the role of the adult in playful learning

HOW TO EFFECTIVELY ENGAGE WITH CHILDREN DURING PLAY

What are the different types of play?

As stated in our previous blog posts, we believe that play is the best way for children to learn about the world and that guided play is one means for caregivers to target specific learning objectives that are embedded into children’s play. This is an activity under our weekly theme of “Growing”, where we invite you to make Nature Birthday Cakes with children. In the app, you will see that we invite you to make nature birthday cakes to target the cognitive development skill of pretend play, the social-emotional skill of bonding, and the math skill of counting as you add candles to your cakes. But this caregiver has been using the Rayz Kidz app for months, and she is starting to feel confident about the other ways children are learning, and how she can extend it even further. The caregiver’s questions and prompts help to engage the children in ways that are developmentally appropriate for their respective ages. The 2-year-old is building language skills, participating where she can and learning and expressing the words that are most important to her while also singing along to the Happy Birthday song. She is working on her gross motor skills as she carries the bucket of heavy water, and while it might not be obvious to the untrained eye, she is also working on her math skills as she measures the water and dirt to make a great mud consistency. The 4-year-old is making connections to real life, a wonderful cognitive skill, and is also using her imagination to extend this activity further by collecting rocks that remind her of a Frozen birthday cake. The caregiver feels comfortable inviting the children to sign their name in the icing as a natural activity to do in their play, a great way to practice writing their names without forcing or pressuring the children.

 By using the Rayz Kidz app weekly, the caregiver knows to look out for these developmental skills, because we try to encourage as much sensory and outdoor play as possible, and she is starting to see the natural opportunities for learning in this engaging morning of play. She snaps some photos to send to parents and highlights these specific skills, so that parents are learning right along with them! 

What is the role of the adult in playful learning?

 What is happening in this interaction? To the average person, one might say that the children are “just playing” and that the caregiver is there to keep an eye on the children. But to the trained eye, we can see that there is so much more happening. This type of interaction is called playful learning, and that is one of the most important philosophies behind the activities and communication tools in the Rayz Kidz app. 

4-year-old and 2-year-old sisters and playmates pat their mud cakes, adding little sticks for candles, decorative clovers, and carry their clumpy, dripping, but beautiful creations over to their caregiver who is sitting nearby. They begin to sing happy birthday to their caregiver and she exclaims “Oh, how beautiful, thank you so much!” as they place the cake on the ground in front of her. The 2-year-old says “You, eat!”, so her caregiver pretends to take a bite of her muddy cake. “Oh, this is delicious! How did you make it? Did you use a recipe?”. The 4-year-old excitedly recounts her process of mixing water and dirt together, and explains how she selected the perfect clovers with the biggest leaves, and added 10 birthday candles. The 2-year-old chimes in with a “mud!” and returns to her play. She fills up another heavy bucket of water to mix with her dirt, and triumphantly carries it across the yard. The caregiver and the 4-year-old continue to talk about birthday parties, as the child shares about her own Frozen themed birthday party earlier that year. The caregiver asks “I wonder if we have anything that looks like ice in the backyard?”--the 4-year-old says “I know!” and darts off to search for white rocks. She returns to the mud kitchen with her sister, and they decide that they are going to look for more rocks so that they can make an ice-themed birthday cake like the one she had at her own party. This play extends through the morning as they squat, dig, pat, squeeze, scoop and sing their way through the day while their caregiver asks them questions about their ice birthday cake and invites them to sign their name in the “icing” with a stick. 

Playful Learning