Early Childhood Education/Early Years
Activities and Types of Play
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Play TypesWith thanks to Debra Laxton, University of Chichester.
a. Play to Promote the Building and Maintaining of Relationships
- Allow children to engage in play freely and discover objects and materials whilst providing a secure base for children to explore from. Be warm and responsive to verbal and non-verbal cues.
- The ‘dance of dialogue’ (Read, 2014) – Consistent adults foster relationships with specific children, learn about them as individuals to attune to their needs.
- Engage in two way communication from birth
- Use stories to support emotional literacy i.e. for children to identify feelings, manage emotions and develop empathy.
- Use feeling stones and carved branches to support emotional literacy.
- Play ‘peek-a-boo’ games
- Songs that use children’s names e.g. Hello song
- Be a play partner and co-learner
- Turn taking games
- Games to encourage self-control e.g. dead lions
b. Play to Promote Language and Listening
Conversation is the major priority: introducing words for everyday objects, colours, rhymes and concepts up/down, hot /cold, fast/slow, big/small. Culturally specific stories help a child, understand history, how we live with each other, how we live every day: in our culture, this is what we do.
- Encourage ‘talk’ through warm reciprocal relationships
- Create dens and quiet spaces for children
- Short, meaningful circle times to share experiences
- Stories
- Action songs and traditional rhymes
- Display drawings of children and their families to encourage talks and shared experiences between children and adults that hold meaning, local environment.
- Sound discrimination games e.g. listening walks
- Use familiar and unfamiliar objects to distinguish and identify different sounds
- Fantasy role play
- Space to act out personal experiences
c. Play to Promote Literacy
- All of the above (Language & Listening)
- Pictures, books and texts as available
- Story telling
- Create situation stories that mirror children’s lives/ experiences
- Story scribing
- Writing materials available for role play
- Language games e.g. rhyming words
d. Sensory Play
- Play with natural materials e.g. pebbles, sticks
- Malleable materials as available for exploration
- Games that promote sensory integration so therefore include sounds, sights, movements & touch combined or all at once e.g. Parachute games
e. Physical activities (fine and gross motor skills)
- Use the outside environment and community space for learning and going for walks
- Obstacle courses e.g. tunnel crawling, tree and climbing
- Engaging in sports e.g. running races, egg and spoon race
- Engaging in hand eye/ foot eye coordination activity e.g. throwing, catching
- Balancing opportunities e.g. logs, benches, tree stumps, on a chalk line
- Dancing
- Body percussion
- Music and movement sessions
- Body movement action songs e.g. head and shoulders, jelly on a plate, row the boat
- Floor based play time for babies to use different muscles and movements
- Outdoor imaginative play
- Ribbon/ material strips for waving and movements – ribbons on sticks and dancing scarves
- Handle a variety of tools, objects and materials in different contexts inside and outside
- Small loose parts play for manipulating
- Provide time and opportunity for children to manage their own toileting and dressing needs
- Den building
f. Problem Solving
- Den making
- Natural resources for exploration
g. Art and music
- Making and listening to music and sounds
- Songs, poems and rhymes including those with associated movements including rocking, swaying, bouncing, finger and toe songs or clapping
h. Play for mathematical development
- Shape walk
- Number songs and rhymes
- Games with dice
- Sorting activities e.g. with natural materials, everyday objects
i. Play to promote understanding the world
- Imaginative role play
- Exploration of environments e.g. indoor, outdoor, local community
- Stories to gain an understanding of self and empathy for others
- Exploration of living things e.g. plants, habitats
- Exploration of open-ended materials, natural and reclaimed, to encourage children to investigate, developing their curiosity, imagination and creativity
- Vigorous physical activity (impact on body)
- Adjustable ramps, materials and objects
- Exploration of light and dark and Sunlight and shadows – drawing around shadows at different times of the day, measuring shadows
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