Time for free play is such an important part of young children’s development. Multiple learning opportunities present themselves spontaneously in the course of free play, which can be used to extend children’s learning, especially when children have time to develop their play themes.
A great resource for outdoor play are giant linking plastic building blocks, or any play materials that they can build with. When children play together, one or two children’s interests or creative play ideas can inspire similar interests in the others as they build on each other’s play themes. This is one part of working with children that I really love, seeing and hearing about the things they have built, designed and created and all their pretend-play themes: houses, restaurants, shops, hotels, schools, playgrounds.
As often happens when children have spent a long time building and creating something, they can feel disappointed by concept of tidying up as these play structures represent a lot of work to them, and if several children worked on a play structure together, this is their own construction site. When an play space, indoors or outdoors space is shared with others, it’s not always possible to leave these structures up for them to return to later and continue building and playing in, and tidying up is one of those facts of life that has to be negotiated.
Sometimes I have found it helpful in gaining their cooperation to offer to take a photo of their constructive play creations. This is a simple acknowledgment of the children’s creative work and it offers them a way of preserving it, or sharing it with other family members or friends later on. These photos can also make a great learning resource in themselves.
They can be laminated and used in circle time or small group play time. When children are describing something they made themselves, they are so much more engaged in the subject. It’s very meaningful for children to be able to share pictures of what they have created with their family and friends and helps to develop their confidence and communicative skills. This naturally presents opportunities for vocabulary building and language development.
I have learned so much by listening to children tell me about their play constructions and stories as we looked over these photos afterwards. Listening helped me to learn what the children were really interested in or thinking about while they were playing and gave me ideas to help extend their learning through play for next time.