Play With Purpose – Combine learning with play

Everything you do with your child, they learn from. Children are such sponges so it is important to provide them with constructive play opportunities. By that I mean simple play. I talk to mums all day long and am constantly amazed at the amount of activities available to children: gym, dancing, swimming, Letterland, music etc. I have met many toddlers to tweens with a much better social life than mine!

But the other day I had one customer who I think had the perfect day. She borrowed a friend’s canoe, got her son all dressed up in a life jacket and rowed them over from Darook Park to Maianbar to play in the sand. There they built sand castles (circle one’s, square one’s triangle one’s), chased the birds and swam in the water. What a perfect day. Mum got to relax and lay in the sun, while her little boy was exploring and learning. This child was given an awesome chance to adapt to the outside world and gave a lot for Mum to talk about with him.

Children will always ‘develop’ no matter what we as teachers and parents do. However it is the rate at which they develop and the attitude that they adopt that is up to us. If learning time is obvious and takes children away from doing something which they enjoy, they will naturally adopt a bad attitude towards it. If learning is an incidental occurrence from everyday activities then children will enjoy it and learning (the formal stuff) will become part of everyday life. Cooking dinner provides so many opportunities… count how many beans they should put on each plate, make the letter of their first name with the mash potato, what colours have you got on your plate?

As many parents will tell me, it’s the simple toys that are usually the best. When buying a toys look for certain things:

Does the toy allow for creativity

Is it something your child is ‘into’ often we there are things that we wish the kids liked, but it’s not what they are attracted to. Stick to what your child loves for better results. Will it help them with learning eg. Fine motor skills, letters, numbers, colours, creativity.

Is it fun?! This is most important!

While there are so many activities and products that are very valuable to a child’s learning, they are not essential. I think it is important that children are provided with authentic learning opportunities through everyday life such as playing on the beach, doing the groceries, cooking and doing the washing.

Tina Tower
Reach Education Centre