Playful Parenting-Early learning through play

LEARNING THROUGH PLAY

Play is very important to a child's development, it is an integral part of a child's Early Years.

Foundation Stage and supports their learning journey too. Young children can develop many skills through the power of play. They may develop their language skills, emotions, creativity and social skills.

Play helps to nurture imagination and give a child a sense of adventure. Through this, they can learn essential skills such as problem solving, working with others, sharing and much more.

In turn, this helps them develop the ability to concentrate. Providing children with a range of playthings will help them learn in a number of ways:

Sand and water play can be an early introduction to science and maths, eg learning that water is fluid, not solid, and that it can be measured in different sized containers.

Playing with dough or clay, drawing and painting pictures, dressing up, playing with dolls can encourage creativity, imagination and expression of feelings.

Building blocks, jigsaws and shape sorters can help with recognizing different shapes and sizes, putting things in order and developing logic.

Playing ball games, dancing, running, climbing all help to develop body movement, strength, flexibility and co-ordination skills.

Games help with turn taking, sharing and mixing with others.

Singing, playing simple music instruments help to develop rhythm, listening and hearing.

It's important that learning is fun at this age. It needs to be about doing things with them that they like. They might find unusual ways of doing things - for a little one, building blocks aren't just for making towers, and paint can be used without a brush! Show them how things work, but if they want to experiment, let them.

Children learn through all their senses through taste, touch, vision, hearing and smelling. They will watch those around them and copy language and behavior. Look at the pictures together; this will help younger children make sense of the words.

It's also good to talk to them a lot, about everyday things while you are cooking or cleaning. This will give you a chance to teach them how things work and they will be able to ask you questions. Get ready for lots of “why’s?”

THE LEGO FOUNDATION HAS WRITTEN A MORE THOUROUGH PHAMPLET

WHAT WE MEAN BY: LEARNING THROUGH PLAY_ENGLISH VERSION

Are you struggling to be a playful mom? 3 easy tips that can help {+ printable}

If you ever wondered how to be a playful mom, here are 3 tips that will help you find the joy in every moment that you spend with your kids!

That morning I was sitting on the floor in our living room playing with my son. Each of us had a wooden train with a lot of rail cars and we were moving it along the rails. We have been doing this every single day in the previous two weeks. And he never seemed to have enough of it!

It was certainly his favorite way of playing but I didn’t feel the same. Not at all! What started as a fun way to spend time together ended in feeling like an unpleasant duty.

There was no way to suggest another activity because he was so happy to play with the trains! My only “escape” was to think about other things while moving the little colorful train on the tracks.

Suddenly my son came to me and put his cold hands on my cheeks. He looked at me and said:

“You are not doing this right! Dad plays this game better!”

“Why do you think so?”, I wondered.

“Because he smiles when he plays. And he makes the race fun!”

He was so right!

I was trying to play with him because I knew that he liked this game so much. But the truth was that I was not really there with my whole heart! And he felt this!

I hugged him and told him that I was sorry. Then, I explained to him how I was feeling about playing with the trains so often.

To be honest, being playful doesn’t come easy for me all the time. My husband is genuinely playful and he can make even the simplest things be fun and exciting for our son! I am not at all as funny and creative as him!

So I try to find ways to be playful while still being authentic and enjoying the moments that I spend with my son.

I don’t want to play games only for his sake because he feels when I am distracted. I want to be emotionally present in every of our playful moments! And I want him to see the excitement in my eyes and a big smile on my face every time we play!

I want to be emotionally present in every of our playful moments! I want him to see the excitement in my eyes and a big smile on my face every time we play!

Because I know how much this matters to him!

Here are the 3 tips that help me be a playful mom and make my son feel happy and connected. If you struggle with being a playful parent, I hope that these ideas will help you too!

1. Be honest

When I realized that playing games I didn’t enjoy wasn’t bringing joy to any of us any, the first step I took was to discuss this with my son.

I was honest with him and I explained to him that some games are not as fun for me as they are for him. I wanted to make it clear that this has nothing to do with him and it’s just a matter of preferences.

What really worked in making him understand this was a comparison with eating broccoli. 

 I explained to him that I enjoy eating broccoli while he doesn’t like it at all! He understood that preferences are something that we cannot control and that they have nothing to do with someone else’s preferences.

So I told him that playing with trains for hours is not something that I like. But that I love spending time with him and I am always glad to try other games!

I was a little afraid not to hurt his feeling during this discussion. But he was really happy with the explanations! He even started to list all the things that we can do together instead of playing with the trains. And we both loved doing them!

2. Keep it simple

Do you know all those amazing activities for kids that we find on Pinterest? They look so great!

But in my case, almost all those complicated tutorials turn into a messy and frustrating activity. The only benefit for me was that Bogdan was having a lot of fun watching me struggling in the middle of tons of craft supplies. 

I realized that I am not the kind of mom who can make amazing craft projects. Or awesome Christmas decorations. Or even a decent felt quiet book for my son. And this is perfectly okay!

There are so many other activities that we can try. Kids don’t need complicated projects, they just need our time and attention! So I decided to only try easy-to-prepare activities and to invent our own games that don’t require a lot of preparations.

And it works great!

Bogdan is happy to try every activity that I prepare for him even if it doesn’t look like in those beautiful Pinterest photos! And I am glad to be able to play with him in such a simple and nice way!

(This is one of the reasons why I decided to share our activities on the blog. I want other moms to know that playing with kids doesn’t have to mean anything complicated. And even educational activities can be easy-to-make and enjoyable!)

3. Find the activities that you like and enjoy them

I don’t like to spend hours on the floor playing with cars and trains. I don’t like to chase imaginary monsters all over the house. Or hiding from zombies under the blanket!

My husband is great at this and I’m glad that they have so many fun moments together!

On the other hand, I am great at preparing scavenger hunts. I know how to create a lot of matching games that Bogdan loves. And I can spend hours in the library reading all the children books on the shelf.

Ever since I’ve decided to be totally honest about what I like and what I don’t, our playful moments are wonderful! I constantly discover new things that we both like and we spend lovely moments together!

So for me, the little secret about being a playful mom is that I try to find those activities that I could honestly enjoy. In this way, my son knows that every moment that we spend together brings us joy and connection!

Play is not only benefiting my child, it benefits me too! I can disconnect from the daily tasks and relieve all the stress. And this feels so good!

At the end, to wrap things up, here are the things that helped me and could be helpful for you too:

– being open and honest with your child about the games that you enjoy and those that you don’t

– letting go of complicated ideas and trying simple activities that bring joy and connection

– creating a list of play ideas that both you and your kids like and include them into your daily schedule!

More from Playful Notes

• How to create an effective morning routine for kids {+ printable morning checklist}

• What helped me become a calmer mom and be gentle with my child even if I’m angry

• How to create family rules that kids will be happy to follow {+ printable family rules}

Playful Parents Teach social skills during play

PLAY SKILLS TURN INTO
SOCIAL SKILLS

Anyone who spends any amount of time with young children understands that providing them with opportunities for play provides so much more than a few minutes or hours of ‘fun’. Play also allows children to relax, let off steam, develop social skills such as concentration and co-operation, encourages the development of the imagination, develops motor skills and teaches self expression.

Sarah Owen, founder of ‘Pyjama Drama’ – drama, music, movement and play for pre-school children says, ‘Many children seem to be born with a natural ability to play, but some children find it more difficult and need to ‘learn’ how to play well and this is where parents can make a big difference. Whilst it is very important that children play with their peers and are given opportunities for unstructured play, children who also play with a loved adult can benefit greatly – the benefits of having fun together cannot be underestimated!’

Adults have a role within the play by making time and space available with the relevant resources. Think about creating play ideas that help support and extend learning and development.

Dramatic play aka role play

Dramatic play is essential to a child’s social (or emotional) development and can play a large part in their physical development too. Children make sense of the world in which they live by acting out situations before they happen and by copying what they see around them. Pretend (or dramatic) play contributes to a child’s emotional development as they learn to see life from a different viewpoint and allows them to ‘trial’ situations before they happen.

Most children are naturally imaginative and will happily talk away to someone on their toy phone or drive the sofa to the shops, and this creativity should be actively encouraged! This type of play also develops children’s imaginations which are closely linked to intellectual development.

Outdoor play and exploration

Encouraging your young child to explore outdoor play is extremely beneficial and necessary for their development. Outdoor play helps them to learn lots about the everchanging environment and gives them the opportunity to use their whole body and develop their gross motor skills. It can meet their multi-sensory needs and can give them a love for the outdoors. Whether it is messy play, creative or role play, it is an essential part of learning.

10 Games to Teach Social Skills

Social skills are a huge part of any self-contained or special education classroom. Sometimes, these skills can abstract to teach, but they are necessary! I find, the one thing that works wonders for teaching my students social skills are games.

1. UNO

Uno can be purchased here

This is a classic game that so many of us know. I love using Uno to teach social skills in my classroom because it focuses on following rules, turn taking, matching colors and numbers, and tolerating losing.

2. SHARK BITE

The game, Shark Bite is a super fun game to teach social skills! My students and I have so much fun playing this game. This game focuses on turn taking, fine and visual motor skills, as well as losing skills. It also includes a fun and exciting surprise.

Students place colorful sea creatures into the shark’s mouth and take turns rolling a dice then fishing the sea creatures out. One player will trigger the shark to jump up and close his mouth! Students love this one!

3. CATCH THE FOX

The chickens go in the fox’s pockets.

This silly game is a favorite in my classroom. A greedy fox is capturing chickens in his pants, but he puts too many in there and his pants fall off, sending chickens everywhere! The students have to hurry to gather the chickens and put them in their own chicken coop. The student with the most chickens is the winner.

When the fox loses his pants, students gather the chickens as fast as they can and put them into their coop.

This game creates a lot of laughter, which is a great social skill to experience with peers. Students also work on turn taking and tolerating losing.

4. APPLES TO APPLES JUNIOR

Apples to Apples Junior is an excellent game for students ages 9 and up. One student plays a judge while the other students are competing against each other. The judge gives each player 5 red cards, which hold definitions. The judge then deals a green card with one word on it. The players must then choose which of their red cards best match the green card and the judge picks their favorite definition and awards that player the green card.

I love this game because each player gets a chance to be the judge as the judge rotates through the players after each round. This is a more challenging game that focuses on sportsmanship, losing, and even some vocabulary!

5. CANDY LAND

Candy Land is the perfect game for beginners! This is a great game to teach social skills to students. It requires minimal counting skills, color matching, and no reading. The social skills that you can work on with this game are turn taking and tolerating losing. This one is always a favorite with my students!

6. POP-UP PIRATE!

I love using this game to teach my students social skills. It is simple yet, beneficial! This is another game that focuses on turn taking and tolerating losing. It also has a level of excitement as students push the swords into the barrel, you never know which one will pop up the pirate!

7. GREEDY GRANNY

I love silly games and this one sure is silly! Students take turns spinning and then taking items off of Granny’s snack tray. They must be very careful because if Granny wakes up, her teeth fly out! This is a good game to teach turn taking, waiting, and being quiet and gentle.

8. HEDBANZ

Another great game to teach social skills to your students is Hedbanz. In this game, each player wears a headband and inserts a picture without looking at it. When it is their turn to guess what is on their headband, they ask a series of questions to figure out what they are. I love making a game out of yes/no and wh questions, which are amazing social skills for our students to have!

9. CHARADES

Charades is a game in which a person is given a word and they must act out the word without talking. Teams take turns guessing what the person is pretending to be before time runs out. This is a classic game and can be modified to fit your students’ needs. For example, instead of words, you can use pictures. Charades is a great game to teach social skills such as attending, communication, turn taking, and interpreting.

10. SIMON SAYS

Simon Says is a game in which there is a leader calling out actions. The participants must follow the directions of the leader, but only when the leader says, “Simon Says.” If students move or perform the action when the leader does not say, “Simon Says,” then the participant is out and must sit down. The last participant standing is the winner.

Simon Says can be used as a game to teach social skills in many different ways:

• emotions

• animals or vehicles

• blending words (put your hands on your h-ea-d, put your hands on your f-ee-t)

During Simon Says, students are learning so many social skills: listening, tolerating losing, attending, and waiting.

VIRTUAL LEARNING

Are you teaching remotely? Do not worry, Tiffany has created a whole post about 5 Zoom Games for Remote Learning! She has some great suggestions for virtual games to teach social skills.

FUNDING

Do you need help bringing social skills games to your classroom? My suggestions for help are:

• Ask your principal.

• Create a Donor’s Choose account and seek donations.

• Take Kate’s advice on applying for a grant for your classroom.

Pretend Play Dramatic Creativity

Why Pretend Play is Vital to their Development

Of course there are many forms of play and endless ways to engage in play with your child. Dramatic or Pretend Play is just one way that children benefit from immensely that will also give you a chance to positively enhance their learning experiences, their self-esteem but most importantly it can strengthen your relationship with them.

Here are some of the benefits derived from Dramatic / Pretend Play-
Pretending: Just the act of pretending is a learning curve for a child. It grants them with an outlet to role play what they have seen in their world. This helps them learn about how the world works and practice how adults interact.

• Social Play: Pretend play encourages negotiation, cooperation, and role playing different situations. Pretend story lines and characters, turn taking, sharing are all great skills to learn.

• Social interaction: Not only does it help with social skills but it encourages a child to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and be empathetic and considerate of others. This gives them a chance to practice behavior, manners and language that is needed when they interact in real world situations, as well as what behavior is acceptable in public.

• Language development: Dramatic Pretend play encourages expressive language that would not otherwise be used by the child. Often through pretend play withdrawn children can first start to express themselves by acting a certain role. Further, this gives the parent an opportunity to extend on language skills by paraphrasing what the child has said using more descriptive language and exchanging conversations using expressive language examples.

• Imagination: Pretend Dramatic Play is a great for showing how imaginative children are. Imagination is an important building block for learning. It is not only important in childhood, imagination is crucial for life. Just imagine a world without it, we would not have scientists making new discoveries, artists making new artworks, Santa traditions, award winning stories like Avatar and we would not be able to cognitively process these possibilities or examples.

• Self-esteem: By giving your child complete control in their pretend world and accepting them as a silly character like Captain Underpants you are enhancing their self-esteem. While they use their own initiative to develop story lines, their creative imagination to expand stories and their own personality to choose a character they enjoy, you are enhancing their self-esteem by allowing them complete power in the world & enjoying it with them.

• Motor skills: Playing is very busy work. While pretending to be adults or role playing your child is also fine tuning their motor skills. Mixing, Pouring, scooping, cooking, squatting, lifting, serving, moving around & remaining active.

• Practice: Practice makes perfect, while they are playing & pretending they are practicing all the skills they are going to need as they grow up into adults in the real world. From simple things like dressing, measuring, serving food, cooking skills, to handling money, grocery shopping, going to the doctor, answering the phone and not to mention practicing appropriate manners, behaviors and etiquette.

• Use creative props to help set the stage. This was so helpful to me. I am imagination impaired.

Pretend Play: Eating out at a cafe

Try to Provide Some Dramatic Props
If You Struggle Being a Playmate:

Tea sets, cooking utensils, play food etc.

Outdoor mud station: old cooking pots, (mud-is-good-for-you)-play kitchen and whatever you need...

Fresh food Shop with trolley: plastic food, food boxes & Cash register

plastic food, a cash register, empty food containers, Real ingredients eg: worms-eyeballs-goblin-finger-stew. Boys are so fun!

Pretend cooking with Rainbow Spaghetti.

Doll houses, Telephone, masks, Dress up accessories-

Salvation Army is a great resource... Go on a shopping spree to find pretend play items.

Flower Stand: Playdough as mud & flower arranging, pretend money, wallets & bags, a pretend shop stand,

A Bakery: Muffin tin, Shaving Cream & real ingredients, pretend-cooking-wild-berry-muffins,

First Aide Station: play tools, toy doctor kit, bandages,

Doctor mask & toy doctor kit

toy animals, kids tool bench, building toys

Costumes: pirate-party-dress ups, Make Costumes eg: making-robot-suit 

Buried Treasure: treasure-hunt

By accepting your child in their make believe world you give them complete control not only over the game, but over the 'world' for that short time, this enhances their self-esteem and gives you a chance to engage in learning their interests and their blooming personality... Share in their enjoyments and it strengthens their trust in you and the world around them. Your bond will be undeniable: just like Hope's and Russ's was.

Sensory Play Building Brain Pathways

Sensory Play is my Favorite

As infants, this motivation is the foundation of movement and development. Babies naturally track objects across the room with their eyes, turn their heads toward their mother’s voice and become enamored with objects that make noise. Within a few months they start rolling and reaching and eventually crawling – and getting into absolutely EVERYTHING!

As your child develops through infancy, toddler hood and early childhood – it is vital that they are provided with sensory play opportunities.

From birth through to early childhood, children use their senses to explore and try to make sense of the world around them. Children and even adults learn best and retain the most information when they engage their senses. Many of our favorite memories are associated with one or more of our senses: for instance, the smell of a summer night campfire or a song you memorized the lyrics to with a childhood friend. Now, when your nostrils and eardrums are stimulated with those familiar smells and sounds respectively, your sensory memory triggers the brain to respond favorably because of the similarity to the original experience.

Providing opportunities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world through ‘sensory play’ is crucial to brain development – it helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways for the next time they have a similar experience.

This leads to a child’s ability to complete more complex learning tasks building from previously processed information and supports cognitive growth, language development, gross motor skills, social interaction and problem solving skills.

Simply put, sensory play is play that involves a child using some or all of their senses (taste, touch, smell, sound, sight). This type of play uses a variety of media including colors, textures, tastes, smells, sounds, interesting environments (outside vs inside, home vs school) and movement.

Sensory play is at it’s core, fun. By incorporating multi sensory play into a lesson it will facilitate a deeper understanding of what is being experienced, as the child is naturally engaged in rich sensory activity.

Sensory play includes any activity that stimulates your young child’s senses: touch, smell, taste, movement, balance, sight and hearing. Sensory play activities don’t have to be complicated to be fun and, often, they only require a few items that you probably already have around the house.

While it can get messy from time to time, helping your child engage with their senses will give them the chance to learn and grow as they interact with the world around them!

Sensory activities facilitate exploration and naturally encourage children to a better understanding of how our world works while they play, create, investigate and explore. The sensory activities allow children to refine their thresholds for different sensory information helping their brain to create stronger connections to process and respond to sensory information.

Your child can describe how each item feels and smells. You can ask them how the objects are the same and different. You can work on their visual motor skills by asking for a certain item, such as a yellow leaf, and having them find it.

Think of all the wonderful things you could do with your child based this method of play. You could arouse their interest in something that you enjoy by designing experiences that will receive a favorable response. For instance Hope liked experiences that were sticky. However if they had a foul odor or loud sound associated with it she would push it away. She loved to play with school glue and mod-podge. She also liked to embellish her art work with anything shiny. So we avoided smelly glues and played soft music to buffer sudden and loud sounds in her classroom during art.

Fine Motor Development

Fine motor skills develop when your child uses the tiny muscles in their hands and fingers to manipulate, grasp, release, squeeze, pinch etc.

Sensory play is a fantastic way to strengthen all those little muscles to prepare your child for handwriting, cutting, and using utensils. You can use play dough, make your own slime, putty, shaving cream….the list goes on and on, my friend. If you really want to challenge your child, and they are old enough to not place small items in their mouth, you can hide beads inside of the play dough and have them find them and pull them out.

Social Skill Development

Because all children are naturally drawn to sensory play experiences, it is a great opportunity to work on social skills. As children gather around a water table or play in a sensory bin together, they are sharing, taking turns, resolving conflict, and problem solving. They are creating pretend scenarios and asking questions. They just build and grow from each and every experience.

Sensory based activities facilitate exploration and naturally encourage children to use their unique sensory processes while they play, create, investigate and explore. The sensory activities allow children to refine their thresholds for different sensory information helping their brain to create stronger connections to process and respond to sensory information.

For example, initially a child may find it difficult to play appropriately with a peer when there are other things going on in the environment with conflicting noise. However, through sensory play exploring sounds and tasks a child learns to adapt to being able to block out the noise which is not important and focus on the play which is occurring with their peer.

Another example is a child who is particularly fussy with eating foods with a wet texture such as spaghetti, the use of sensory play can assist the child in touching, smelling and playing with the texture in an environment with little expectation.

As the child develops trust and understanding of this texture it helps build positive pathways in the brain to say it is safe to engage with this food. Sensory play literally helps shape what children to believe to be positive and safe in the brain. Ultimately, shaping the choices children make and impacting behavior.

Art is full of sensory stimulation as well as responses. Hope was given a Christmas page to color in preschool. Her class had community supplies and obviously not enough red and green crayons. So she colored the whole page purple and wanted glitter. Her teacher was frustrated because she had plans to post all the pictures. When I saw it. I laughed hysterically. I said, "You thought of grandma didn't you?" She got a big grin and shook her head yes. I told the teacher that I wanted to hang Hope's picture at home anyways and she skipped all the way to the car. Her favorite part of Christmas spending it with my mom. She treasured all Christmas decorations that were purple. In fact they made purple paper garland for the tree together.

Further more: Why not make all happy things purple – the possibilities go to infinity and beyond!