Play Based Learning

06/27/2018

Let’s just start by saying that children, well most children anyway love to play. Play lets children gain new skills and learn new things daily. Play allows for discovery and gives children a chance to learn and explore on their own. Playing provides social interaction, imitation, and problem-solving. Shall I keep going?

Anyway, play has always been something that children do, but only now have we started to discover real potential with play. Some research (I won’t go into all the technical jargon) suggests that play benefits children more than we realized. Play allows for imagination to flow and lets children become creative in their learning. We can teach children through worksheets and assignments, but that would be more time consuming and less productive than teaching them through play.

Now I may be a little bias because I have learned about this all throughout my schooling, but play-based learning has proven to improve social and emotional recognition with children. What I mean by this is that children start to develop friendships and other relationships and learn the importance of feelings and gain an understanding that all people have feelings, not just themselves.

Also, play allows children to interact with real-life situations and gives them the ability to grasp the concept physically. Instead of doing a theoretical example through pen and paper, showing them the example in front of them not only helps them understand what you’re trying to teach them, but also helps children gain a concept of reality. They know it better and can retain that knowledge quicker.

Overall, play-based learning is a fantastic concept to me. Children learn so much through “doing,” so by letting them play, we’re increasing their knowledge and allowing them to obtain specific developmental skills needed for the rest of their lives.