Play is an essential part of early years development. Here are four essentials for ensuring playtime is both fun and supports learning
There’s a tendency, still, to distinguish play and learning, but one leads on to the other – especially in early years – helping to build connections, confidence and creativity. This is a critical time in brain development, as neural connections are forged to build everything from speech and language to empathy to motor skills, so there is no such thing as time wasted in play. There are, however, some things guaranteed to ensure games that are both fun and fruitful, preparing the ground for happy times at nursery and pre-school.
1. Stand back
As many nursery practitioners will attest, self-directed play is the most important type of play. In environments informed by, for example, Montessori and Steiner early years theories, that’s seen as the foundation for building key skills – from confidence to self-expression, problem solving and collaboration.
Self-directed play is not just letting children run amok. You design a space where they can be watched and kept occupied – but after that it’s up to them. This is why it’s also sometimes described as child-led, free or open-ended play. While favourite toys may certainly be in the mix if that’s what your child wants, the most creative free play often takes place when ‘non-specific’ items are incorporated. Laying out household bits and pieces and things your child has collected or is absorbed by – cardboard tubes and boxes, bits of fabric or ribbon, wooden blocks, pebbles, leaves, pinecones, feathers – is a great idea. The most mundane objects can be incorporated into engaging adventures.
2. Set up messy games
Exploring textures and different materials found in nature is endlessly exciting and also develops curiosity, problem solving and motor skills. That’s why mud kitchens are now a feature of so many nurseries’ outdoor play areas. Exploratory play with water or sand is just as much fun and it’s very easy to rig up an outdoor play kitchen, sandpit or water play zone.
Giving kids the freedom to get really messy is important, so dress them accordingly. Overalls and a pair of wellies are perfect in cooler weather, while in summer (with appropriate shade) it’s just a matter of wearing old clothes. When the weather is too foul for outdoor fun, setting up an indoor messy zone using tarpaulin or a dust sheet can let them explore with finger paints or modelling dough.
As they get a bit older, a small garden area is a real bonus for messy fun. There’s a fair amount of evidence emerging about the wellbeing benefits that can follow when small hands come in contact with soil and explore nature through planting, growing and watering.
3. Find playmates
Giving children social skills is critical, and that really does start with playing around other children. Toddlers rarely socialise as we adults understand it. From around two, they may engage in what’s called onlooker play – watching other children playing but not joining in. Other varieties of engagement follow, including parallel play and associative play, when they are playing close to others and either doing unrelated or similar activities.
All these social phases are easily supported. Parents sometimes have raised expectations, setting up playdates and expecting very young children to ‘get on’, but that’s not how they operate so it’s best to avoid loading stress (on you and them) to ‘behave’. Regular visits to soft play areas, playgrounds and informal or formal mother and toddler meets really do help on the journey to co-operative play. From around age four, children will typically start to play happily and, for the most part, sociably in a group setting.
4. Feed their passions
There’s a certain stage that every parent encounters – obsession. In official parenting parlance this is called ‘hyper fixation’, but we recognise it as the quest to feed that craze for fire engines, diggers, fairies, dinosaurs or whatever it is that inspires such heartfelt and all-encompassing passion.
Usually, this phase kicks in at around three – during a time when young children are starting to express themselves and also engage in truly imaginative play. Most parents find it impossible to resist, anyway, but delivering books, toys and entertainment that fuel their obsession is definitely a positive. They may dream dino or fairy and create stories and elaborate make-believe games using their favourite animal or object. This is a way of developing connections, ideas and narratives about the world and will also give your child a bond with other children (and adults) who are willing to engage by talking about their favourite thing in the world.
Further reading: Early years spotlight – the Shaping Us Framework
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