Teacher Claire's Sing and Play Studio

Have you ever wondered if children are learning when they play? The answer to this question is a resounding yes. You might be wondering what young children learn when it looks like they are just having fun making a tower, feeding a baby doll, or even just making scribbles on a piece of paper. What most adults see as “just playing” is actually a plethora of skills being developed. Learning is not a linear process, especially in young children. Children learn best when skills are integrated.

For example, let’s say your child or a child that you know is building something with blocks. As they are building, they tell you that they are building a house. Just with that little amount of information, so much learning is going on in their brain. They are developing spatial awareness, curiosity, cause and effect, expressive language, and small muscle strength.

As the adult witnessing this play experience there are ways that you can add skills and increase the amount of learning happening by asking open ended questions. Ways to stretch the interaction include:

Social emotional

• Asking permission to join their play
• If other children are present modeling how they can ask to enter play
• Modeling problem solving should a problem arise using coregulation and validating feelings before suggesting how they might fix the proble

Cognitive:

• What could you add to your structure to make… ?
• How many blocks do you think you used?
• Can you make your structure as tall as you?
• What would happen if…?
• How did you create…?
• talk about sizes, colors, shapes you see in their creation

Language

• Tell me about…?
• Who lives in your…?
• What are they doing?
• Where are they going?

The possibilities for creativity and curiosity are endless when children are given time, space, and materials to explore. This is just a small example of what it could look like.