“If you trust play, you will not have to control your child’s development as much. Play will raise the child in ways you can never imagine.” – Vince Gowmon
Many skills are developed in a play-based curriculum. Setting up centers in the classroom provides the opportunity for you to plan for learning experiences to strengthen skills in each domain. In addition to this type of structured play, there are also many opportunities for children to learn through play in the form of unstructured activities. However, you may come across parents or other professionals who do not understand the importance of play in supporting early childhood growth and development.
To prepare for this discussion,
• Read Chapters 7 and 8 in your course text.
• Read The Case of Brain Science and Guided Play: A Developing Story (Links to an external site.).
• Review your post from the Developmentally Appropriate Practice: The Key discussion in Week 2.
For this discussion, imagine that you are a teaching assistant for a 3-year-old classroom and are helping the lead teacher with the yearly open house. As families are touring the classroom, you overhear several conversations regarding how much playing children do in this school, and the concerns families have about the academic growth of their children. After everyone has gone, you talk with the lead teacher about what you overheard. The teacher comes up with a plan to send home a one-page informational letter that highlights the importance of play and why it is essential to this classroom. The teacher has asked that you take the lead on this project and create the letter.
For your initial post, develop a one-page informational newsletter to educate families about the importance of play in learning. You may use the Weekly Food For Thought template provided or you can create your own using Word Newsletter Templates or another format of your choice. Your newsletter must include
• A brief introduction that explains play as it pertains to early learning.
• A general quote or saying about play.
• Research that supports play being a developmentally appropriate practice for young children.
• Specific examples of how you use play in your classroom (what types of activities children engage in).
• A quote or saying that supports your classroom activities.
• A discussion of how play is integrated into learning by showing how the classroom examples of play you chose specifically meet the needs of children in this age group (age 3) in each domain of development (include at least one example for each domain).
Upload your newsletter to the discussion board as an attachment.
Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your peers. Imagine you are one of the parents concerned about play and have just received this newsletter. What would you say to the teacher in response to the information?
Was the letter convincing enough to change your mind about play? Provide a rationale. What are two questions/concerns you have about play, or what are two important things you learned about play from this letter?