THE VALUE OF PLAY WITHIN THE CLASSROOM. Play is a necessary teaching medium during the early years at school, contributing to educational development. Children enjoy
playing and through the playing they are motivated to learn. Most of the play is structured and purposeful and the teacher participates and stimulates. Through play the children
explore materials, try our new ideas, find out what it is like to be someone else and communicate with each other.
Types of play- Symbolic play- in which they pretend that 1 object is another- e.g. that a pencil is a rocket
Physical play
Objectives include:
Ø Group work
Ø Cooperation
Ø Negotiation
Ø Perseverance
Ø Concentration
Ø Fine motor skills
Ø Planning and execrating a project
Ø Working to a design
Role-play
Objectives include:
Ø for the children to explore the role play area
Ø to negotiate and organize themselves
Ø to create a story line
Ø to adopt roles
Ø Cooperation within a group
Ø Developing knowledge of stories they know
Ø Use play to
develop story-telling and sequencing ideas
Ø To take turns to share resource
Ø Enables teachers to observe real
learning Ø Has no rights or wrongs so
pupils cannot fail
Ø Reducers discipline problems as children experience less frustration in play.
Play provides relevant and meaningful experiences and leads to learning. Play fosters positive altitudes towards learning which help children to develop self-confidence and self-esteem, become more independent and take responsibility for their own decisions.
Stages of play
1/. Solitary - children playing on their own without much
interaction or
sharing 2/. Parallel - children playing on side by side with little interaction and sharing
3/.Associative – playing alongside each other with interaction and sharing of resources
4/. Co-operative- having common playing activities and playing together for a purpose.
The benefits of play Play:
Ø Builds confidence
Ø Is a learning medium
Ø Has a therapeutic function, enabling pupils to act out faces and insecurities.
Ø Has a pragmatic function, keeping the pupils occupied while the teacher is busy (at times)
Ø Provides the ideal conditions in which to learn and enhances the quality of learning
Ø Enables learning to happen easily, without fear and without enacting barites
Ø Is natural-children are themselves
Ø Is developmentally appropriate-children know intuitively what they need and meet those needs through play
Ø Enable children to explore and experiment
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