...In what ways, might engaging in pretend play in early childhood be beneficial for a child’s development? Play can be hard to define due to the diverse understanding within different cultures and social norms. To play, is a child to interacting with the environment both mentally and physically. Per Smilanksy (1968) there are four developmental stages of play that a child progresses through. Functional play is exploring through movement using self and objects, learning about cause and effect. Construction play is the next stage in which a child gets creative and builds things, manipulating and experimenting with the environment around them. Dramatic play then follows suit; a child will pretend to be a doctor while role playing and inventing...
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...1. RATIONALE: “Interest in play is booming. Over the past decade, there has been an unprecedented out-pouring of empirical studies, volumes, conferences and news letters addressed to the topic.”(CG Fein, Child Development, 1981) From my research on this particular topic, it is clear that there is more and more work and effort going into researching the benefits of Pretend Play in the lives of young children. I decided to base my research on this topic as it is a vital part of the child’s learning and development and it is a part of a child’s life on a daily basis from almost the minute they are born. Pretend play is partially based on what children experience in their lives and then they imitate this by engaging in pretend play. They pick...
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...of a preschool age child I enjoy watching all the milestones achieved by my children. In this paper I will respond on the developments during my sons two years in preschool. My son began preschool at the age of 3. His physical development made huge strides during preschool, especially his gross motor skills. Gross motor skills involve the large muscles used in locomotion.(pg. 195 Rathus, S. A. (2013). At the age of 3 he could barely ride a tricycle or bounce a basketball. By the age of 4 he learned to ride a bicycle with no training wheels and joined a basketball team which he excelled at. Compared to his classmates he was the only child who could ride a bicycle with no training wheels. According to the text some children are genetically predisposed to developing better coordination or more strength. Motivation and practice also are important. I can say a leading reason for this development came from the fact that when he was close to 4 years old my husband was laid off of work. They spent 3 days a week playing ball together and practicing riding his bike. Coupled with the fact that my my son has always been an athletic child his achievements came easier to him. According to Piaget the preoperational stage of cognitive development lasts from about age 2 to age 7. Operations are mental manipulations of information, and at this stage, Piaget believed that young children's logic is at best “under construction”.(pg. 206 Rathus, S. A. (2013) Symbolic play is a part of the preoperational...
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...recess 12:25-12:50 Activities observed: Children climbing across the climbing rings, watching children pretend play at the tire mountain and under the large wooden play structure with the blue plastic slide. My interaction with the children: I spent a lot of time answering questions about my name and where I am from for the children. Example A: There was one child named “John” on the first recess who was racing across the rings with another child, lost the race and fell to the ground. He then started to cry and called himself a loser. I pulled him aside to try to talk to him to find out what was wrong. He kept telling me that he was a loser because he didn’t win the race and he never wins, and that “all my friends think I am a loser because I cry all the time. They make fun of me because I cry. They beat me up. I am a loser.” I tried to reassure him and tell him I did not think he was a loser. I explained how I thought one of the reasons he lost the race was because he had been climbing across the rings for most of recess was tired from racing. He continued to cry even after his friends came over and tried to get him to play. 1 He just sat in the sand sobbing, so I tried to tell him that his friends came over and asked him to play so it did not appear that they think he is a loser. He said they would beat him up. I tried to get him to go and see if they would play;...
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...supporting the development of a child is an important obligation for all carers. The holistic approach to a child’s development seeks to simultaneously address the physical, linguistic, intellectual, social and emotional aspects of a child’s life. The important fact of the holistic approach is that the child is given the ability to learn different things at his/her different stages of development. This essay will explore why play is important for the holistic development of a child, how playing has an impact on the child’s maturation and how play changes in the first six years of a child’s life. Because of its multi-faceted nature and the fact that it is an intrinsically spontaneous and unpredictable phenomenon, ‘play’ has proved to be extremely difficult to define and research. According to Bruce (1991), ‘play’ is a mechanism for learning, and is one of the most important dispositions to support children’s learning: ‘free-flow play seems to be concerned with the ability and the opportunity to wallow in ideas, experiences, feelings and relationships’ (Bruce, 1991, p42).While playing, children learn how to interact with peers, manage their feelings, explore the world and create new experiences. It can be argued that play helps the child’s cognitive development, which has been agreed upon by theorists, Vygotsky and Piaget. This learning through play will be disused further in the following pages of this thesis. There seems to be a general difficulty to define what ‘Play’ is, and...
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...in which play is said to promote children’s development. To what extent do you think that this influence is beneficial? Research into advancing children’s development in regard to the essence of play has been focused upon more so in the 20th century than ever before. Play appears in a variety of domains during a child’s development, from dropping objects to play-fighting with friends, and shall be thoroughly explored within this essay. The purpose of this discussion is to illustrate accordingly: the distinct types of play demonstrated by children, the degree to which play can influence the development of a child, resulting evidence promoting links between play and development, and the consequence of the removal or replacement of play within childhood. Play denotes an act of behaviour specifically demonstrated in children, which is felt to be enjoyable without displaying a visually obvious logical purpose. Play is not only experienced by children humans as animals have similarly been observed to enjoy a few wonders of play. Infants tend to start their adventure in the ‘world of play’ by experiencing pleasure in the discovery of dropping objects on floors or banging objects together in order to produce a noise. This manipulation of an object’s properties was noted by Piaget as sensorimotor play, and often classified as object play. Infants next move on to what is known to be pretend play, this is when a child starts to exhibit pretend behaviours, such as play-acting ‘going...
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...including when, where, and how children play. Play holds a crucial role in the development of young children, yet play-based learning has been absent from early childhood classrooms for many years. Children interact, learn, and progress through play, whether it be with adults, other children, or by themselves. Mann, Hund, Hesson-McInnis, & Roman (2016) stated, “Early childhood is characterized...
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...Child Cognitive Development INTRODUCTION Jean Piaget looked at the concept of cognitive development from a biological angle. To him, adaptation and organization are the key principles in the human’s intellect and growth. He argued that human beings always strive to have a state of balance in their mind. Adaptation comes about when the child experiences cognitive disability, that is, the situation what the child sees the world as expected and what she or he is undergoing. The child therefore buys new information and integrates with the already existing one. Piaget calls this accommodation. This comes about when the acquired new information doesn’t fit well into the already existing structures. For instance, a child coming across a squirrel for the first time and discovers that it differs with the rabbit. He/she therefore come up with another representation of a squirrel. The mind has to have some form of information organization hence scheme is the basic structure. In a child’s development, play is an important aspect to consider. This is because ideas and concepts are learned and also, there is an enhancement of language, motor skills and social life through play. To Piaget, there are four major stages that are involved in cognitive development. Firstly, we have sensorimotor period that occurs between Zero to two years. At this stage, the child as he interacts with the environment creates sets of concepts and the operations of the reality. There is an engagement in motor...
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...century scholars consider that “free-play” (Bruce, T., 2006) has significant short and long term benefits for children, leading to a healthy psychical and emotional development and better understanding of the world (Bjorklung & Pellegrini in Papalia, Olds & Feldman, 2010). This article will cover an explanation of the concept of play, from different perspectives, together with its characteristics and types, taking into account the latest findings in the child development literature on the impact and benefits of play. I will also examine how play facilitates and is impacted by the child’s physical, intellectual, linguistic, emotional and social development during the first six years of life and how adults can support play. Drawing from the works of Moyles (2005), Bruce (2006), Mcleod-Brudenell and Kay (2008), MCI (undated), Goldschmeid & Jackson (2009) and Wood & Attfield (2005), play is a freely chosen process in which children engage with their already acquired knowledge, values and skills, and which has as end result, although not direct purpose, the development or refinement of further lifelong physical, socio-emotional and cognitive skills. It is a natural inclination (Moyles, 2005), a creative attitude in which the child attains a degree of independence supported by the representations of his inner and outer worlds (Wood & Attfield, 2005). There are several characteristics of play. First of all, play is child chosen and spontaneous (Wood & Attfield...
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...Explain why play is important to the holistic development of the young child. Explain how and why children’s play changes over the first six years of life. Include examples to support your explanation. To begin this essay, I have asked myself ‘what is play?’ The Oxford English Dictionary cites many definitions for the word ‘play’. One can watch a play, play truant, play up, play football, play cards or play an instrument. Child development theorists have published a great many works on play and its impact on child development. Hutt et al (1989) (as quoted in Wood & Attfield (2005)) argued that play is “a jumbo category that encompasses a multiplicity of activities, some of which are conducive to learning, but many of which are not.” Wood & Attfield (2005) wrote that “play involves a wide range of behaviours, have multiple meanings for both children and adults and can be regarded as serious or trivial. It can be highly motivated or just plain messing about”. Moyles (2005) believed play to be “… a process which, in itself, will subsume a range of behaviours, motivations, opportunities, practices, skills and understandings …” For the purposes of this essay, I am focussing on the enjoyable activities which children undertake freely and spontaneously, alone or with their peers which brings pleasure, fulfilment and development. I will endeavour to explain how play is important to the holistic development of the young child and also how and why play changes during the first...
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...Flying Over the School: Superhero Play – Friend or foe? Before reading this article, I had no idea what it was going to be about. I figured it would have to deal with Superhero play because that is what’s in the title. After reading through the article I was very impressed with what I read. I thought it was super cool how the teacher painted the children to get into playing the character they had chosen to be. Also, how the children had taken the role of their superhero so seriously, I couldn’t believe it. I really enjoyed reading this article it gave me some great ideas to think about how I can make playtime more fun. Playtime isn’t just about play, you must allow the children to get into the role and become the person they are supposed to be, it’s okay to let the children guide themselves, only be their if things are going wrong, and it’s okay to let the...
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...CHILD OBSERVATION – TYPE OF PLAY Children’s play can be defined by four main characteristics: flexibility, positive affect, non-literality, and intrinsic motivation (Krasnor & Pepler, 1980). Flexibility suggests that play behaviors vary from real ones (Lillard et al., 2013). Positive affect refers to the extent to which an individual is enjoying their experience (Lillard et al., 2013). Non-literality touches on the idea that play behavior takes place within a play frame rather than reality (Lillard et al., 2013). Intrinsic motivation is a self-directed behavior performed solely for personal pleasure (Lillard et al., 2013). Based off these characteristics, researchers can infer that play is extremely important to the development of children...
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...settings structure play in different ways to promote children’s development, using appropriate examples * Your Manager has asked to look at your research and requested that you write a report on how play is organised. You must include the advantages and disadvantages. Use p63-68 Example “There are three main ways that play is structured within early years settings. My research has shown two local settings and the activities they provide.” Write a definition for: 1 Adult-led play means… 2 Adult-initiated play means… 3 Child-initiated play means… There are advantages and disadvantages to these types of play. 1. Adult-led play: * Write an explanation of an activity which is adult-led. Example “At Sure Start, we have a sensory room which has music, lights, water and sand in it. There are sessions for babies and toddlers where they can explore different instruments. The adult leads the toddler session activity as they provide a box of resources for the children to choose from. The adult usually sits the group in a circle and shows the children how to use their instrument.” There are lots of advantages to adult-led activities. For example… However, there are also disadvantages to adult-led activities. For example… 2. Adult-initiated play * Write an explanation of an activity with is adult-initiated. * Advantages… * Disadvanatages… 3. Child-initiated play * Write an explanation of an activity which is child-initiated. ...
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...PLAY: It’s the way young children learn A special supplement to the Children’s Advocate, based on a policy brief from the Bay Area Early Childhood Funders (References at www.4children.org/play.htm) generation ago, kindergarten was supposed to get kids ready for school. But now everyone is talking about the importance of “school readiness” before kids get to kindergarten. That’s why many parents, anxious for their children to succeed in school, want early care and education programs to have children sit at tables using work sheets, drills, and flash cards to learn letters and numbers and even starting to read, add, and subtract. But preschoolers learn differently from school-age children: play is essential to early learning. Play is the main way children learn and develop ideas about the world. It helps them build the skills necessary for critical thinking and leadership. It’s how they learn to solve problems and to feel good about their ability to learn. Children learn the most from play when they have skilled teachers who are well-trained in understanding how play contributes to learning. Most child development experts agree that play is an essential part of a high-quality early learning program. Play is not a break from learning—it’s the way young children learn. A time following teachers’ instructions. Several studies have shown that children learn more from educational activities that support their own interests and ideas. Some researchers have found evidence that...
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...Children start to develop symbolic skill and thought around the age of two. Positives that result from this significant step include the ability to learn a language (or more than one) and the start of pretend play or make believe. On the other hand, symbolic skill doesn’t do much to help a child get over egocentrism or the frailer to conserve. Egocentrism describes the time when child cannot perceive a perspective other than his own, while failure to conserve is the antithesis of logical thinking. The question here is: how does symbolic thought or symbolic skill lead to these points within the child's development? What is the connection? The key here is understanding what symbolic skill is (which, truthfully, took me some time). Symbolic skill...
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