Forms of Play-Based Learning
Through various research, it has been stated there are numerous forms of ‘play’ that can take place in early childhood classrooms and no matter what form is being used, all of them in one way or another, positively impacts children’s social-emotional development and their academics. We can look at these forms of play in terms of a continuum, with child-guided or "free play" at one end and adult-led play or playful learning at the other end. Below are the different forms of play and their definitions as stated by Pyle and Danniels (2017) and (Hassinger-Das et al., 2017).
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Guided Play:
According to Danniels and Pyle (2018), there is one discrepancy that defines the different types of guided play and that is who has the control over the activity: is it child-directed or teacher-directed? Guided play encompasses the elements of free play such as play being fun, voluntary, and intrinsically motivated, with an additional element that focuses on minimal adult scaffolding to reach specific learning goals (Hassinger-Das et al., 2017). Guided play has been found to better support our children’s academic learning compared to free play. To be defined as guided play, there are two elements that must be evident:
1. Child directs the learning (child agency)
2. Mild adult guidance to guarantee that the child advances to the learning goal specified.
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Free Play:
Children are in charge of their own play dialogues and determine the resources and materials to be utilized within their play (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). Teacher involvement is not evident. Teachers may intervene to model or scaffold conflict resolution issues among peers. Naturally through free play, children’s cognitive, language, social, and emotional development is inspired (Pyle et al., 2018).
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Inquiry Play:
Inquiry play is similar to free play as the play is mostly controlled by the child. Inquiry play is initiated by the child, in retort to their interests and which are extended by the teachers through the implementation of equivalent academic standards (Pyle and Danniels (2017). For instance, a couple years ago I was meeting with a small group to go over a specific skill and on the other side of the room a group of students were trying to make paper airplanes. They started flying them across the room, distracting the students I was with. Instead of shutting down this excitement over making and flying paper planes, I asked the students if there was a way, we can explore this topic without disrupting the whole class. One child said we should bring an expert in to talk about planes and another child said we can test out different papers to see which flies better. With their ideas, I reached out to a parent who knew a lot about planes and flying, and luckily, also knew how to make paper airplanes! Consequently, I had the parent come in as an expert who discussed the mechanics of flying planes and taught us all how to make paper airplanes. We then set up a “runway” for our planes and had many experiments on using different types of paper, paper clips, and other materials in the creation of the planes. We even were able to incorporate mathematics and measurement in our paper airplane games by using non-standard and standard units’ measurement to determine how far certain planes went.
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Overall, inquiry-based learning is the ability to build upon children’s natural yearning of exploring to which teachers support them in becoming more attentive and organized in their observations and investigations of their interests (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). In a way, it is like taking their interests and finding ways to incorporate the standards into it.
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Collaborative Play:
Collaborative play is similar to guided play, however, in collaborative play, control is shared between the students and the adults. The focus for the teacher is to direct the outcomes of this play by determining the academic skill they want students to develop (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). Students and teachers then work together to design the framework of the play, the theme and resources needed, and then the students take over and direct the play within the created environments (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). An example of this is when I noticed my class was really interested in the store “Target” and had been creating their own imaginary stores in our indoor and outdoor classrooms. At this time of the year, we were exploring money. Therefore, we worked together to design our own Target store, integrating many concept areas such as literacy skills of written and oral language and math skills such as coin identification, addition and subtraction, and numeral recognition. By collaboratively creating the context of play, it provided chances for child-directed play narratives as well as natural openings for the teacher to incorporate academic skills (Pyle and Danniels, 2017).
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Playful Learning:
Playful learning is a more structured approach to learning and play as it is projected to guide and support the knowledge of the specific academic skills to be mastered within a method that is still playful and appealing to the students (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). Within these playful learning events, the children are still the influencer of their play narrative while the teacher directs the academic outcomes (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). Teachers are providing their students with activities and formats where they can practice their math and literacy concepts that have been part of the academic targets being measured. During these moments, the students think they are just playing, but in actuality, they are having fun and learning!
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Learning Through Games:
Learning through games is an avenue that encourages the growth of distinct math and language skills where teachers are ensuring the mandated academic standards are being taught, just in a more engaging way for their students (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). When students see their experiences as fun, through hands-on experiences and playing of games, students tend to be more relaxed and will take more risks. Students see themselves as playing a game rather than learning a specific skill. In these moments, teachers are guiding the outcomes and arranging the process while the students are following the prescribed rules of the games (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). There are many ways to incorporate math and literacy skills within a play-based learning environment. For instance, in my class we have played many versions of bingo, alphabet, number, and rhyming bingo. Students have used Play-Doh or clay to make shapes, numbers, and letters to go along with a story or statement. We have gone fishing for letters or numbers using magnetic fishing poles, had various scavenger hunts or numerous math card games. We have played Roll-a-Word Word Building activity, Scramble, and Words in Words. Within these events, the activities included different levels of teacher involvement and combined varying levels of academic learning (Pyle and Danniels, 2017). Once the teacher has explained the rules and modeled the games, in time the students will be able to work independently and with their peers.
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