Module 7: Playing

Module 7: Playing

This weeks module falls right into my very own topic. Play has emerged throughout each of my modules through the semester. I have explained in each module how children learn through play. What I have also mentioned is that parents find it difficult to grasp this understanding. I have focused on parents and play in a few of the modules and this week I decided to create an introductory activity for the parents in my classroom.

Play to me affects the whole body helping to develop ourselves mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, etc. There are many different forms of play and play can be incorporated into any topic, concept, idea, etc. Play is an experimental process we may not know the outcome, but we are learning through 'practice play', 'symbolic play', and 'game play' according to Jean Piaget.

In, Sparks of Genius (1999), the authors state, “playing has become so rare in our society that some people worry that the art of it will be lost” (266). It's rare that you ever see or think about adults playing in their work environments. The reason for this is that, “the only difficulty with playing—and it's a big one-- is being able to remain enough of a child to do it” (Bernstein, 1999, p. 265). People like Fleming remained the child inside and “never grew up”. They were excited about their work and found it fun. Today, people are bored sitting in their office chairs all day. Sometimes we just need a break to play.

Play is extremely important in the child development classrooms. We use play all the time to create activities that reach each domain in a child's development. As I have mentioned before this is the one thing that parents can't seem to ever understand. That's why I decided to create an activity that involves my parents and play.

At the beginning of each school year we either have open house, or a chance for us to meet the parents of our students for the new school year. I know that this would take a lot of effort to get the parents to do this, but I want the parents to come into my classroom and sit down at one of the tables. I will then introduce myself and then act as if they are my students. I will explain what choices the children have during free choice and what is available in each center. I will then tell the parents that they are free to go to free choice. Obviously, some parents might find this very strange. I will encourage parents to explore the classroom and choose an activity to play and engage with. I know that there will be some parents that are more outgoing and will help get the rest of the parents moving. I would hope after a few minutes of being settled in and feeling more comfortable they will be fully engaged in an activity that they have chosen. Some parents might be trying to create a road out of blocks or trying to find out which blocks will help make a car go down a ramp faster. As the parents are engaged I will wander around asking them open ended questions, “I can see that you have made a ramp. How far can you get the car to go, and which blocks work better?” Although, some parents may feel as though I am talking to them like a child. I want to help open their eyes to a child's perspective. I will allow the parents to be engaged in play for about 30 minutes. Then I will ask them to clean up and find a seat again at the tables. Once the parents are back I will begin to ask them questions. What did it feel like when I told you to start free choice? Did you enjoy the activity you chose? Did you feel as though you were learning through play? How so? There are endless amounts of questions I could ask the parents based off of observations and the direction of conversation I get from some of the parents.

I developed this activity because I want parents to be open minded about play. I also want them to understand how important play is for a child's development. They will also be able to see how we do reach different types of play that affect different areas of a child's body through the various activities. Instead of spending the whole year trying to defend our practice I would hope that this would help the parents to understand a little bit better. They might also see that they need to explore play themselves in their own work settings or at home with their children. In, Sparks of a Genius, the authors mentioned how children use to take apart radios, bicycles, TV's, etc. They don't do that anymore. This reminded me of when I was younger. My parents would always give my brother old iron's, TV's, computers, and let him take them apart. He always spent so much time on this. Trying to take all the pieces apart and storing them for later use. The authors are right you never see or hear of kids doing this anymore. Instead parents just buy new ones when things do break. We need to keep this type of play alive. In doing so we need to help keep our parents open to new ideas and different forms of play. We need to help stimulate our parents brains and our students!