Friday, February 17, 2006
The Value of Play
As child care professionals we often say that "playing is learning." This is a true statement. Playing is a natural part of early childhood. It means engaging in amusement, creativity, sport, or other recreation. Children learn, gain knowledge and master skills through play and simple everyday experiences. Intelligence is the ability to understand, learn, use knowledge, and master skills.
Here are some realistic expectations about play:
Read the full article...
So how about it? Is there enough play in your day?
As child care professionals we often say that "playing is learning." This is a true statement. Playing is a natural part of early childhood. It means engaging in amusement, creativity, sport, or other recreation. Children learn, gain knowledge and master skills through play and simple everyday experiences. Intelligence is the ability to understand, learn, use knowledge, and master skills.
Here are some realistic expectations about play:
- All children are naturally curious and eager to experience, play, and learn.
- Children do not separate play, learning, and work. For them, living is playing and playing is living.
- Through play, children learn about their world, gathering information with all of their senses by interacting with the things and people around them.
- The way children play changes as they grow and change.
- Young children do not think like adults. They think concretely, in the here and now; their ability to reason unfolds throughout childhood.
- Repetition helps children learn. That's why they enjoy doing the same activity, singing the same song, or reading the same book over and over.
- There is no one way to learn. Each person has a blend of strengths, talents, and weaknesses that come together to comprise their unique style of learning.
- There are many ways to be intelligent, and many of those are not measured by standard IQ tests. Dr. Howard Gardner identifies eight types of intelligence: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist.
- It is play and simple everyday experiences that feed the child's growing mind: talking, singing, touching, tasting, smelling new scents, playing rhyming word games, making a dam or river in the sand, counting apples at the grocery store, seeing new sights, listening to sounds, dancing, playing, listening to stories, etc. Children need to share time and experiences with a warm, caring, and attentive parent or caregiver.
- During the early childhood years, attitudes toward learning are formed that will guide the child for the rest of his or her life:-- Children who are often told, "No!" or "Be careful!" may become fearful of the world and learning; children who are pushed and pressured to learn may become stressed and find learning unpleasant.-- Children who are encouraged to explore and have fun doing so learn to love learning!
Isn’t it ironic that a country whose constitution allows for the pursuit of happiness now feels a collective guilt about the very idea of anything fun? How did this happen? When did we begin placing so much priority on productivity and so little on leisure or on having a good time? Even given the Puritan work ethic, life in America has become so unbalanced that one side of the seesaw is pretty much grounded. But why must we insist that our children, who by their very nature are playful, share these particular values? Why are we so anxious for our children to “act like adults?”....
Read the full article...
So how about it? Is there enough play in your day?
// posted by Tammy Wachter @ 4:10 PM 
