LEARNING

THROUGH PLAY:
A C R E AT I V E A P P R O AC H I N
T E AC H I N G YO U N G C H I L D R E N
Play helps young children to
learn and develop their physical,
social, emotional and intellectual
skills through doing and talking,
which research has shown to be
the means by which young
children learn to think.
 Play has been called the
“language of childhood,” so, if
we really want to know what is
going on with a child, we must
“speak his language”.
 CREATIVE PLAY
• children make up the rules rather than
adults
• free to use their imaginations, create
stories, act out scenes, or invent a new
game
• self directed play
• allows child to express his emotions
 MAKE
BUILDING
BELIEVE
BLOCKS
PLAY

WATER PLAY ENERGETIC

PLAY PLAY
ACTIVITIES
SOUNDS SMALL
AND WORLD
PLAY
MUSICS
 MAKE BELIEVE PLAY
Children love to
have the chance to
make up their own
stories. You can
help by supplying
some simple items
to aid their
imaginations.
 This offers children the chance to:

 act out aspects of their own lives which may be

puzzling them;
 develop mathematical ideas of one-to-one
correspondence, as they offer imaginary treats to
imaginary guests “one for you and one for you”;
 explore the idea of symbolic representation - the
idea that one thing can stand for another; and
 try out how it might feel to be someone
different.
ENERGETIC PLAY
By setting up an obstacle course in the garden, or
taking them to the local park, you can help them
to develop physical skills such as:

 a better sense of overall control and balance;

 judgement of direction, speed and distance;
strength and stamina;
 understanding of spatial relationships as they
move around, through, and beside things;
hand-eye co-ordination as they throw and catch;
and
 confidence in their own skill, strength and
judgement.
SMALL WORLDS
Organizing small-scale train or road layouts, dolls
houses or farms, gives children the opportunity to:

 make choices and direct outcomes;

 plan, organize and take charge;
 become skillful with their fingers, as they manipulate
small objects;
 form mathematical concepts of sets, as they sort the
pigs from the horses in the farm or the kitchen furniture
from the bedroom furniture in the dolls house; and
 create worlds of their own, in which they can act out
their present understanding of the real world.
SOUNDS AND MUSIC
Children love rhythm, dance and singing,
and helping your child to experiment with
songs and rhymes develops many skills,
such as:

 listening carefully;
 understanding more about language by
hearing and responding; and
 repeating key phrases and anticipating
the next line of a well loved song.
WATER PLAY
• Playing with tipping and pouring water
from one container to another helps to
develop muscular strength and hand-eye
co-ordination.

• Children also begin to understand the

principle of conservation as they discover
that the same quantity of water can fill
containers of many different shapes.
• As they tip and pour, they also learn to
think in terms of full and half-full, more
and less.

• You can set up a bucket or washing up

bowl outdoors, with various objects such
as plastic jugs and cups or watering cans,
so children can experiment with pouring
and filling water, or you can play with water
at bath-time.
BUILDING BLOCKS
• Children gain powerful emotional
satisfaction from knocking down a tower
and then building it up again.

• This game also develops their

mathematical skills - they learn how many
blocks they need and how tall their tower
is. Making estimations in this way
strengthens their understanding of
numbers.
• While building with toy bricks, children
also learn about measuring and
balancing, about making a plan,
deciding what materials are needed for
it and then carrying it out.

• Building activities develop hand-eye

co-ordination and manual skills as
children select and manipulate objects.
 SUGGESTED
ACTIVITIES FOR
KINDERGARTEN
UNWRAP THE GIFT GAME
 INDOOR
HOPSCOTCH
TOSS AND BLEND
NUMBER
SENSE
 BUILD A
MONSTER
GAME
FISH ME A WORD
PAPER PLATE
RING TOSS
 “Enter into children’s
play and you will find the
place where their minds,
hearts, and souls meet”
- Virginia Axline
“Play is a child’s life and the
means by which he/she
comes to understand the
world he/she lives in”

-Susan Isaacs
THANK
YOU!!!