1. Chapter 14
Play

2. Play What did you enjoy (playing) as a child? With or Without friends?
What were you learning through your play?

3. “Through play, the child comes to understand the world and the adult comes to understand the child.”
Gaye Gronlund (2001)

4. True play is free from adult interference
Play is essential to the social, emotional, cognitive, and physical well-being of children beginning in early childhood

5. Why wouldn’t we let children play?

6. Reduced Playtime
The Over Scheduled Child: Parents are receiving carefully marketed messages that "good" parents expose their children to every opportunity to excel, buy a plethora of enrichment tools, and ensure their children participate in a wide variety of activities

7. Reduced Playtime Focus on academics Focus on electronics
Rule Based Play

8. Types of Play Symbolic Play: Games with Rules: Practice Play:
Construction:

9. What is your role in play?

10. Play and You Gentle guidance mixed with “the gift of time”
Thoughtful Q’s
Observational statements
Listening and watching
Involving others (“Clifford really knows a lot about building a tower. Let’s ask him”),
Developmentally appropriate challenges.
Resources

11. Toys Open-ended toys… Toys for: Solving problems
Pretending and building
Creating
Large and small motor skills
Music

12. Selecting Safe Toys
Well-made (with no shared parts or splinters and do not pinch)
Durable; shatter-proof
Easily cleaned

13. SociAL & Dramatic Play

14. Social Atmosphere Types of Play: Solitary/onlooker Parallel
Associative
Cooperative

15. Sociodramatic Play Mature sociodramatic play involves communication
play lasts longer
high level of child involvement
more cooperation between children
scene selection
leads to more growth
play lasts longer:
Cooperative play is movement away from the child playing by themselves
Outcomes:

16. Children and Superheroes

17. Superhero Play: Why? Need to feel powerful
Bans on superhero play/guns/war play don’t usually work

18. Successful Superhero Play
Choose time and place
Ensure the safety of all children and property
Promote development of imaginative and creative play (rather than imitative play)
Set a rule that aggressive behavior is unacceptable
Show children how everyone can be a hero
Give children choices and power in real life

19. Outdoor Play

20. Outdoor Play
Nature deficit disorder: a disconnect with the environment that stems from the current generation’s tendency to focus on built and engineered entertainment rather than the natural world.
Why?:
Increased access of media exposure. Takes less effort.
“Stranger danger”
Over scheduled children

21. Outdoor Play
So what?
“As free outdoor play declines, fitness levels decline, waistlines expand, and a host of health problems follow, including obesity, heart disease, rickets, and a spiraling upturn in emotional and social disorders.” Frost (2006).
Freely chosen
Unique learning environment
Various levels of participation
Encourages physical movement

22. Recess and Physical Education

23. Recess Rules Study “Recess is when all the “I know it’s lunch
trouble starts: the teasing,
the fights, the bullying, the
injuries, the referrals”
“I know it’s lunch
recess when the office
is full and the nurse
is cringing”
Schools have a hard time managing recess time.
“It’s me and two or
three teacher’s aides.
We are seriously out
numbered”

24. Recess & Physical Education
Physical Education supports children’s development
U.S schools have cut back on recess and P.E
Average recess time (1st-6th grade) is 26 minutes a day
About 25% of schools do not allocate any time to recess.

25. Recess & Physical Education
Benefits of physical activity during the school day:
Physically healthy children
Develop social skills
Better prepared to learn; allows children to focus better
Fewer behavior problems in the classroom

26. Recess Rules Study (2007)
Purpose: to learn how elementary schools in low-income areas are impacted by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play
1,055 schools surveyed around the country

27. Recess Rules Study (2007)
Recess offers nearly half of the available opportunity to promote physical activity among children at school
If you were to intervene, recess would be the area
Not all children go to after school; recess is/should be more free and open. True childhood play is free from adult intervening
P.E. is led by teachers

28. Recess Rules Study
There is little dedicated funding available to improve the quality of recess.
After-school funding: 1 billion dollars (Dept. of Ed)
P.E.: 70 million (Dept. of Ed)
Case study of structured recess found: more supportive relationships, meaningful youth involvement, opportunities to teach conflict resolution skills
“...in designing a structured recess, they will sacrifice the notion of recess as an unstructured but supervised break that belongs to the child; that is, a time for the child to make a personal choice between sedentary, physical, creative, or social options” The Crucial Role of Recess in School:

29. Organized Sports

30. Sports Are child sports available for everyone?
Children who are poor, not well coordinated, or have chronic illnesses are less likely to belong to sports teams

31. Benefits of Youth Sport
Physical Activity Benefits:
Better health, including healthier bones and muscles
less obesity
learn cooperation and fair play
improved problem- solving abilities
Physical Activity hazards
Loss of self-esteem as a results of criticism from others
Injuries
Reinforcements of prejudices
Increases in stress
Time and effort taken away from learning academic skills
What are the benefits of play sports?