Competency II

Examine the Critical Role of Play as it relates to Math, Science, and Social Studies.

Children live in a world of play. Play as a process with an outcome that is not as
important as the process itself. Play is a learning tool for rules, boundaries, investigating,
exploring, imaginative play, and much more. There are different stages of play which are the
onlooker/solitary play, parallel play, associative play, cooperative play, free/organized play, and
imaginative play. Play is very important for human growth and development, from babies all the
way up to adults. Play contributes too many aspects of development such as muscle, mental,
physical, social, emotional, and much more. Children can learn much more from play then many
adults and parents believe they can, such as expanding their vocabulary, learning how to make
friends, developing trust, and the list goes on and on.
As early childhood educators we need to provide numerous opportunities for children to
learn through play in academic areas. We need to provide a variety of high-quality materials that
will support learning in math, science, and social studies. We also need to plan interesting
activities that will advance learning throughout all the developmental domains. By observing the
outcomes of activities and observing children's interest we can plan appropriate activities that
will be more beneficial for the child development. Setting goals for math, science, and social
studies outcomes is important for the observation assessment to make sure we are achieving
developmental growth. It is very important to make sure that every play area has hands-on,
Interactive materials, such as science experiments, math skills, timers, blocks, timers, weather
station with maps, the options are endless with a little creativity. Changing of materials will keep

children interested in the different areas, if we kept everything the same the children would get
bored and this would probably encourage a lot of mistake and behaviors.