Why Play is Valuable for a Child in Early Childhood Education

by

Pluto Becks

According to the Oxford dictionary, play is: to engage in activities for pleasure or recreation, to amuse oneself by engaging in imaginative pretence, to fulfill, to occupy oneself.

No matter in what country they live, no matter their environment or circumstances, every child must have play. It’s absolutely necessary for children to play, to express themselves social, emotionally and physically. Play allows itself to be an individual creation or to be shared with others, it can be pulled in any direction letting it be turned into anything a child would like, preparing a healthy start to a lifetime of learning. One of the most important things about play is that involves having fun. It has so many benefits that head off in every direction developing all the important ingredients for strong head start in a child life.

It is the adult s job to explore the conditions which are best for maximizing the potential benefits of play for children to develop these social skills. One of the ways to do this is to provide and encourage games that are fun, exciting and positive for children. Many social skills are learnt through co-operative activities allowing the child to learn how to confidently form stronger friendships and relationships with siblings and parents.

Activities that involve interacting with others teach children not only about themselves but also about other children s feeling needs and wants. Since they have learnt to value others’ emotions they develop skills to handle confrontations and conflicts in the future.

It’s also important for a child to develop physical strengths along with the social and emotional. Play has a huge impact in this development for children of varying ages, abilities and interests. Through physical play a child s fine body movement (fine motor skills) such as eye, mouth, wrist, finger and toe stimulation and large body movement (gross motor skills) like arms, legs, and full body exercise are being strengthened. This motor play provides critical opportunities for children s overall strengthening of muscles, nerves and brain stimulation.

Play involves social, emotional, and physical learning. Cognitive development comes hand in hand with all three of these developments and play is an important vehicle of this. Play gives children the opportunity to understand the world, interact with others in social ways and to express and control emotions. Play is a child’s opportunity to practice the skills they are building, and to try out new tasks. This gives them the framework and knowledge to solve more complex problems. All the above paragraphs are vital for a child to develop a healthy start in life. But there is one paragraph missing perhaps the most important, this one is about fun! Play and fun are very close friends in they are in fact family. Fun cannot exist without play, and play cannot exist without fun.

For more information on

early childhood education

and the effect of good childcare on a child’s development check out my section on

kindergarten

and

kindercare

at our website.

Article Source:

ArticleRich.com