Benefits of play for children

Benefits of play for children

Play is central to children’s life at nursery and there are huge benefits to learning through play. It is an activity that is done for fun and can be physical or mental. Play can have no purpose and can be done alone or with others. 

Children love to play at nursery. Yet some parents can become very hung up on what their child is learning at nursery and want to see visual evidence and have it quantified. 

But through play, children are learning all the time. They are using and enhancing their imagination and creativity and developing their emotional, social and physical skills.

Children learn about themselves and the world around them through play, with Albert Einstein calling play ‘the highest form of research’.

Benefits of learning through play

There are numerous benefits to play. Bright Horizons nursery group believes “when children are deprived of opportunities for play, their development can be significantly impaired”.

• Pretend play can trigger negotiation with their peers as for example children will play at being pirates and negotiate with each other as to who is going to be the prisoner and who will be the pirate. In this way they learn to cooperate and get on with each other.
• Play can give children that first feeling of control and lets them see what can happen when they make their own decisions and find out the consequences of their actions.
• It also allows them to make mistakes and learn from them and boosts their independence.
• Group play can lead to an improvement in communication, language and social skills.
• Children who play more have also been found to have more empathy.
• Play keeps children active as they get caught up in games such as tag where they run and chase each other.

There are two types of play

•    Child-led play also known as free play
•    Adult-led play also known as structured play

Benefits of child-led free play

Free play is when the child has complete freedom to choose where they play, how they play and what they play with.

It is play which is led by the child encouraging them to use their imagination and their creativity. 

Some nurseries offer children open ended natural resources to play with such as sand, water and dirt. These can be used in a multitude of ways as that triggers creativity. Toys such as cars and dinosaurs will direct the play more as they are not so open ended.

Free play has declined in many parts of the world

In today’s society, children’s lives are often micro-managed and risk-assessed. This has led to free play declining in many parts of the world with structured play tending to dominate. Children’s play can often include some kind of adult intervention.

In a nursery environment, child-led play can be a challenge. Free play is described by Play England as ‘children choosing what they want to do, how they want to do it and when to stop and try something else. 

‘Free play has no external goals set by adults and has no adult imposed curriculum. Although adults usually provide the space and resources for free play and might be involved, the child takes the lead and the adults respond to cues from the child.’

How to encourage child-led play

One way of ensuring child-led play takes place is by getting them outside. Tim Gill, a consultant and writer on children’s play is a big advocate of outdoor play. He says: “Climbing a tree – working out how to start, testing for strength, feeling how the breeze in your face also sways the branches underfoot, glimpsing the changing vista through the leaves, dreaming about being king or queen of the jungle, shouting to your friends below once you’ve got as high as you dare – is an immersive, 360-degree experience that virtual or indoor settings simply cannot compare with.”

‘Possibilities are endless when you enter a natural environment’

Clare Caro, founder of Nature Play, which runs play sessions in woods around the UK, describes child-led play as being where “the child takes the lead, so that they can follow their own play urges”.

She says: “The possibilities are endless when you enter a natural environment. Every garden, beach, stream and glade offers many multi-sensory learning opportunities for every age and stage of development. Touching, listening, collecting stones, throwing sticks, crawling up and sliding down slopes, and building structures that are furnished by the imagination – all play in a natural environment ensures a master-class with the natural materials.”

‘Follow the lead of the child’

She advises adults to follow the lead of the child and says: “If they feel like climbing or finding acorns in the undergrowth, it is their curiosity that is driving their wonder and learning. You become a ‘learning ally’ when you understand your child needs to direct their own explorations.”

 
Ms Caro also urges adults to wait and watch. “The exhilaration of discovery is something we can all identify with. In order for children to discover climbing or what wet leaves smell like, a learning ally takes a step back to let them discover. At the same time a learning ally is there to support them if required or requested.

“Some things take time when you are learning, or when you are still perfecting the use of your body, so instead of jumping in to put a name the creature they have in their hand or to lift them up where they need to persevere with acquiring climbing skills, let’s stand back. Let’s watch and wait to be invited in to support.”

Vocabulary shapes the way children see the world

Vocabulary is important as it shapes the way children see the world. Clare Caro points out that a trap we all fall into is describing a rainy day as a “miserable day”.

She says: “While we are saying to our children, “It’s a miserable day out there”, what sort of information are they getting from us about nature when it rains, when it is cold, windy or overcast? What do they make of us when we follow it up with, “Let’s get outside then”… outside into that which we have just described with unpleasant words and a frown? No wonder some of our children don’t want to get out in all weathers. They are getting ‘crossed wires’”.

Encourage children to see the magic of the seasons

She advises swapping miserable for “drizzling, wet, brisk, cold, blusterous or windy” so they can see the magic of the seasons, rather than viewing them negatively.

Examples of child-led free play

•    Make-belief games where children play different characters and construct a whole imaginary world
•    Drawing, painting, colouring, etc
•    Playing with toy figures and creating scenarios for them
•    Playing games like tag or climbing trees, making dens or running in the park

Benefits of adult-led structured play

Adult-led play as well as adult-initiated play, where the play is set up by the adults for the children to discover and shape as they wish, is also important. In most nurseries, practitioners like to offer children a combination of structured play with free play. 

Structured play has a purpose

Carefully chosen structured activities can help children to interact with their peers and boost their communication and social skills. Structured play will have a purpose or a learning objective.

Ninety-nine per cent of what people do is learned behaviour.

Examples of structured play 

• Doing jigsaws and puzzles 
• Singing songs
• Organised sport such as football
• Board games or card games where there are rules
• Gardening
• Baking

All types of play are important

Play is recognised as being essential to children’s development and children can learn so much through play. So it is vital children get to experience both structured, adult-led play as well as free child-led play. 

All play is important and its impact on the development of the child should not be underestimated.

Tim Gill says: “Children and young people have the potential to be more resilient, responsible, capable and creative than we give them credit for. Yet their lives are becoming ever more scheduled, controlled and directed.

It is healthy ‘for children to take risks’

“We need to accept that it is natural and healthy for children to take risks, make mistakes, have everyday adventures and test themselves and their boundaries.

“In short, we need to expand the horizons of childhood.”

As George Bernard Shaw famously said: “We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing!”