The Role of Play in the Early Years of Learning - Annotated Bibliography Example

The role of play in the early years of learning Name University Affiliation Curriculum.nesd.ca/Subjects/Kindergarten. (2010). The importance of play. Retrieved from http://curriculum.nesd.ca/Subjects/Kindergarten/General/Ministry%20Kindergarten%20S upports/The%20Importance%20of%20Play.pdf on 5th 05 2013. This article defines play as any activity done by someone free of choice without forcing him to do for his/her enjoyment. The three criteria given by this article for an activity to be termed as a play are; it should be free of choice by an individual, it should for personal enjoyment, and the focus is on the activity itself rather than its outcomes. These three criteria are quite important to the play process and connecting children with their learning. Moreover, play activity has its own characteristics. Some of these characteristics are play; it is self directed, self selected, open-ended, voluntary, enjoyable, motivating flexible etc. This article also looks at the history of play. It states that play especially in children is as old as human kind. However, it was included in school curriculum almost 150 years ago where the Froebel’s Kindergartens incorporated playing materials in the school curriculum to support the learning of children. Later on, the MacMillan sister in England incorporated open-ended games as essential part of learning in school programs. When the Kindergarten programs were introduced in North America, it prompted the scholars to ponder about the nature of the plays that ought to be included in the preschool programs. Modern theories about learning see the plays as the process that tends to support young children in making sense of their environment. The general role of play in children is that it helps the children in cognitive development. According to Piaget, there are several stages of cognitive play. The characteristics of these stages of cognitive play include functional play, constructive play, dramatic and game with rules. This implies that when a child play, his metal cognitive prepares for these. Another role of play it helps children to develop physical development. Physical exercise is where by the body muscles are exercised and grow normally. The bones develop well in the body and enhancing smooth blood flow. The body exerciser helps to eliminate obesity a condition characterized by accumulation of body fats under the skin and tissues bringing health complications. Moreover, play assist a lot in social development. Children learn the social skills such as relating with other children and the elders. This is very important for their growth since human being is a social being who need to associates with others every time. Moreover, this article also enumerates the role and responsibilities of adults in children play. First, the adults in children play are to ensure children’s safety. Adults always guide the children not to engage in dangerous play that can harm. Secondly, elders are there to value and appreciate the play children after engaging in. They encourage the children to continue and direct them to play a certain game knowing well that a particular skill is being mastered when the game is played repeatedly by children. Another role of adults in children’s play is they create conducive environment where children would play from so that they can learn some thing that is meaningful They organize the environment by putting their some playing material, providing physical space and other resources to enhance positive outcome in playing. Adults also engage children in meaningful conversation that would later on increase their learning. Moreover, when adults interact with children during playing they increase the understanding of children’s interests, knowledge and language development. Smith, Peter. &Pellegrini, Antony. (2008). Learning through play. Retrieved from http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/pages/PDF/play.pdf Smith and Pellegrini assert that we have different kinds of play children practice on daily basis. Some of these types of play are; Locomotor play; or exercise play, this is where children involve in active playing where they move from one place to another. It involves running, walking, climbing, sliding, swimming etc. Locomotor play majorly involves; large body activity and it is generally thought to boost physical training of the body muscles for endurance strength and some skill. Locomotor play is said to increase right from toddler age to preschool and extend to early primary school age the age where the neural and muscular basis of physical coordination and healthy is important. Exercise play tend to provide good chances for this, however, it start declining when the child grows to upper primary. Secondly, we have social play which refers to playful interaction among children themselves and caregivers. The social play increases dramatically in most cases from the age of 2 to 6 years. Social play can involve more than two participants; they do this and acquire social coordination skills. Social play sometimes involves parallel play where they play with others without much interaction. We also have rough and tumble social play where children as if they are fighting one another but they do not hurt, they just pretend to be fighting. In rough and tumble social play, children always laugh, blows and kicks without the intention of hurting one another. It is usually done among friends. Thirdly we have object play where children use objects such as building bricks, car dolls, jig puzzles, balls, stones, and many more. It involves manipulating of these objects with their arms. They use bricks and stones to pretend building the houses, fencing and feeding these dolls. Plays which involve objects among children allow them to practice and try out new combination of actions which are free from external influence. This kind o play helps greatly in developing problem solving skills. Smith and Pellegrini (2008) emphasizes that the education planners need to balance the benefits of objects play against those of instruction keeping n mind the ages of children and the nature of the tasks. Fourthly, we have language play, this kind of play prevail much age the age of 2 years where children are trying to master the language skills and communication. It involves repetition of words and sometimes laughter. When children practice language play, they develop a number of language elements. For example, the language skills or phonology include speech and sound, Vocabulary and semantics, grammar or syntax and pragmatics where language is used appropriately in some social situations. To some extend, children can develop language skills through solitary monologues where they bubble to themselves however, most benefits of language learning develop from social interaction playing. Lastly, we have pretend play which involves that an object or action is just some thing else that is different from the reality. For example children can take strings to be telephone lines, match box to be mobile phones or chairs to be vehicles. Pretend play usually develops right from 15 months onwards where they have started mastering the skills of communication and have started to become independent. In most cases, pretend play involves socio dramatic play which is common from around three years of age. Children often pretend with others, they play role taking for example a father and mother game, they negotiate meanings and roles and they tend to argue over appropriate behavior. Pretend plays have bee associated with the development of pre-literacy skills such as knowledge of print and letters. Almon Joan. The vital role of play in early childhood education. Retrieved from http://www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/BAPlayAlmon.pdf The author of this articles says that most studies conducted about the role of play in early childhood, states that creative play plays a central ole in the lives of healthy children. She points out that play aid children to weave together all the elements of life as they experience it. Plays in children make them to digest life experiences and try to make it on their own. One of the observations is that with creative play, children flourish in their skill development but without creative play, the development of skills decline. Joan points out that some parents restricts their children f4om playing, she warns that this kind of behavior does not allow children to explore various filed of life to find their own special places here they belong. Therefore, the demise of play could have serious consequences to children in their future life. This article points out that different kinds of play have their own role in development of various skills in children. For example, the exercise play which involves vigorous body movements helps children to develop large motor skills. The full development tor skills is quite health in muscle development and coordination. Such a child would likely to participate in co-curricular activities at schools without any problem. Moreover, when children are involved in playing with small objects such and cutting with scissors, sewing with the needle modeling with clay, stringing beads helps in the development of fine motor skills. Fine motor skills would later own be important in development of writing skills. Joan the author of this article continues to enlighten us that when children involve in social play, for example play that involve taking turn, sharing, listening to others and cooperating with others helps in the development of social skills. Social skills are the ones that help people to get along with others in the society. In most cases, we see adult people deviating and being antisocial in the society. One main cause of this behavior is that they did not develop social skills well when they were young. Such people often are a nuisance to others because it is hard to agree and move on with others in the society. Therefore, this implies that we must be able to allow children to play with others so that they can develop socialization skills which will help them to grow as responsible and reliable people in the society. Through socio-dramatic play children tend to construct knowledge about the world in which they are living. They engage in problem solving as well as learning skill; they use this kind of play to resolve their own inner conflicts. This means that when children in involve in social play they develop autonomy where they do not rely on parents for assistance in solving their own problems, however, they just solve them independently. Moreover, this article points out that when children interact with one another they learn to self regulate. They learn how to keep time, how to manage their emotions, and how they are supposed to be having in different kinds of groups of people. When children sing songs, narrate stories and play games, they build language and vocabularies skills. This he skill helps them very much in their later part of life when they attend school. They would be able to connect issues being taught in class easily they would have already developed the coordinating skills. Therefore, such plays prepare them earlier for more complicated tasks that need well developed skills. Moreover, when they engage in verbal and non verbal communication, they increase their ability to use language effectively. Generally, play in children helps them to relax and feel free from stress. Anderson-McNamee, Jona &Bailey, Sandra (2010). The importance of play in early childhood development. Retrieved from http://msuextension.org/publications/HomeHealthandFamily/MT201003HR.pdf Parents and caregivers should know that play is important for their children’s development. It offers us with an opportunity to connect with our children, thus we should know that we are the first to be our children’s teachers. We should understand that play tend to help our children to learn the rules of our family and exactly what is expected of them. This means that parents and caregivers must create time for their children to play and even play with them. Scholars teach us that we should start playing with our children when they are still very young for consistence grasping of skills. Anderson and Sandra enumerate some of the benefits of play in children. They emphasize that children gain knowledge through playing. They learn to think, remember and solve problems. This means that pal gives an opportunity to children to test their belief about the world. Once a child test and prove a particular issue, it means he/she has gained some knowledge. Through play, young people increase their problem solving skills through games and puzzles. Thus, in general play in children stimulates various kinds of learning. These authors point out that play helps in learning interrelationships between objects. They gain an understanding of shape texture and size of objects when they are engaged in playing. Books that show pictures, toys, shapes helps greatly children in associating the image and the really objects. This develops the skill of accuracy. Knowing interrelationship will help them greatly for example solving their own issues without involving an adult. Once the children can know interrelationship between objects, they understand about the world very well. Another benefit of play is that it builds the skill of creativity and imagination. When the skill of creativity and critical thinking is established in children’s, it means that they would be in a position to autonomous in their life; this means that the will be independent. Creativity helps the child to develop self confidence and the ability to recover from the setbacks. For example, when n the child has been playing and he is frustrated because what he has been doing has not gone through, he will use the skills of creativity to reverse the situation and find happiness or success in what he is doing. Hence play tends to help children to experts their views, experiences and even frustration. Lastly, this articles notify us that play is important to young children since it assist children in adjusting to the school setting when the children enters school for the first time. Play enhances children’s learning readiness in that it prepares their cognitive development. When children engage in play during the break time in school allows earning and the practice of the social skills. They learn how to make friends and interact with one another. Moreover, play in school allows children to explore, discover and manipulate their environment to suit their liking. Hawes, Jane. Early Childhood learning. Let the children Play: Nature’s Answer to early Learning. Retrieved from http://www.ccl- cca.ca/pdfs/ECLKC/lessons/Originalversion_LessonsinLearning.pdf It is import that early childhood educators, parents, care givers to do the following things to increase learning when children are playing. First, they should ensure that early learning environment have a balance of children initiated play and full of directed learning. Secondly, they should ensure that they improve the scope and quality of play in early learning environments. Teachers are also advised to create tools that would assist in assessing the quality and play environment of children. These stakeholders are also required to promote the value of play and children’s right to play. Teachers and parents should ensure that there is enough time space conditions for play both indoors and outdoors so as to expose children to a variety of environment fro them to develop fully. Bibliography Almon Joan. The vital role of play in early childhood education. Retrieved from http://www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/BAPlayAlmon.pdf Anderson-McNamee, Jona &Bailey, Sandra (2010). The importance of play in early childhood development. Retrieved from http://msuextension.org/publications/HomeHealthandFamily/MT201003HR.pdf Hawes, Jane. Early Childhood learning. Let the children Play: Nature’s Answer to early Learning. Retrieved from http://www.ccl- cca.ca/pdfs/ECLKC/lessons/Originalversion_LessonsinLearning.pdf Smith, Peter. &Pellegrini, Antony. (2008). Learning through play. Retrieved from http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/pages/PDF/play.pdf on 5th 05 2013. Curriculum.nesd.ca/Subjects/Kindergarten. (2010). The importance of play. Retrieved from http://curriculum.nesd.ca/Subjects/Kindergarten/General/Ministry%20Kindergarten %20S upports/The%20Importance%20of%20Play.pdf on 5th 05 2013. Read More