LEAven Blog

It’s spring. The school year is winding down, and you still have a long list of things you want to accomplish with your students. Time goes by quickly, and, as a professional educator, you want to do your best. You want your students to enjoy school, and you want them to learn, too. Do you feel pressured to complete student assessments? Do parents, or school leaders, question the opportunities you provide your students to engage in play? How do you work to make sure students are set up for success now and for upcoming years?

When you feel overwhelmed, it can be helpful to take a brief “pause”. Yes, there are many items that still need attention before the school year ends, but there are also many opportunities that lay ahead for great engagement, relationship-building, and, of course…learning!

When God created the world, He rested on the seventh day. How do you model and practice a “day of rest” currently? While it may not be realistically possible to “do absolutely nothing” for one day a week, there are ways you can rest, relax, and rejuvenate. How about hobbies? What hobbies do you enjoy?

Now, consider what you’ve learned by doing things that you enjoy. Have you learned something new by baking? How has participating in sports helped you grow personally? Thank God for the many life-long learning opportunities that have been provided to you; these are learning opportunities that are not always academic in nature, but provide holistic learning in many areas.

Play = Children’s Work

When the “busyness” of school places a list of “to-do’s” on your mind, remember that incorporating an “old school” priority of child development, play, in your classroom, is a best practice! When pressure to ensure children have “school readiness” is present, you can rest assured that research continues to show that children who daily engage in play can learn as much as children who receive direct instruction from a teacher (Skene et al., 2022). Additional push-down of academic expectations, rigor, and high-stakes testing has not necessarily led to better outcomes for young children (Kopko & Oliveria, 2023). Rather, research is showing more of how a philosophy of “play that invites learning”, or “learning through play” is most beneficial in learning for young children. Play, acting as a way to reduce stress and anxiety, can provide children with agency – an agency for benefits which last into adulthood (Kopko & Oliveria, 2023)!

Recent research continues to clearly show that children learn through play experiences that are active, engaged, meaningful, and joyfully social (Zosh et al., 2022). For play-filled learning to be effective, Zosh et al. (2022) recommends that it be:

• Active. Since children learn with their whole bodies, they need to process information accordingly and apply and digest it through their own application.
• Engaged. Children can become totally absorbed in an activity when there are minimal distractions and transitions. Long blocks of time for children to play are necessary in a classroom setting.
• Meaningful. Children need opportunities to test new concepts and apply them. New knowledge is constructed based on hypothesis testing and remembering prior knowledge gained over time.
• Socially interactive. Relationships with peers and caring adults help children feel safe as they make explorations, which are essential to learning. Through play, children are provided the opportunity to create safe, stable, and nurturing relationships with others, which is a life-long skill to hold on to!
• Joyful! Positive affect is linked to increased growth in executive functions, learning, and brain flexibility. Play regulates the body’s stress response and reduces stress hormones.

Developmentally appropriate play with parents, teachers, and peers allows children an opportunity to promote the social-emotional, cognitive, language, and self-regulation skills that build executive functions and a prosocial brain (Bongiorno, 2023).

Why Play Is So Critical

Developmentally appropriate play meets children where they are and assures the young brain that the world can again feel secure and manageable; this allows the nervous system to calm (Kopko & Oliveria, 2023). Being able to regulate feelings and emotions is a significant component of learning for young children, especially as increased pressure and stress is present in today’s society. Children can feel stress experienced by other adults.

Play offers children a sense of control and allows them to explore their interests in an unhurried and relaxed manner. Teachers provide environments and materials for play experiences to be filled with learning and interact with children to further their investigations, socializations, and problem-solving. Dramatic play, or fantasy play, allows children to create their own world; here they determine the activities, participants, scenes, and settings. Practicing control over a world of pretend and predicting what will happen can also reduce stress. Sensory play also reduces stress and has a calming effect; helping regulate overall stress and providing a soothing atmosphere (Kopko & Oliveria, 2023).

Play also builds the more curious, creative, and problem-solving areas of the brain where executive function skills are developed. Children are not born with executive function skills, but rather with the capacity to learn them.

How God created children is amazing. The development they experience in the first decade of their lives is something that only He could create and provide. Thank you for your dedication and passion to work with young children as they grow into the children who God designed them to be.

Again, as the “busyness” of spring and the soon-to-be end of the school year approaches, spend time playing with your students. Provide them with many opportunities to engage in play-filled activities, socialize with peers, and, mostly importantly…learn through play. Be a teacher who encourages strong play that invites learning!

References:

Bongiorno, L. (2023, March 1). Ten things every parent should know about play. National Association for the Education of Young Children. https://www.naeyc.org/our-work/families/10-things-every-parent-play

Kopko, K. and Oliveria, P. (2022). Push pause: The pressing case for play. Journal of Social and Emotional Learning, 4(1), 14-19.

Skene, K., O’Farrelly, C. M., Kirby, N., Stevens, E. C., & Ramchandani, P. G. (2022). Can guidance during play enhance children’s learning and development in educational contexts? A systematic review and meta-analysis. Child Development, 93(4), 1162-1180. http://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13730

Zosh, J. M., Gaudreau, C., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2022). The power of playful learning in the early childhood setting. Young Children, 77(2), 6-13. https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/summer2022/power-playful-learning