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

Benefits of Dramatic Play

Elanna Yalow, PhD weighs in on the benefits of dramatic play:

As most early childhood teachers know, dramatic play is an extremely valuable part of the daily curriculum. Here are just some of the benefits of dramatic play:

• Relief from emotional tension. Adults tend to cope with a traumatic event by retelling the event over and over. Children, however, tend to replay the event in their dramatic play. For example, if a child attends a funeral, she is likely to "play the funeral" afterward with friends, dolls, etc., as a way to come to terms with the event.

• Children feel powerful. When children re-enact frightening experiences, they tend to put themselves in a position of power. They may choose to play the mommy or daddy, the most powerful people in their lives. In dramatic play, the child can control the events, and wishes can come true.

• Use of social interaction skills. Dramatic play encourages children to put themselves in someone else's shoes. Such role-playing helps them to improve their ability to do this in real life. They learn important social skills, such as empathy.

• Language development. Dramatic play also encourages expressive language. Children are motivated to convey their wishes to others and speak from the perspective of their pretend roles. In fact, it is often through dramatic play that shy or withdrawn children first begin to express themselves through language.

• Use of symbols. Dramatic play furthers an understanding of symbols. For example, a doll becomes a symbol for a baby. A slip of paper may become money. Opportunities to create and use symbols help children to utilize other symbols, like letters and numbers.

• Sort out fantasy and reality. Dramatic play also allows children to differentiate between real and pretend. This is readily apparent when observing children using exaggerated voices to signal that they are playing their roles or in the child that announces, "It's just pretend." It may seem as though a child who has spent several hours engaged in dramatic play has just been "playing around" and has nothing concrete to show for it. On the contrary, the kind of play where a child takes on a role, and learns to interact from within that role, is very valuable to her development.

Teaching dramatic play

Child psychologist Jean Piaget said "play is the work of childhood."

To incorporate dramatic play into education, Ideal Curriculum recommends that teachers use some of these simple tools:

• The teacher can guide children into a dramatic play activities that will help give them practice with vocabulary, language, and concepts they are learning. ("Let's ride on the subway to the museum.")
• It often works best if the teacher joins in and does the actions etc. with the children.
• Small items of clothing, a paper badge, or some other item may help focus the imagination needed in the activity.
• While the teacher may participate, the teacher should not be the focal point nor the one to give all the direction to the activity. This takes practice since you want to keep the activity going, there is a tendency to push too hard. 
• Often the teacher needs to insert questions to stimulate or guide certain children.. 
• The activity should be fun and engaging. When fun starts to diminish, it may be time to stop the activity.

Finger Puppets

What's more fun than finger puppets? Not much, says Live and Learn:

     There isn't much we can tell you about finger puppets that you probably don't already know. Finger puppets are used in preschools for story time, daycare centers use finger puppets to entertain groups of children, and party professionals often incorporate finger puppets into birthday party activities.
     Finger puppets can be used by adults to teach and entertain children, but they have the best effect when children start using them on their own. When children use finger puppets they start to use their imaginations, they stimulate their verbal skills, they act out role playing scenarios, they enhance their socialization skills plus more, but the bottom line is...finger puppets are cute and fun!

See our selection of finger puppets, including our alphabet fingers and realistic road sign puppets.

Language Skills

Would other describe your child as: articulate, well-spoken, precocious? Dramatic play enhances verbal skills.

Pretend play also builds language skills. Kids often use words and phrases in play that you never knew they knew. They use language to plan their play with others and language usually supports the roles they adopt. At the same time, they can experiment with language and learn to use it appropriately. After all, doctors say different things than storekeepers do. Dramatic play also helps kids concentrate, be attentive and control their own behavior – all skills that will help them do well in school and in life. . --Ann Barbour, Ph.D., Early Childhood Education Professor

Source: A Place of Our Own

Abstract Thinking and Problem Solving

Does your child think abstractly? Is he at an age-appropriate level for cognitive development? The latest computerized toys may be hurting his development.

Dramatic play promotes abstract thinking. When children use a prop (like a block) to stand for something else (a phone for instance), they are learning to think using symbols. The block symbolizes the phone. And that kind of thinking is the basis for just about everything children learn in school. After all, letters and words and numbers are really symbols for real objects or quantities. Dramatic play also encourages problem solving, and if children are playing with others, it builds social and emotional skills: learning about other peoples’ feelings and perspectives, negotiating, cooperating, etc. They also learn how to respond appropriately to others. In dramatic play kids can be anything they want just by pretending and that’s emotionally satisfying and builds self-esteem. --Ann Barbour, Ph.D., Early Childhood Education Professor

Source: A Place of Our Own