Unit

1
Unit 4--Creative, Language/Cognitive Competence
in Young Children

• Chapter 16--Fostering Creativity in Play

2
Questions to Answer

• Is play really as important as some people claim
  it is?
• How do you encourage play without dominating it?
• What do some teachers think blocks are so
  important?

3
Introduction

• Play avenue for kids to express feelings.
• Children can play out scenarios -- changing their
  real life.
• Invent endings.
• Reverse roles.
• Serious business/work of children!
• Many administrators and parents continue to
  misunderstand and underestimate the importance of
  play.
• From Puritan ethic -- suspicious of pleasure and
  self-enjoyment.
• Attitude activity that generates delight must be
  viewed with suspicion -- learning gained only
  from suffering.
• Play -- pleasurable, absorbing activity indulged
  for own sake.
• Arises spontaneously from within the child not
  teacher determined.

4
Purposes of Play

• Intrinsic value.
• 1. Fosters physical development!
• 2. Fosters intellectual development!
• Piaget imaginative, pretend play -- one of
  purest forms of symbolic thought available to
  children assimilate reality into childs own
  interests prior knowledge of world.
• Vygotsky fantasy play -- where children approach
  most closely the advanced edge of their zone of
  proximal development children are free to
  experiment, attempt, and try out possibilities --
  most able to reach a little above or beyond their
  usual level of abilities.
• Symbolic play precursor of language development.

5
Play Purposes (cont)

• Intellectual Development (cont)
• acquire information
• Ability to abstract essential qualities of a
  social role and generalize role concepts to a
  greater degree.
• Language is stimulated descriptive language!
• Use of blocks as means of representation --
  symbolization.
• 3. Play enhances social development.
• Imaginative , pretend play dramatic
  sociodramatic play -- number of children
  involved.
• Dramatic -- imitation, can be carried out alone.
• Sociodramatic play -- more advanced -- verbal
  communication and interaction with 2 or more
  people imitative role-playing, make-believe in
  regard to objects, actions and situations and
  persistence in play over a period of time helps
  develop empathy acquire social skills -- how to
  enter a group, balance power and bargain with
  others social give-and-take--successful group
  interaction.

6
Play Purposes (cont.)

• 4. Play contains rich emotional values.
• handle negative positive feelings achieve
  mastery of environment ability to command uses
  imagination powers of choice decision
  pretended and actual mastery--ego strength in
  children.
• 5. Play develops the creative aspect of a
  childs personality.
• Self-expressive activity--imagination.
• Ability to solve problems.
• Freedom to experiment low-risk situations.
• Increase repertoire of responses.
• Divergent thinking fostered.
• Play signals learned negation, enactment of
  role, stating the role or transformation taking
  place.

7
Play

• Common to all cultures.
• Lifeblood of childhood.
• Same toys - offered in different cultures -- for
  different purposes.

8
Piagets Developmental Stages of Play

• Play divided into stages according to childs use
  of materials
• 1. Functional Level -- simple, repetitive,
  exploratory activity. (infants/toddlers)
• 2. Constructive Level -- has a purpose or goal.
  (preschoolers 2-4 years)
• 3. Dramatic or Fantasy Level -- involving
  pretend circumstances. (preschoolers)
• 4. Games with rules. (school-age)

9
Partens Developmental Stages of Play

• 1. Solitary play
• 2. Parallel play
• 3. Associative play
• 4. Cooperative play
• Steps not mutually exclusive play scene can
  involve all four levels.
• Varying levels of sophistication for each!

10
Educational Implications on Play

• Organized, competitive games are developmentally
  inappropriate and uncreative for young children.
• Avoid relay races, dodge ball and kick the can
  with preschoolers.-- used with 2nd and 3rd
  graders.
• Not every idea of children will be new -- come
  from previously played activities. Old will be
  mixed with the new!
• Is a somewhat chaotic quality of creative play
  --- impossible to organize inspiration before it
  happens -- it can be productive -- teacher can
  maintain reasonable order.

11
Techniques/Methods to Facilitate Creative Play

• 1. Avoid dominating the play.
• 2. Include children who have handicaps.
• 3. Stimulate and extend the play.
• Use open-ended questions foster diverent
  thinking!
• Provide adequate time.
• Put what the children are doing into words
  narrate, descriptive, parallel talk.
• 4. Encourage divergence of ideas and unusual
  uses of equipment.
• 5. Cast yourself in the role of assistant to the
  child as you help play emerge. (Teacher uses
  empathy thinking of own childhood.)
• 6. A rich background of actual life experiences
  is fundamental to developing creative play --
  provide field trips, holidays and ethnic group
  experiences -- science, books, visitors. Play
  helps to clarify, understand and integrate
  experiences!

12
Techniques/Methods (cont)

• 7. Equipment play an important role in
  facilitating play realistic props to less
  realistic props -- with experience.
• Select wide variety of basic kinds of equipment.
• Change equipment frequently and recombine it in
  appealing and complex ways.
• Store equipment in convenient, easy-to-reach
  places.
• 8. Keep play areas organized, safe, and
  attractive.
• 9. Provide plenty of freedom, time and materials
  for imaginative play challenge and feeling of
  sufficiency.

13
Activities to Encourage Creativity in Play

• 1. Dramatic Play -- pretending.
• 2. Blocks -- props.
• 3. Water play.
• 4. Mud and sand.