Table of Contents
Purpose
To observe single child play activities in relation to different areas of development.
Background Literature
Play is an important part of children’s learning and development. In the other words, natural development occurred through play. Play activities are essential to the environment in which children learn concepts, develop social and physical skills, master life situation, and practice language processes. Children learns through play. Without the opportunity for play and an environment that supports it, a child’s learning is limited.
Children engage in play naturally and enjoy it. They do not select play activities because they want to learn. For example, a child does not choose to put blocks in order from small to large because he wants to learn how to seriate, nor does he build an incline because they want to learn the concept of “down” or the principle of gravity. Children’s play is full of opportunities for learning, but at the same time these is no guarantee that, because children play, they will learn. But providing opportunities for children to choose among well-planned, varied learning activities enhances the probability that children will learn through play.
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Most of child’s play occurs with or in the presence of other children. Like social play occurs when children play with each other in groups. The most comprehensive description and classification of children’s play was given by Mildred Parten in 1932.
- Unoccupied play- the child does not play with anything or anyone. He merely stands or sits, without doing anything observable.
- Solitary play- although children involved in play, but child plays alone, seemingly unaware of other children.
- Onlooker play- the child watches and observes the play of other children and center of interest is other’s play.
- Parallel play- the child plays by himself, but in ways similar to and with toys or materials similar to those of other children.
- Associative play- children interact with each other, perhaps by asking questions or sharing material, but do not play together.
- Cooperative play- children actively play together.
Methodology
Design
This assignment has been done on the basis of observation of a pre-schooler child in my neighbourhood about how the play activities leads to learning and development.
Data Collection
I collected the data by silently observing play activities which includes behavior of the kids, nature and quality of play activities, developmental concepts like physical, cognitive, social, emotional, language, literacy, creative, and/or spiritual development. I have observed play activities of single child (who is around 4-5 years old) in different settings (like home, street and park) in 3 session/days in different durations. I have used non-participatory method of observation to ensure bias-free environment.
Observation and Interpretation of Session-1
Observation
It’s a Wednesday evening, Child-1(my subject) begins to play with Child-2 who is same as my subject. Child-1 begins to play in corner of street and pretend to be like a policeman and says “hands up, I caught you, now prison is the right place for you” and appears to be searching for something. Then child-2 comes by standing his hand and tries to escape. Suddenly child-1 grabs his playmate and goes to corner which is actually a house gate (which is imaginary prison for them). Then they switch to jumping rope play. There are few girls who are playing jumping rope so they insist those girls to include them. Then they are repetitively playing “jumping rope” with elder girls. After three-four turns, one of his friend call them to play cricket with them. So, he goes to play cricket in another corner of street with his friends.
Interpretation
During policeman pretend play, he learns, what stealing is? What is wrong or right? what will be the result of stealing? At the same time, it also helps them to develop imagination power which is important for literacy skill and intellectual reasoning. It also helps them to increase their sense of self, and self-esteem, as well as making sense of world around them. During jumping rope activity, helps children to improve their motor skills, development nervous system communication between brain and control over body movements like isolated legs movements, bilateral motor movements etc. Also counting while jumping in play may help in development of language processing. Cricket leads to the development of endurance and stamina, balance and coordination and hand-eye coordination. It also helps in developing social skills like cooperation and communication. It also helps to build sportsmanship like respect like for other for rules, team members, umpires and for each other. Also child may learn how to cope with winning and losing.
Observation and Interpretation of Session-2
Observation
It’s a Thursday evening just after tea time and Child-1(my subject) is playing with clay. He is manipulating clay to make objects and shapes. Firstly, he is trying to make some round balls out of it. Then as soon as he completes, he starts to converting them into chapatis. After this he tries to serve those chapati to his mother and me. Suddenly, he starts mixing those clay chapati to form bigger one, he is rolling his toy rolling pin until it’s break from one corner. After this, He really tries to bridge that gap. Then he tries make bracelet out of clay for his hand. Then he sees remote near him, he starts using remote as phone to talk with his father (who is presently not there at home). He says “paapa jaldi aa jao, mere lia car b lana”. He tries to give that phone to his mother but she deny to hold that. She brings alphabet puzzle for him. As it is colorful, it seeks immediate attention of child-1. He is quickly solving alphabet puzzle but finds difficulty in some words like confuse between D and O, A and V, J and L especially W and M. but even that he solves that puzzle without any help and assistance.
Interpretation
Clay activity helps children to enhance their sensorimotor actions like acquires a sense of his body by creating representatives(different figures or shapes), uses senses of touch, sight and smell, develops coordination, perfects dissociation of hand, thumb and fingers, builds strength in arms, wrist and fingers, improves fine motor skills and dexterity by manipulating the clay and broadens repertoire of actions by pinching, stretching, gigging, crushing, hitting, flattening, rolling etc. As we know, child imaginative include even more elaborate make-believe scenarios, with extended storylines and lots of character acting. It is a kind of symbolic play where child used remote as phone to communicate, at the same time while pretending to talk someone(father) leads to the development of verbal communication and social skills simultaneously. Such pretend play helps children to identify with the adult world, facilitates their ability to practice negotiation skills, turn taking and sharing, listening, talking and observation skills and enables them to further develop emotionally as they are able to act out their emotions and express their feeling.
In addition, they are able to take one roles that encourage discipline and empathy for themselves and towards others. Imagination is at its height as child can be anyone and do anything. Children explore familiar experiences as they take on roles. Such play provides children with the opportunities to imagine, create, and experience their world. Also using remote as phone, such symbolic play shows how sophisticated their brain becoming. When it’s about alphabet puzzle, it increases their visual awareness and develops a deeper understanding of alphabets and color used for these alphabets. It also helps child to develop fine motor and tactile skills. It improves the eye hand coordination and provide ability for problem solving.
Observation and Interpretation of Session-3
Observation
It’s Saturday morning, child-1 goes to the play school with his mother. He reaches to his school at 9 am but 9-9:15 am, they have their free play time to interact with each other. He goes to building block section first where one child already playing. They both smiles by seeing each other and starts making a house together. In between, they are passing blocks to each other, putting blocks in one house, then they tell teacher to see their house and they are appreciated by teacher. After this leisure time they are supposing to be engage in dance activity. Here teacher first introduces some steps in particular song which is actually mix-up of different songs. But children are really enjoying that song and dance activity. Child-1 is one who is going with his own steps. In this activity they are free to introduce their own steps. After they have their water break. Then he is supposing to perform thumb painting activity, even he asks teacher for thumb painting. Child-1 loves to play with colors. He is using different colors in thumb painting, even he uses his hand to make butterfly. In between they are sharing color pot with each other. After this, he shows his painting to other children.
Interpretation
Building blocks are actually the building blocks of child’s all-round development. Child develops more muscle control and learns to combine, stack, and line up the blocks they also begin to develop their thinking ability by using blocks. Building blocks also encourages children to cooperate with others who play with them and this inculcates a feeling of sharing. To play with building- blocks, children are required to reach for them like picking them up, stacking them u together and this also helps to build eye-hand coordination. It also helps to develop creative skills as they build different designs and if child is using blocks for pretend play then, it is also a product of creative thinking. When it’s about dance, it leads to great range of motion, body awareness, balance, muscle strength, coordination, and endurance.
During dance, child takes turn, work as a group, cooperate, share, understand space, form lines, watch and support one another, perform and interact. Through dance, child learns self-discipline and time management which are important life skills. Dance also encourages child to be more creative and to express themselves in many ways. Expression of joy during dance, provides a structured outlet for a healthy physical and emotional release that helps to develop emotional maturity. When it’s about thumb painting, thumb painting improves sensory abilities of children as it involves all major senses (visual, auditory, kinesthetic). Thumb painting involves complex movements of hand that can build eye-hand coordination, muscle control and dexterity. It also provides opportunity to explore and experiment that can help child to be creative. It also helps child’s intellectual development like mixing of two colors to form new colors. It allows them to use their imagination and create.
Conclusion
Play enhances social interaction and the development of social skills like learning how to share, getting along with others, taking turns and generally learning how to live in a community. Play also promotes physical development and body coordination and develops and refines fine and gross motor skills. Play assists in personality and emotional development as child try different roles, release feelings, express themselves in a nonthreatening atmosphere, and consider the roles of others. Also playing with other children provides many opportunities for learning crucial social skills like sharing, taking turns, problem solving and conversing with others. In the end, we can say play is essential for young children’s learning and development.
References
- Child Development: Piaget and the Theory of Cognitive Development
- The Importance of Social Development in Children
- Play and its Role in the Mental Development of the Child
- The Importance of Play
- An Essential Role for Adult Learning in Child-Rearing Practices during Infancy: A Comparison Between Parents with Learning Difficulties and Non-disabled Parents
