“Play is Our Brains Favorite Way of Learning”
– Diane Ackerman
It is very important that your home atmosphere is conducive for your children’s learning. Setting up an immersive environment for play is just as important as having the proper play materials. There are a lot of developmental advances happening for children in pretend play so our job as adults is to support those advances with a proper setting for play.
For my advocacy work with play, I wanted to look deeper into our class discussion on pretend play. Why is it important and vital to a child’s development? What we found in class was that setting up a safe, welcoming, and lifelike environment is what allows children to thrive the most when it comes to pretend play. From reading “Assessing & Scaffolding: Make Believe Play” we know that there are 6 factors to best support children’s pretented play.
- Plan: Sometimes it helps to enter pretend play with a plan, either based on prior knowledge or readings. the plan can be made by the child or the adults could provide ideas.
- Roles: Children establish roles themselves or can be prompted by an adult/teacher.
- Props: Give children many meaningful props to support their play and make it feel real.
- Extended time frame: Play under short time restraint doesnt allow children the time to build a world/story; give children ample time to play so they can act out.
- Language: Use kind language and demonstrate manners in play so they can carry on those skills when playing with others. Also use new terms perhaps from prior learning.
- Scenario: Help build a real scenario for the child or allow them to create one of thier own
At the beginning of the bakery video we see the teachers setting up posters and reading to the kids about bakeries. This connects their visual cognition to their use of the play kitchen. What this does is it provides a background for the pretend play, making children more interested in their play as well as giving it meaning. By reading books about a real bakery and children can have a foundation to pretend. The teachers provide the children with ample supplies to make the play feel real. giving them real pretend doughs to use, real timers and comstues so they could even look like bakers. All this made the play seem much more real to them. The teachers also do a nice job of queuing the kids on how to use the play kitchen and use its functions. They use terms from prior readings to reassure that the children comprehend what they’re doing. Proper manners and talking skills are demonstrated by the teachers as well
In the video we watched children play with a home cooking set in an environment immersed with learning that really demonstrated the best use of this toy. Children’s toys like this give children engagement about a fundamental part of life, cooking. No matter what, preparing food is a skill children need to learn the importance of, as one day they will be doing it on their own and responsible for their own well being in that area of life. This toy can be introduced to your child at around age 2 and can be used for years to come afterwards The features on the kitchen like real knobs and timers will demonstrate to kids how cooking is time sensitive. Children also have pretend food, pots, and other cooking tools provided with the toy set adding to the reality of their pretend play experience.
In summation, as a parent be an active part in your children’s play. Show them genuine interest and feed their knowledge with constructive communication while doing so. Providing a happy immersive environment will also go along way in their development.
Final Thoughts / Reflection
I think by creating this blog post I was able to share with families the benefits of some play over others and some toys over others. This project also opened my mind to the new possibilities of how certain toys can be played with. Cooking for yourself is a critical part of growing up. Emphasizing its importance for children gets them interested in this life skill. My thinking was why give your child a toy that doesn’t translate to real world abilities and needs? I think what I took away from this was that some of the most important toys for children are the ones that resemble real life. In class we learned about how a heightened reality of play is important for children so they get the sense that the play they are engaging in is real.
PLAY KITCHENS- https://www.amazon.com/s?k=play+kitchen&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
Assessing and Scaffolding Make-Believe Play By Deborah J. Leong & Elena Bodrova