Articles
for children's care, learning
and development
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The Nature of Children's Play
This dated Preschool and Early Years article is a great insight
into children and their play ..
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INTRODUCTION
In play, children expand their understanding of themselves and
others, their knowledge of the physical world, and their ability to communicate
with peers and adults.
This digest discusses children's play and its relationship to
developmental growth from infancy to middle childhood.
The digest also suggests ways in which educators and other adults
can support children's play.
Publication Date: 1988-00-00
Author: Fernie, David
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education
Urbana IL.
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Sensorimotor play
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In what Piaget (1962) aptly
described as sensorimotor practice play, infants and toddlers experiment
with bodily sensation and motor movements, and with objects and people.
By 6 months of age, infants have developed simple but consistent
action schemes through trial and error and much practice.
Infants use action schemes, such as pushing and grasping, to make
interesting things happen.
An infant will push a ball and make it roll in order to experience
the sensation and pleasure of movement.
As children master new motor abilities, simple schemes are coordinated
to create more complex play sequences.
Older infants will push a ball, crawl after it, and retrieve it.
When infants of 9 months are given an array of objects, they apply
the same limited actions to all objects and see how they react.
By pushing various objects, an infant learns that a ball rolls away,
a bile spins, and a rattle makes noise.
At about 12 months, objects bring forth more specific and differentiated
actions. At this age, children will throw or kick a ball, but will shake
rattles.
In a toddler's second year, there is growing awareness of the functions
of objects in the social world.
The toddler puts a cup on a saucer and a spoon in her mouth.
During the last half of this year, toddlers begin to represent their
world symbolically as they transform and invent objects and roles.
They may stir an imaginary drink and offer it to someone (Bergen,
1988). Adults initiate and support such play.
They may push a baby on a swing or cheer its first awkward steps.
Children's responses regulate the adult's actions.
If the swing is pushed too high, a child's cries will guide the
adult toward a gentler approach.
In interactions with adults such as peekaboo, children learn to
take turns, act with others, and engage others in play.
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Pretend play
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As children develop the ability
to represent experience symbolically, pretend play becomes a prominent
activity.
In this complex type of play, children carry out action plans, take
on roles, and transform objects as they express their ideas and feelings
about the social world (Garvey, 1984).
Action plans are blueprints for the ways in which actions and events
are related and sequenced.
Family-related themes in action plans are popular with young children,
as are action plans for treating and healing and for averting threats.
Roles are identities children assume in play.
Some roles are functional: necessary for a certain theme. For example,
taking a trip requires passengers and a driver.
Family roles such as mother, father and baby are popular, and are
integrated into elaborate play with themes related to familiar home activities.
Children also assume stereotyped character roles drawn from the
larger culture, such as nurse, and fictional character roles drawn from
books and television, such as He-Man.
Play related to these roles tends to be more predictable and restricted
than play related to direct experiences such as family life (Garvey,
1984).
As sociodramatic play emerges, objects begin to influence the roles
children assume.
For example, household implements trigger family-related roles and
action plans, but capes stimulate superhero play.
Perceptually bound younger children may be aided by the provision
of realistic objects (Fein, 1981). Even three-year-olds can invent and
transform objects to conform to plans.
By the age of four or five, children's ideas about the social world
initiate most pretend play.
While some pretend play is solitary or shared with adults, preschoolers'
pretend or sociodramatic play is often shared with peers in the school
or neighborhood.
To implement and maintain pretend play episodes, a great deal of
shared meaning must be negotiated among children.
Play procedures may be talked about explicitly, or signaled subtly
in role-appropriate action or dialogue.
Players often make rule-like statements to guide behavior ("You
have to finish your dinner, baby").
Potential conflicts are negotiated.
Though meanings in play often reflect real world behavior, they
also incorporate children's interpretations and wishes.
The child in a role who orders a steak and piece of candy from a
pretend menu is not directly copying anything he has seen before.
Construction play with symbolic themes is also popular with preschoolers,
who use blocks and miniature cars and people to create model situations
related to their
experience.
A kind of play with motion, rough and tumble play, is popular in
preschool years. In this play, groups of children run, jump, and wrestle.
Action patterns call for these behaviors to be performed at a high
pitch.
Adults may worry that such play will become aggressive, and they
should probably monitor it.
Children who participate in this play become skilled in their movements,
distinguish between real and feigned aggression, and learn to regulate
each other's activity (Garvey, 1984).
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Games with rules
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Children become interested in formal
games with peers by age five or younger.
Older children's more logical and socialized ways of thinking make
it possible for them to play games together.
Games with rules are the most prominent form of play during middle
childhood (Piaget, 1962).
The main organizing element in game play consists of explicit rules
which guide children's group behavior.
Game play is very organized in comparison to sociodramatic play.
Games usually involve two or more sides, competition, and agreed-upon
criteria for determining a winner.
Children use games flexibly to meet social and intellectual needs.
For example, choosing sides may affirm friendship and a pecking order.
Games provide children with shared activities and goals. Children
often negotiate rules in order to create the game they wish to play (King,
1986).
They can learn reasoning strategies and skills from strategy games
like checkers. In these games, children must consider at the same time
both offensive alternatives and the need for defense.
Many card games encourage awareness of mathematics and of the psychology
of opponents.
Such games can be intellectually motivating parts of pre- and primary
school curriculum (Kamii & DeVries, 1980, Kamii, 1985).
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The role of adults in children's play
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These
general guidelines may be helpful:
Value children's play and talk to children about their play.
Play with children when it is appropriate, especially during
the early years. If adults pay attention to and engage in children's
play, children get the message that play is valuable.
Create a playful atmosphere. It is important for adults to provide
materials which children can explore and adapt in play.
When play appears to be stuck or unproductive, offer a new
prop, suggest new roles, provide new experiences, such as a field trip.
Adults can help when children cannot solve these conflicts by themselves
(Caldwell, 1977).
Intervene to ensure safe play. Even in older children's play, social
conflicts often occur when children try to negotiate.
Adults should identify play which has led to problems for particular
children.
They should check materials and equipment for safety.
Finally, adults should make children aware of any hidden risks in
physical challenges they set for themselves.
FOR
GENERAL INFORMATION
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FOR
MORE INFORMATION
Bergen, D. (1988). PLAY AS A MEDIUM FOR LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Caldwell, B. (1977). "Aggression and Hostility in Young Children."
YOUNG CHILDREN, 32, pp. 4-13.
Fein, G. (1981). "Pretend Play in Childhood: An Integrative Review."
CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 52, pp. 1095-1118.
Garvey, C. (1977). PLAY. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kamii, C. (1985). YOUNG CHILDREN INVENT ARITHMETIC: IMPLICATIONS
OF PIAGET'S THEORY. New York: Teachers College Press.
Kamii, C., & DeVries, R. (1980). GROUP GAMES IN EARLY EDUCATION:
IMPLICATIONS OF PIAGET'S THEORY. Washington, DC: National Association
for the
King, N. (1986). "Play and the Culture of Childhood." In G. Fein
& M. Rivkin (Eds.), THE YOUNG CHILD AT PLAY. Washington, DC: National
Association for the Education of Young Children.
Piaget, J. (1962). PLAY, DREAMS, AND IMITATION IN CHILDHOOD. New
York: Norton.
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THIS DIGEST WAS CREATED BY ERIC, THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
INFORMATION CENTER. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ERIC, CONTACT
ACCESS ERIC 1-800-LET-ERIC
www.eric.ed.gov
This publication was prepared with funding from the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under OERI contract.
The opinions expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect
the positions or policies of OERI or the Department of Education.
Title: The Nature of Children's Play. ERIC Digest.
Document Type: Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis
Products (IAPs)
(071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text
(073);
Descriptors: Children, Childrens Games, Developmental Stages, Guidelines,
Infants,
Parent Role, Play, Pretend Play, Sensory Experience, Teacher Role,
Toddlers
Identifiers: ERIC Digests
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ERIC Resource Center www.eric.ed.gov
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Image credits:
Child and watercan
iStock ©Lesley Banks
Hands on rocks iStock
©Parker Deen
Sensorimotory play © Chris Parypa
Pretend play dinosaur
©Silkysteps
Games with rules ©Silkysteps
Value play iStock © Maxim Bolotnikov
Play hands on eyes iStock ©Rosemarie Gearhart
Resolve conflict © Olga Solovei
Maze © Phooey
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Six areas of learning
