See Things Differently

Process different points of view – How do you help your child become sympathetic with the world around them? You teach them what it feels like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Dress up allows your child to be anyone that they want to be, and helps them understand where the other person is coming up. Remember playing school as a kid? Being the teacher gave you a whole new perspective on what it was like to be a student.

Source: PR Log

Children Learn Through Play

As infants, children explore their physical and social world through their senses. Adults can facilitate learning through play by providing infants with opportunities to see, touch, taste, and smell a variety of phenomena. At this stage, give-and-take games such as peek-a-boo with loving, responsive adults help infants learn to interact socially.

At the toddler stage, children begin to develop the ability to engage in early pretend play - imitating familiar events in their lives. Toddlers experience strong emotions which they are not yet able to fully understand. By acting out emotion-laden scenes in their play, such as reassuring a doll that mommy will return, toddlers learn to cope with fears and they gain the self-control that will propel them to the next stage of development.

As children enter the preschool and kindergarten years, they begin to explore the world through indirect experiences such as stories, pictures, and television programs. Information gained in this way becomes the basis for imaginative play which takes children beyond the here and now.

At this stage, play activities such as drawing, building with blocks, dance, music, and crafts help children expand their knowledge and understanding of the world while developing eye-hand coordination and other motor skills. Children also become increasingly focused on peers at this stage. They benefit from play activities, props, and toys that encourage them to interact with others and engage in 'dramatic' make-believe play.

As children move into the elementary school years, the focus shifts from dramatic or pretend play to 'games with rules' and organized sports which require strategy and skill. Games with rules include traditional board games, card, video, and computer games, as well as physical games such as tag and 'red rover.' Through these play experiences, children hone their ability to relate to others, their gross motor skills, and their eye-hand coordination.

At about age 9 to 12, team sports take on increasing importance, helping children refine their abilities to reason, think strategically, and interact with others. They also refine these skills through play activities such as crafts, advanced building sets, science projects, sophisticated jigsaw puzzles, and computer and video games.

In many cases, play activities at this age become the basis for life-long interests and hobbies. While children begin to play less in the traditional sense as they move into their teenage years, they begin to transform their interests and hobbies into the 'play of the adult.'

Learning - and learning through play - is a continuous and rewarding journey!

Sources: Association for Children's Museums, Northern Illinois University

Reconstructing Life Experiences

Kudos to New Creations Preschool who understands the value of dramatic play. In their article they state:

"...[A] favorite area for a lot of kids is our Dramatic Play Center. This area provides dress-up clothing, housekeeping materials, a doctor kit, a birthday party kit, and such things as pizza/restaurant props.

While you may think the kids are just playing and having fun here, they are developing important skills in many areas—language, social, emotional, motor, and cognitive. In “What are the benefits of dramatic play in early childhood,” Jennifer Streit sites how each of these areas benefit. She also points out that the Association of Childhood Education International (ACEI) states that dramatic play is imperative to a child’s growth in all areas of learning and cannot be replaced by adult instruction.

Dramatic play is the child’s way of reconstructing and reenacting his/her life experiences.  Their play shows us how they think our world works. Children also express their feelings of frustration and anxieties through role playing, which they may not express through conversation with an adult."

Play is educational

Parents want their kids to be well-rounded: equally skilled academically and socially, with an appetite for fun and happiness. Why, then, are teachers gearing children away from play?

An article by Janice D'Arcy of the Washington Post said,

"Providers told researchers that they felt pressure from parents to keep children from vigorous play that might lead to injury and also pressure to focus instead on academics. ...[Another] barrier was financial, as some providers said their funds were too limited to purchase up-to-code safe, outdoor equipment. (An ironic twist in this finding is that providers told researchers repeatedly that these “safer” playgrounds were oftentimes the least interesting to children.)"

But is there a happy medium?

In the same article, Kristen Copeland, of the Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, responded,

“Children learn through play — through puzzles, games, and questions and answers. They also learn on the playground — they learn about nature, weather and the seasons, motion, concepts of distance and speed, and cause and effect. They learn how to negotiate and talk with their peers.
And, they learn fundamental gross motor skills, like how to throw and catch a ball, and how to skip. They don’t teach these in school. But children who have mastered these fundamental skills are more confident, and interact better with their peers later on in school.

Lastly, research has shown that children can concentrate and learn better after brief periods of vigorous activity. So ‘active time’ does not need to come at the expense of time dedicated to ‘academics’ and ‘learning.’”

More benefits of dramatic play

Why are dress up games and dramatic play so important for childhood development?

There are many benefits to dramatic play and dress up, and it’s important that you set aside time each and every day to play together with your child.  Let’s look at some examples of things that dramatic play helps kids do:

Explore issues in their lives – small children have difficulty grasping things like a new baby, a sick relative, or a move.  Dramatic play allows you and your child to explore the changes that are about to occur, in a fun and exciting way.  How about pretending that their dolls are sick, and they must go to the hospital to get better?  Or maybe Mr. Bear has to move to a different town and try to make new friends with the other bears in town?  The possibilities are endless- and you are free to discuss fears and concerns with your child in an imaginative way.

Experiment with different behaviors – playing together doesn’t come naturally to kids.  They must work on cooperating with others and dealing with anger and frustration when it arises.  One of the best ways to do this is through dress up.  Wouldn’t you much rather your child gets upset with a stuffed animal, then a fellow playmate?

Practice decision-making/problem solving – if there are four kids and two cookies, how can you divide them up so that everyone gets their share?  Try that experiment with a room full of toddlers, and someone is going to end up in tears.  Act it out at home in the safety of dramatic play, and a life lesson will be learned.

Process different points of view – How do you help your child become sympathetic with the world around them?  You teach them what it feels like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.  Dress up allows your child to be anyone that they want to be, and helps them understand where the other person is coming up.  Remember playing school as a kid?  Being the teacher gave you a whole new perspective on what it was like to be a student.

Learn new concepts – there are so many other things that your child could gain from dramatic play.  Math can be taught through a pretend trip to the grocery store for example. 


Source: PR Log

See the World through your Child's Eyes

Parents struggle with some big questions. What does my son know about empathy? How can I be sure my daughter understands what it means that the family is going to be moving to a new home? Does he really know that the dog is sick and we have to be more gentle to him? Is she okay with the divorce?

How can parents know what their child is experiencing? Through dramatic play. Dramatic play gives a parent insight into their child's experience of the world, simply by watching him/her play with appropriate toys.

When children use their imaginations or pretend, we call that dramatic play and that’s the main type of play for 3-to7-year-olds. What they’re doing in dramatic play is representing in their own way their understanding of their experiences, rather than simply imitating what they see others do. They use objects and actions and storylines to symbolize the things that concern them. And in the process, they’re building thinking skills and developing social, emotional and language skills. Dramatic play is a very important context for learning. --Ann Barbour, Ph.D., Early Childhood Education Professor

Source: A Place of Our Own