order
• Social
• Peer group provides support
• Acceptance is important
• Play reflects a need for order
• Personality
• Self-concept development
• Talents, skills, and abilities to be proud of
• Play reflects need for industry

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The Emergence of Logical Thinking Need for Order

• Piaget children (age 5 or 6) enter concrete
  operational stage of development
• Thinking is more logical and orderly
• Ie. Sorting shapes according to size, colour, or
  number of lines
• Cause and effect
• Play becomes more realistic and characterized by
  need for order

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The Childhood Peer Group A Need to Belong

• School age children increasingly peer oriented
  and decreasingly family oriented
• Belonging
• Being different
• Spend more time with peers than family

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The Developing Self-Concept A Need for Industry

• Applying themselves for the adult world
• Eager to be productive, feeling of
  accomplishments
• Play as a component of healthy ego development

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• Adolescents
• (Intellectual, Social, and Personality
  Development)

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Characteristics

• Transition from thinking in concrete to thinking
  in formal operations
• Uses logic
• Problem solving skills
• Hypothetical-deductive reasoning (use of
  if-then statements)
• Sometimes forget about realistic limitations on
  their dreams
• Adolescent egocentrism
• Personal fable that no one else could possibly
  share or understand their thoughts or feelings,
  good things only happen to other people

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• The Redefinition of Friendship A Need for
  Communication
• The Growth of Self-Awareness A Need for Identity

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Adolescent Play

• Attend movies
• Watch television
• Read
• Got to a dance
• Listen to music
• Watch music videos
• Hang around with friends
• Unstructured activities

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• Children are not empty vessels to be filled with
  knowledge but active builders of knowledge
  little scientists who are constantly creating and
  testing their own theories of the world.
• Learning the multiplication tables and alphabet
  are very important. But those skills need to
  reside inside a mind that has been expanded by
  the imaginative and joyous exploration of our
  environment and the possibility that it offers
  for fun. (Jane Healy, Psychologist)
• One thing we can bet on is that we will still
  need people who can solve problems, which is one
  benefit of play. The people who brought us the
  technology of today were obviously wonderful
  players. (Rhonda Clements, American Association
  for the Childs Right to Play)