“If you trust play, you will not have to control your child’s development as much. Play will raise the child in ways you can never imagine.” – Vince Gowmon
Many skills are developed in a play-based curriculum. Setting up centers in the classroom provides the opportunity for you to plan for learning experiences to strengthen skills in each domain. In addition to this type of structured play, there are also many opportunities for children to learn through play in the form of unstructured activities. However, you may come across parents or other professionals who do not understand the importance of play in supporting early childhood growth and development.
To prepare for this discussion,
- Read Chapters 7 and 8 in your course text.
- Read Why is play so important? (Links to an external site.)
- Review your post from the Developmentally Appropriate Practice: The Key discussion in Week 2.
For this discussion, imagine that you are a teaching Helpant for a 3-year-old classroom and are helping the lead teacher with the yearly open house. As families are touring the classroom, you overhear several conversations regarding how much playing children do in this school, and the concerns families have about the academic growth of their children. After everyone has gone, you talk with the lead teacher about what you overheard. The teacher comes up with a plan to send home a one-page informational letter that highlights the importance of play and why it is essential to this classroom. The teacher has asked that you take the lead on this project and create the letter.
For your initial post, develop a one-page informational newsletter to educate families about the importance of play in learning. You may use the Weekly Food For Thoughttemplate provided or you can create your own using Word Newsletter Templates or another format of your choice. Your newsletter must include
- A brief introduction that explains play as it pertains to early learning.
- A general quote or saying about the play.
- Research that supports plays being a developmentally appropriate practice for young children.
- Specific examples of how you use to play your classroom (what types of activities children engage in).
- A quote or saying that supports your classroom activities
- A discussion of how to play is integrated into learning by showing how the classroom examples of play you chose specifically meet the needs of children in this age group (age 3) in each domain of development (include at least one example for each domain). Get Social Science help today
