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24 practical pretend ideas and why it's important

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24 practical pretend ideas and why it's important

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https://handsonaswegrow.com/pretend-play-ideas/

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“Lack of free play may not the physical body as would lack of food, air, or water, but it kills the spirit and stunts mental growth.  Free play is the means by which children learn to make friends, overcome their fears, solve their own problems, and generally take control of their own lives.  It is also the primary means by which children practice and acquire the physical and intellectual skills that are essential for success in the culture in which they are growing.  Nothing that we do, no amount of toys we buy or ‘quality time’ or special training we give our children, can compensate for the freedom we take away.  The things that children learn through their own initiatives, in free play, cannot be taught in other ways.”  (quote from Dr. Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College)

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Modern Preschool:Great Hands on Center Ideas

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Modern Preschool:Great Hands on Center Ideas

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Moffat Girls: Good Hands on Center Ideas

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Moffat Girls: Good Hands on Center Ideas

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Fun and effective learning resources for primary education.

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Way back when my son was tiny and just starting preschool I was waiting to pick him up when another parent who wasn't familiar with the class ( a co-op preschool ) was expressing their dismay about the amount of free choice time the 2 hour class had. " They are just playing!" Well yes they are, but they are learning too. After spending some time in the class with the amazing teachers and parent volunteers he came to understand that learning through play at school isn't the same as what they do at home although both are equally valuable.

In that class as well as my classroom { and many others) teachers carefully set up learning environments so that it's fun, playful, and there are all different kinds of learning to try every time the children come to school. There are many great ways to parent and there are many great ways to teach but I thought today I would share with you some of my favorite free choice activities grouped in their areas of learning you can set up in your class or at home. I did many of these activities with my kids at home during my hiatus from teaching and they work wonderfully as activities at the kitchen table or family room floor.

I try hard to include all of these areas of learning every day. Some days we skip one area especially if their interest in another is high at the time, or we might have a science activity planned for outside and skip setting something out for free choice. Do what works for your class with the goal of hitting all areas most days. Above all else use your child's or students' interests and abilities to guide activities.

So what do teachers do during free play? I'll tackle that question tomorrow!

Art

# 1 Cover a table with butcher paper and add one or more of the following :
crayons
markers
stamps and stamp pads
high lighters
stickers
band-aids

#2 Sticker mural like this Sticker Station

#3 Paint at the easel (if you are concerned about mess try watercolors)

#3 Chalk at the easel

#4 Chalk on black paper taped to a table

Fine Motor

#5 Ripping paper ( cut scrap paper into strips and pop it in a bowl)

#6 Cutting Play dough with scissors ( play dough in general is great for fine motor and hand strength)

#7 Lacing Beads - big wooden ones for beginners, pipe cleaners and pony beads for older kids. Making cheerio or fruit loop towers is a wonderful option as well.

#8 Play dough with rolling pins they need to hold both sides to work.

#9 Buttons ( or other small treasures) hidden in play dough to find.

#10 Sorting with tongs or tweezers. We like to sort pom poms by color, and/or size into egg cartons or other containers)

#11 Cutting station - my students loved cutting hay!

Gross Motor

#12 A small balance beam - you can make one like this.

#13 Sit and spin. This takes a lot of upper body strength.

#14 Tunnels to crawl through.

#15 Baby buggies, shopping carts, and strollers to push around the class.

Sensory

#16 Sensory Bin with contents that change with the theme or periodically. My favorites are dyed dried beans, corn meal, pom poms, ice, and kinetic sand. I love to use coffee scoops from the dollar store because they are perfect for little hands. We allow our students to add things to the sensory bin, the construction vehicles live in ours now.

#17 Play dough! It's a bonus if your students can help you make it. Add in things like :

cookie cutters

popscicle sticks

plastic knives

scissors

garlic press

stamps

big googly eyes

plastic animals to make tracks

#18 Texture Box - you can see how I made a simple one here.

#19 Musical instruments

Literacy

#20 Letter Magnets on magnetic board or cookie sheet. Children will sort them, find favorites, and count the letters.

#21 Letter fishing game.

#22 Letter matching tray activities like this leaf themed one.

#23 Play phones for children to "talk" to mom, dad, each other. My students order pizza for me a lot.

#24 Felt board with story pieces to encourage storytelling.

#25 Letter stamps/ letter cookie cutters with play dough. I always make sure to have my students initials available because they grab for those first.

#26 Paper / envelopes/ writing pads and writing utensils to write even if your students are years away from legible handwriting.

#27 Small chalkboards to write and draw with.

#28 Plexiglass document stands with dry erase markers.

Math & Science

# 29 Shape, color, and size sorting trays like this one we made with butterflies or this matching activity with play dough.

#30 Discovery or sensory bottles to explore - these magnetic sensory bottles allowed for safe magnetic play during free choice in my class.

#31 Scoops and containers in the sensory table to prompt natural play with measurement.

#32 Shape puzzles like this easy DIY one.

#33 Number magnets & puzzles

#34 Nature table or tray with a magnifying glass to investigate. This nature table from Imagination Tree is wonderful.

Pretend Play & Practical Life

#35 Kitchen area ( I really think this is a must for all classrooms) with food and a table.

#36 Baby care area.

#37 Tool box / Tool bench

#38 Cash register to turn the play table into any kind of store.

#39 Puppets or plush toys.

#40 Dress up - No room for full costumes? Get a box for hats and accessories like gloves, necklaces, glasses, and goggles.

Block Play

#41 Interlocking blocks with simple pattern cards available like these.

#42 Wooden Blocks

#43 Trains ( love to combine these with blocks).

#44 Famous Buildings Book ( I am in the process of making this for my class! )

#45 Big Cardboard Blocks

The other thing that I haven't included in this list but is paramount is the making sure that your students feel like they belong. Having students' photo somewhere in the class where they can see it, having their art work displayed, and making sure that you have welcomed each child into the class helps the children feel more engaged and comfortable which benefits their play and learning.

What is YOUR favorite free choice activity?

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45 Great Free Choice Activities For Preschool { Use At Home Too } - No Time For Flash Cards

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Way back when my son was tiny and just starting preschool I was waiting to pick him up when another parent who wasn't familiar with the class ( a co-op preschool ) was expressing their dismay about the amount of free choice time the 2 hour class had.

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The Checkup

Doctors should prescribe playtime for young children, the American Academy of Pediatrics says.

Image

Credit Credit Tatyana Zenkovich/EPA, via Shutterstock

By Perri Klass, M.D.

The most famous painting of children at play is " Children's Games," the 1560 work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder of a town square in which children from toddlers to adolescents (scholars have counted 246) are playing a range of timeless games. There are dolls and marbles and tiddlywinks, ball games and climbing games and riding games (scholars have counted 90 or so). The children are the only ones in town, and their activities offer a kind of taxonomy of play.

But some worry that our current culture is less friendly to play, and that children may not be getting the chance to explore all its possibilities. To try to address that, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement on Monday titled " The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children."

The statement characterizes play as intrinsically motivated, involving active engagement and resulting in "joyful discovery." It summarizes extensive developmental and neurological research on play, and tries to tease out some of the specific developmental discoveries in peek-a-boo (repetitive games provide "the joy of being able to predict what is going to happen") and Simon Says (builds impulse control and executive function). It also says that doctors should encourage playful learning for parents and infants by writing a "prescription for play" at every well-child visit in the first two years of life.

It's a values statement because many who study play feel that it is under siege, even as new research emphasizes its importance in children's development.

"We're in a climate where parents are feeling like they need to schedule every minute of structured time, and 30 percent of kindergartens offer no recess," said Dr. Michael Yogman, chairman of the A.A.P. committee on psychosocial aspects of child family health and the lead author of the statement. To some, he said, "play is seen as irrelevant and old-fashioned."

Dr. Benard Dreyer, the director of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine and a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said, "The old saying is, play is the work of children. Play is the way they learn and the way they develop. It's important to understand how all of us, and especially parents, can encourage play."

"Kids develop 21st-century skills in play," said Dr. Yogman, who is chief of the division of ambulatory pediatrics at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass. These include social and emotional skills and executive function, "skills that are crucial for adults in the new economy, that help them collaborate and innovate."

A fundamental job in pediatric primary care is to strengthen the parent-child relationship, he said, and play is important in that area as well. Even with a very young child, he said: "When a 3-month-old smiles and a parent smiles back, those kinds of turn-taking activities are not only far from trivial," but are actually important for developing language and social-emotional skills, such as taking turns.

The stable relationships with parents and other caregivers that are built through these interactions are also important for helping children navigate stress and trauma and preventing what we have come to call "toxic stress" from damaging the child's development.

And the policy statement goes into detail on recent research showing that play can affect the developing brain, both in its basic structure and in function, with changes that can be traced to play showing up at the molecular and cellular level, as well as at the level of behavior and executive function.

"I think there's a real pediatric role in pointing out the real profound importance of play on many levels," Dr. Yogman said. "Parents are looking to us for what do I do with my child, how many activities do I get them in," he said. "I'm really thrilled the academy was willing to endorse the idea of a prescription for play."

"It's not about fancy toys," he said. "It's about common household items that kids can discover and explore," like putting spoons and plastic containers on the floor "and bang them and see what the child does with them." Parents often tell him, "Gee, I always believed in that. Nice to have it validated," he said.

"The goal is not to make parents feel guilty or to lord it over them as an expert," Dr. Yogman said, but rather to look for moments during an office visit that a parent might build on, and to talk about what is coming up developmentally for the child - which is a basic imperative of primary care in pediatrics.

And there are ways to work play into the medical visit, like blowing bubbles to help fearful children, or using hand puppets to demonstrate what's going to happen in an exam. It may help to take the family out to the waiting room and see what the child does with the toys there.

The statement is advocating for a balanced curriculum in prekindergarten that does not ignore playful learning and doesn't regard time spent in the block corner as somehow beside the point, Dr. Yogman said. Playful learning means supporting young children's intrinsic motivation to learn and discover, instead of imposing extrinsic motivations like test scores.

What parents need to do, Dr. Dreyer said, is be there to help their children with "scaffolding." That means "you don't control the play for your child, but when you see they're ready to go to the next step, support that."

For example, you wouldn't do the puzzle for the child, but you might point out a clue to help figure out where the piece might fit. Giving parents positive reinforcement for what they are already doing is what helps most, he said, not criticizing them for what they aren't doing.

I've spent a great deal of my own time in pediatrics thinking about how we can encourage parents to read with their children as part of the primary care visit. And I recently wrote about efforts to "prescribe" going to play in parks.

But can we successfully "prescribe" reading, playing, going outside and all the other essential pieces of a healthy busy childhood?

There are crucial underlying themes that connect all these different ideas; the importance of interacting with children, responding to their cues and questions, the value of the old-fashioned kind of face time, with parents and with peers, and the importance of helping kids find a variety of experiences that are not all about screens and screen time in a world that is increasingly virtual for both parents and children.

"Reading is also having kids imagine what their role would be, which is playful," Dr. Yogman said. "Getting outside and getting physical exercise is playful."

"A 'prescription for play' I might hand to parents at the end of a visit is really just saying, it's O.K. to go back and rely on your common sense about where you think you can share some of the joy as your child is exploring the world," he said. "The goal is really validating what I think parents might come to on their own but are feeling pressured by a culture that says no, they really need to do special video games on an iPad or they need to have every minute of structured time."

"Play is the most important part of childhood," Dr. Dreyer said. "It's how they develop emotionally, cognitively and in language - the statement comes out to help pediatricians and parents understand the importance and how to even do it better."

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The Checkup Doctors should prescribe playtime for young children, the American Academy of Pediatrics says. By Perri Klass, M.D. The most famous painting of children at play is " Children's Games," the 1560 work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder of a town square in which children from toddlers to adolescents (scholars have counted 246) are playing a range of timeless games.

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Children can bake and sell goodies at their very own Cookie Shop. Our favorite part of this center was the simple bookshelf that we transformed into a double oven! Click on the picture below to see all of the photos.

Transformed trifold science boards into a straw house, a stick house and a brick house for an adorable version of the Three Little Pigs. Preschoolers who can memorize and act out stories will have great comprehension skills when they get to school. We also love to act out Goldilocks and the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Click on the picture to see our entire production.

Chocolate and mint ice cream with cherries on top... coming right up! Preschoolers love to scoop and sell this summer treat to their friends. Click the photo to see how we set it up.

Ask your preschoolers to save and bring in all of their empty recycling containers, then use them to set up a "Shop Smart" grocery store. It's guaranteed to be one of their favorites. Click on the photo below for simple step-by-step directions.

This classic dramatic play center is another one of our favorites. We like to set up a hospital with a triage cot, doctor costumes and lots of props. No explanation is needed! This is one of the centers (like the grocery store and the restaurant) that the children are usually very familiar with. They love it when we call them "Doctor"! Click on the photo for more pictures of the set-up.

Can we take your order? The restaurant dramatic play center is chock full of opportunities to practice reading, writing and teamwork. Click on the picture to see the menu and ordering forms that we like to use.

We put on our paleontology hats and look for dinosaur bones and footprints at this dramatic play dig site. Click on the picture to see how we used a simple ingredient from the craft store to turn our sensory table into an excavation site.

Preschoolers love to pretend to take care of babies, and it such an important lesson on how to be caring, gentle and loving. The best part is, most of the supplies are probably in your play room at home.

This dramatic play scenario is a little more complex than the others, but it is hands-down their favorite one. The Airport is the center that my students come back years later and ask about. It's the one that my own school-aged kids will play with for hours on end. It is a blast! Click and for more pictures.

If you're looking for a quick set-up, cheap center, this is it! We got all the supplies from the dollar store and added water. It's great for summer, too. Take those kids outside and put them to work!

Setting up a flower shop is the perfect dramatic play scenario for spring, Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. The preschoolers count and add flowers in their bouquets and practice tying bows (or knots!) with ribbon. Click the picture to see how we set it up in our classroom.

Make a brick oven from a cardboard box and a roll of "brick" wrapping paper. Preschoolers will make pizzas, and order pizzas, and deliver pizzas, and pretend to eat pizzas ALL.DAY.LONG!

Would you like a taco or a burrito from our very popular Mexican restaurant? Preschoolers will take your order then create the taco or burrito of your choice.

Whether you're setting up a plain restaurant, a pizza parlor, and ice cream parlor, or a taco stand, here's a surefire FUN way to spice it up. Add a fountain drink machine! You can use a box or a bookshelf with just a few simple additions (paper cups and tissue paper) to make it extraordinary. Click on the picture for more details.

Do you students love to reread the books that you share with them in class? Set your dramatic play area up as a Library. Allow them to "check out" books with their very own library card and return them to school the next day.

What's for breakfast?! Add the pancake and waffle sets (available and from Melissa & Doug) to your kitchen and fire up the grill. Children will love the custom menus and all of the toppings for their delicious breakfast.

Do your kids like to pretend or role play? What is your favorite way to set it up? Whatever it is, I hope that you have tons of fun playing and learning with your children today.

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16 Fun & Creative Dramatic Play Ideas for Preschoolers

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Children can bake and sell goodies at their very own Cookie Shop. Our favorite part of this center was the simple bookshelf that we transformed into a double oven! Click on the picture below to see all of the photos.

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Play is an elusive concept, and it's an essential part of life, not just childhood. Educators and psychologists alike describe play as a means for organizing information and learning. Through all various types of play, pretend or dramatic, free or guided play, learning is constantly happening.

Preschool Play Categories

What is Play?

Play is the act of engaging in something for pure enjoyment, but play is much more complex than that. Play consists of five distinct characteristics as noted by Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Dr. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff in their book Einstein Never Used Flashcards . They are as follows: play...

is pleasurable and enjoyable

has no extrinsic goals

is spontaneousus and voluntary

requires active movement

is imaginative

The Difference Between Free Play and Guided Play

There are benefits of both free play and guided play in a preschool setting. (They are sometimes referred to as structured and unstructured play.) The value of each lies in their purpose.

Free play allows children to create their own rules and settings. It is completely open-ended. Guided play refers to staged activities for children to explore with a specific purpose. It has specific rules and objectives.

It is easy to think that guided play holds more value in preschool, however for children to develop healthfully they also need free play just as much.

What is Learned Through Play

Play encourages all areas of proper development, from cognitive and physical to social and emotional. Here are some facts about the benefits of play:

Play builds self-esteem and confidence.

Play develops problem-solving skills.

Play encourages new vocabulary usage.

Play teaches children to collaborate.

Play teaches children to be alone and independent.

Play allows children to release their emotions.

Play encourages planning and thinking ahead.

When you think of play, you think of a happy, carefree environment. But there's much more going on than just fun. Children are actively learning and developing through their play.

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Play is an elusive concept, and it's an essential part of life, not just childhood. Educators and psychologists alike describe play as a means for organizing information and learning. Through all various types of play, pretend or dramatic, free or guided play, learning is constantly happening.

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10 Things Every Parent Should Know About Play

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10 Things Every Parent Should Know About Play

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10 Things Every Parent Should Know About Play

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Oftentimes, children's play is more than what meets the eye. Read this article for ten great facts about your child and play!

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Recess time isn't just a break from school. It helps kids learn to be human

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Vygotsky's Theory

The work of Lev Vygotsky (1934, 1978) has become the foundation of much research and theory in cognitive development over the past several decades, particularly what has become known as sociocultural theory.

Vygotsky's theory comprises concepts such as culture-specific tools, private speech, and the zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky believed cognitive development is influenced by cultural and social factors. He emphasized the role of social interaction in the development of mental abilities e.g., speech and reasoning in children.

Vygotsky strongly believed that community plays a central role in the process of "making meaning."

Cognitive development is a socially mediated process in which children acquire cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society.

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is someone who has a higher level of ability or greater understanding than the learner regarding a particular task, process, or concept.

The MKO can be a teacher, parent, coach, or even a peer who provides guidance and modeling to enable the child to learn skills within their zone of proximal development (the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance).

The interactions with more knowledgeable others significantly increase not only the quantity of information and the number of skills a child develops, but also affects the development of higher-order mental functions such as formal reasoning. Vygotsky argued that higher mental abilities could only develop through interaction with more advanced others.

According to Vygotsky, adults in society foster children's cognitive development by engaging them in challenging and meaningful activities. Adults convey to children how their culture interprets and responds to the world.

They show the meaning they attach to objects, events, and experiences. They provide the child with what to think (the knowledge) and how to think (the processes, the tools to think with).

Vygotsky's theory encourages collaborative and cooperative learning between children and teachers or peers. Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective educational strategies based on Vygotsky's ideas.

Scaffolding involves the teacher providing support structures to help students master skills just beyond their current level. In reciprocal teaching, teachers and students take turns leading discussions using strategies like summarizing and clarifying. Both scaffolding and reciprocal teaching emphasize the shared construction of knowledge, in line with Vygotsky's views.

Vygotsky highlighted the importance of language in cognitive development. Inner speech is used for mental reasoning, and external speech is used to converse with others.

These operations occur separately. Indeed, before age two, a child employs words socially; they possess no internal language.

Once thought and language merge, however, the social language is internalized and assists the child with their reasoning. Thus, the social environment is ingrained within the child's learning.

Effects of Culture

Vygotsky emphasized the role of the social environment in the child's cognitive development.

Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic abilities for intellectual development called "elementary mental functions" (Piaget focuses on motor reflexes and sensory abilities). These develop throughout the first two years of life due to direct environmental contact.

Elementary mental functions include -

Eventually, through interaction within the sociocultural environment, these are developed into more sophisticated and effective mental processes, which Vygotsky refers to as "higher mental functions."

Tools of intellectual adaptation

Each culture provides its children with tools of intellectual adaptation that allow them to use basic mental functions more effectively/adaptively.

Tools of intellectual adaptation is Vygotsky's term for methods of thinking and problem-solving strategies that children internalize through social interactions with the more knowledgeable members of society.

For example, memory in young children is limited by biological factors. However, culture determines the type of memory strategy we develop.

For example, in Western culture, children learn note-taking to aid memory, but in pre-literate societies, other strategies must be developed, such as tying knots in a string to remember, carrying pebbles, or repeating the names of ancestors until large numbers can be repeated.

Vygotsky, therefore, sees cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, as affected by the beliefs, values, and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person develops and, therefore, socio-culturally determined.

Therefore, intellectual adaptation tools vary from culture to culture - as in the memory example.

Social Influences on Cognitive Development

Like Piaget, Vygotsky believes that young children are curious and actively involved in their own learning and discovering and developing new understandings/schema.

However, Vygotsky emphasized social contributions to the development process, whereas Piaget emphasized self-initiated discovery.

According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skillful tutor. The tutor may model behaviors and/or provide verbal instructions for the child.

Vygotsky refers to this as cooperative or collaborative dialogue. The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor (often the parent or teacher) and then internalizes the information, using it to guide or regulate their performance.

Shaffer (1996) gives the example of a young girl given her first jigsaw. Alone, she performs poorly in attempting to solve the puzzle. The father then sits with her and describes or demonstrates some basic strategies, such as finding all the corner/edge pieces, and provides a couple of pieces for the child to put together herself, and offers encouragement when she does so.

As the child becomes more competent, the father allows the child to work more independently. According to Vygotsky, this social interaction involving cooperative or collaborative dialogue promotes cognitive development.

To understand Vygotsky's theories on cognitive development, one must understand two of the main principles of Vygotsky's work: the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).

More Knowledgeable Other

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is somewhat self-explanatory; it refers to someone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, concerning a particular task, process, or concept.

Although the implication is that the MKO is a teacher or an older adult, this is not necessarily the case. Often, a child's peers or an adult's children may be the individuals with more knowledge or experience.

For example, who is more likely to know more about the newest teenage music groups, how to win at the most recent PlayStation game, or how to correctly perform the newest dance craze - a child or their parents?

In fact, the MKO need not be a person at all. To support employees in their learning process, some companies are now using electronic performance support systems.

Electronic tutors have also been used in educational settings to facilitate and guide students through learning. The key to MKOs is that they must have (or be programmed with) more knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner does.

Zone of Proximal Development

The concept of the more knowledgeable other relates to the second important principle of Vygotsky's work, the zone of proximal development.

This important concept relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

Vygotsky consequently focuses much more closely on social interaction as an aid to learning, arguing that, left alone, children will develop - but not to their full potential.

He refers to the gap between actual and potential learning as the zone of proximal development (ZPD) - and argues that it is only through collaboration with adults and other learners that this gap can be bridged.

The zone of proximal development is the gap between the level of actual development, what the child can do on his own, and the level of potential development, what a child can do with the assistance of more advanced and competent individuals.

Social interaction, therefore, supports the child's cognitive development in the ZPD, leading to a higher level of reasoning. It is generally believed that social dialogues have two important features.

The first is intersubjectivity, where two individuals who might have different understandings of a task, arrive at a shared understanding by adjusting to the perspective of the other.

The second feature is referred to as scaffolding. Adults may begin with direct instruction, but as children's mastery of a task increases, so the adult tends to withdraw their own contributions in recognition of the child's increasing success.

For example, the child could not solve the jigsaw puzzle (in the example above) by itself and would have taken a long time to do so (if at all), but was able to solve it following interaction with the father, and has developed competence at this skill that will be applied to future jigsaws.

ZPD is the zone where instruction is the most beneficial, as it is when the task is just beyond the individual's capabilities. To learn, we must be presented with tasks just out of our ability range. Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth.

As a result of shared dialogues with more knowledgeable others, who provide hints, instructions, and encouragement, the child can internalize the 'how to do it' part of the task as part of their inner or private speech. The child can then use this on later occasions when they tackle a similar task on their own.

Vygotsky (1978) sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given - allowing the child to develop skills they will then use on their own - developing higher mental functions.

Vygotsky also views peer interaction as an effective way of developing skills and strategies. He suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skillful peers - within the zone of proximal development.

Evidence for Vygotsky and the ZPD

Freund (1990) conducted a study in which children had to decide which items of furniture should be placed in particular areas of a doll's house.

Some children were allowed to play with their mother in a similar situation before they attempted it alone (zone of proximal development) while others were allowed to work on this by themselves (Piaget's discovery learning).

Freund found that those who had previously worked with their mother (ZPD) showed the greatest improvement compared with their first attempt at the task.

The conclusion is that guided learning within the ZPD led to greater understanding/performance than working alone (discovery learning).

Vygotsky and Language

Vygotsky believed that language develops from social interactions for communication purposes. Vygotsky viewed language as man's greatest tool for communicating with the outside world.

According to Vygotsky (1962), language plays two critical roles in cognitive development:

1. It is the main means by which adults transmit information to children.

2. Language itself becomes a very powerful tool for intellectual adaptation.

Vygotsky (1987) differentiates between three forms of language:

1. Social speech, which is external communication used to talk to others (typical from the age of two);

2. Private speech (typical from the age of three) which is directed to the self and serves an intellectual function;

3. Private speech goes underground, diminishing in audibility as it takes on a self-regulating function and is transformed into silent inner speech (typical from the age of seven).

For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age.

At this point, speech and thought become interdependent: thought becomes verbal, and speech becomes representational.

As children develop mental representation, particularly the skill of language, they start to communicate with themselves in much the same way as they would communicate with others.

When this happens, children's monologues are internalized to become inner speech. The internalization of language is important as it drives cognitive development.

"Inner speech is not the interiour aspect of external speech - it is a function in itself. It still remains speech, i.e., thought connected with words.

But while in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words dies as they bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings."
(Vygotsky, 1962: p. 149)

Private Speech

Vygotsky (1987) was the first psychologist to document the importance of private speech.

He considered private speech as the transition point between social and inner speech, the moment in development where language and thought unite to constitute verbal thinking.

Thus, in Vygotsky's view, private speech was the earliest manifestation of inner speech. Indeed, private speech is more similar (in form and function) to inner speech than social speech.

Private speech is "typically defined, in contrast to social speech, as speech addressed to the self (not to others) for the purpose of self-regulation (rather than communication)."
(Diaz, 1992, p.62)

Private speech is overt, audible, and observable, often seen in children who talk to themselves while problem-solving.

Conversely, inner speech is covert or hidden because it happens internally. It is the silent, internal dialogue that adults often engage in while thinking or problem-solving.

In contrast to Piaget's (1959) notion of private speech representing a developmental dead-end, Vygotsky (1934, 1987) viewed private speech as:

"A revolution in development which is triggered when preverbal thought and preintellectual language come together to create fundamentally new forms of mental functioning." (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005: p. 1)

In addition to disagreeing on the functional significance of private speech, Vygotsky and Piaget also offered opposing views on the developmental course of private speech and the environmental circumstances in which it occurs most often (Berk & Garvin, 1984).

Through private speech, children collaborate with themselves, in the same way a more knowledgeable other (e.g., adults) collaborate with them to achieve a given function.

Vygotsky sees "private speech" as a means for children to plan activities and strategies, aiding their development. Private speech is the use of language for self-regulation of behavior.

Therefore, language accelerates thinking/understanding ( Jerome Bruner also views language in this way). Vygotsky believed that children who engage in large amounts of private speech are more socially competent than children who do not use it extensively.

Vygotsky (1987) notes that private speech does not merely accompany a child's activity but acts as a tool the developing child uses to facilitate cognitive processes, such as overcoming task obstacles, and enhancing imagination, thinking, and conscious awareness.

Children use private speech most often during intermediate difficulty tasks because they attempt to self-regulate by verbally planning and organizing their thoughts (Winsler et al., 2007).

The frequency and content of private speech correlate with behavior or performance. For example, private speech appears functionally related to cognitive performance: It appears at times of difficulty with a task.

For example, tasks related to executive function (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005), problem-solving tasks (Behrend et al., 1992), and schoolwork in both language (Berk & Landau, 1993), and mathematics (Ostad & Sorensen, 2007).

Berk (1986) provided empirical support for the notion of private speech. She found that most private speech exhibited by children serves to describe or guide the child's actions.

Berk also discovered that children engaged in private speech more often when working alone on challenging tasks and when their teacher was not immediately available to help them.

Furthermore, Berk also found that private speech develops similarly in all children regardless of cultural background.

There is also evidence (Behrend et al., 1992) that those children who displayed the characteristic whispering and lip movements associated with private speech when faced with a difficult task were generally more attentive and successful than their 'quieter' classmates.

Vygotsky (1987) proposed that private speech is a product of an individual's social environment. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that there exist high positive correlations between rates of social interaction and private speech in children.

Children raised in cognitively and linguistically stimulating environments (situations more frequently observed in higher socioeconomic status families) start using and internalizing private speech faster than children from less privileged backgrounds.

Indeed, children raised in environments characterized by low verbal and social exchanges exhibit delays in private speech development.

Children's use of private speech diminishes as they grow older and follows a curvilinear trend. This is due to changes in ontogenetic development whereby children can internalize language (through inner speech) to self-regulate their behavior (Vygotsky, 1987).

For example, research has shown that children's private speech usually peaks at 3-4 years of age, decreases at 6-7, and gradually fades out to be mostly internalized by age 10 (Diaz, 1992).

Vygotsky proposed that private speech diminishes and disappears with age not because it becomes socialized, as Piaget suggested, but because it goes underground to constitute inner speech or verbal thought" (Frauenglass & Diaz, 1985).

Educational Implications

Vygotsky's approach to child development is a form of social constructivism, based on the idea that cognitive functions are the products of social interactions.

Social constructivism posits that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs through social interactions within a cultural and historical context.

Vygotsky emphasized the collaborative nature of learning by constructing knowledge through social negotiation. He rejected the assumption made by Piaget that it was possible to separate learning from its social context.

Vygotsky believed everything is learned on two levels. First, through interaction with others, then integrated into the individual's mental structure.

Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological).

This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.
(Vygotsky, 1978, p.57)

Teaching styles grounded in constructivism represent a deliberate shift from traditional, didactic, memory-oriented transmission models (Cannella & Reiff, 1994) to a more student-centered approach.

Traditionally, schools have failed to foster environments where students actively participate in their own and their peers' education. Vygotsky's theory, however, calls for both the teacher and students to assume non-traditional roles as they engage in collaborative learning.

Rather than having a teacher impose their understanding onto students for future recitation, the teacher should co-create meaning with students in a manner that allows learners to take ownership (Hausfather, 1996).

For instance, a student and teacher might start a task with varying levels of expertise and understanding. As they adapt to each other's perspective, the teacher must articulate their insights in a way that the student can comprehend, leading the student to a fuller understanding of the task or concept.

The student can then internalize the task's operational aspect ("how to do it") into their inner speech or private dialogue. Vygotsky referred to this reciprocal understanding and adjustment process as intersubjectivity."

ZPD

Because Vygotsky asserts that cognitive change occurs within the zone of proximal development, instruction would be designed to reach a developmental level just above the student's current developmental level.

Vygotsky proclaims, "learning which is oriented toward developmental levels that have already been reached is ineffective from the viewpoint of the child's overall development. It does not aim for a new stage of the developmental process but rather lags behind this process" (Vygotsky, 1978).

Appropriation is necessary for cognitive development within the zone of proximal development. Individuals participating in peer collaboration or guided teacher instruction must share the same focus to access the zone of proximal development.

"Joint attention and shared problem solving is needed to create a process of cognitive, social, and emotional interchange" (Hausfather,1996).

Furthermore, it is essential that the partners be on different developmental levels and the higher-level partner be aware of the lower's level. If this does not occur or one partner dominates, the interaction is less successful (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

Vygotsky's theories also feed into the current interest in collaborative learning, suggesting that group members should have different levels of ability so more advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their ZPD.

Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective strategies to access the zone of proximal development.

Reciprocal Teaching

A contemporary educational application of Vygotsky's theory is "reciprocal teaching," used to improve students" ability to learn from text.

In this method, teachers and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher's role in the process is reduced over time.

Reciprocal teaching allows for the creation of a dialogue between students and teachers. This two-way communication becomes an instructional strategy by encouraging students to go beyond answering questions and engage in the discourse (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

A study conducted by Brown and Palincsar (1989) demonstrated the Vygotskian approach with reciprocal teaching methods in their successful program to teach reading strategies.

The teacher and students alternated turns leading small group discussions on a reading. After modeling four reading strategies, students began to assume the teaching role.

The results showed significant gains over other instructional strategies (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather,1996).

Cognitively Guided Instruction is another strategy to implement Vygotsky's theory. This strategy involves the teacher and students exploring math problems and then sharing their problem-solving strategies in an open dialogue (Hausfather,1996).

Based on Vygotsky's theory, the physical classroom would provide clustered desks or tables and workspace for peer instruction, collaboration, and small-group instruction. Learning becomes a reciprocal experience for the students and teacher.

Like the environment, the instructional design of the material to be learned would be structured to promote and encourage student interaction and collaboration. Thus the classroom becomes a community of learning.

Scaffolding

Also, Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development on learners is relevant to instructional concepts such as "scaffolding" and "apprenticeship," in which a teacher or more advanced peer helps to structure or arrange a task so that a novice can work on it successfully.

A teacher's role is to identify each individual's current level of development and provide them with opportunities to cross their ZPD.

A crucial element in this process is the use of what later became known as scaffolding; the way in which the teacher provides students with frameworks and experiences which encourage them to extend their existing schemata and incorporate new skills, competencies, and understandings.

Scaffolding describes the conditions that support the child's learning, to move from what they already know to new knowledge and abilities.

Scaffolding requires the teacher to allow students to extend their current skills and knowledge.

During scaffolding, the support offered by an adult (or more knowledgeable other) gradually decreases as the child becomes more skilled in the task.

As the adult withdraws their help, the child assumes more of the strategic planning and eventually gains competence to master similar problems without a teacher's aid or a more knowledgeable peer.

It is important to note that this is more than simply instruction; learning experiences must be presented in such a way as to actively challenge existing mental structures and provide frameworks for learning.

Five ways in which an adult can "scaffold" a child's learning:

1. Engaging the child's interest

2. Maintaining the child's interest in the task e.g., avoiding distraction and providing clear instructions on how to start the task.

3. Keeping the child's frustration under control e.g., by supportive interactions, adapting instructions according to where the child is struggling.

4. Emphasizing the important features of the task

5. Demonstrating the task: showing the child how to do the task in simple, clear steps.

As the child progresses through the ZPD, the necessary scaffolding level declines from 5 to 1.

The teacher must engage students' interests, simplify tasks to be manageable, and motivate students to pursue the instructional goal.

In addition, the teacher must look for discrepancies between students" efforts and the solution, control for frustration and risk, and model an idealized version of the act (Hausfather, 1996).

Challenges to Traditional Teaching Methods

Vygotsky's social development theory challenges traditional teaching methods. Historically, schools have been organized around recitation teaching.

The teacher disseminates knowledge to be memorized by the students, who in turn recite the information to the teacher (Hausfather,1996).

However, the studies described above offer empirical evidence that learning based on the social development theory facilitates cognitive development over other instructional strategies.

The structure of our schools does not reflect the rapid changes our society is experiencing. The introduction and integration of computer technology in society has tremendously increased the opportunities for social interaction.

Therefore, the social context for learning is transforming as well. Whereas collaboration and peer instruction were once only possible in shared physical space, learning relationships can now be formed from distances through cyberspace.

Computer technology is a cultural tool that students can use to meditate and internalize their learning. Recent research suggests changing the learning contexts with technology is a powerful learning activity (Crawford, 1996).

If schools continue to resist structural change, students will be ill-prepared for the world they will live.

Critical Evaluation

Vygotsky's work has not received the same level of intense scrutiny that Piaget's has, partly due to the time-consuming process of translating Vygotsky's work from Russian.

Also, Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective does not provide as many specific hypotheses to test as Piaget's theory, making refutation difficult, if not impossible.

Perhaps the main criticism of Vygotsky's work concerns the assumption that it is relevant to all cultures. Rogoff (1990) dismisses the idea that Vygotsky's ideas are culturally universal and instead states that scaffolding- heavily dependent on verbal instruction - may not be equally useful in all cultures for all types of learning.

Indeed, in some instances, observation and practice may be more effective ways of learning certain skills.

There is much emphasis on social interaction and culture, but many other aspects of development are neglected, such as the importance of emotional factors, e.g., the joys of success and the disappointments and frustration of failure act as motivation for learning.

Vygotsky overemphasized socio-cultural factors at the expense of biological influences on cognitive development. This theory cannot explain why cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological process of maturation.

Vygotky's theory has been applied successfully to education. Scaffolding has been shown to be an effective way of teaching (Freund, 1990), and based on this theory, teachers are trained to guide children from what they can do to the next step in their learning through careful scaffolding.

Collaborative work is also used in the classroom, mixing children of different levels of ability to make use of reciprocal / peer teaching.

Vygotsky vs. Piaget

Unlike Piaget's notion that children's cognitive development must necessarily precede their learning, Vygotsky argued, "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90). In other words, social learning precedes (i.e., come before) development.

Vygotsky's theory differs from that of Piaget in several important ways:

Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting cognitive development.

Unlike Piaget, who emphasized universal cognitive change (i.e., all children would go through the same sequence of cognitive development regardless of their cultural experiences), Vygotsky leads us to expect variable development depending on cultural diversity.

This contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages of development (Vygotsky does not refer to stages like Piaget does).

Hence, Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas Piaget states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures.

Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to cognitive development.

1. Vygotsky states the importance of cultural and social context for learning. Cognitive development stems from social interactions from guided learning within the zone of proximal development as children and their partners co-construct knowledge.
In contrast, Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children construct knowledge.

2. For Vygotsky, the environment in which children grow up will influence how they think and what they think about.
The importance of scaffolding and language may differ for all cultures. Rogoff (1990) emphasizes the importance of observation and practice in pre-industrial societies (e.g., learning to use a canoe among Micronesian Islanders).

Vygotsky places more (and different) emphasis on the role of language in cognitive development.

According to Piaget, language depends on thought for its development (i.e., thought comes before language). For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age, producing verbal thought (inner speech).

In Piaget's theory, egocentric (or private) speech gradually disappears as children develop truly social speech, in which they monitor and adapt what they say to others.

Vygotsky disagreed with this view, arguing that as language helps children to think about and control their behavior, it is an important foundation for complex cognitive skills.

As children age, this self-directed speech becomes silent (or private) speech, referring to the inner dialogues we have with ourselves as we plan and carry out activities.

For Vygotsky, cognitive development results from an internalization of language.

According to Vygotsky, adults are an important source of cognitive development.

Adults transmit their culture's tools of intellectual adaptation that children internalize.

In contrast, Piaget emphasizes the importance of peers, as peer interaction promotes social perspective-taking.

Behrend, D.A., Rosengren, K.S., & Perlmutter, M. (1992). The relation between private speech and parental interactive style. In R.M. Diaz & L.E. Berk (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 85-100). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Berk, L. E. (1986). Relationship of elementary school children's private speech to behavioral accompaniment to task, attention, and task performance. Developmental Psychology, 22(5), 671.

Berk, L. & Garvin, R. (1984). Development of private speech among low-income Appalachian children. Developmental Psychology, 20(2), 271-286.

Berk, L. E., & Landau, S. (1993). Private speech of learning-disabled and normally achieving children in classroom academic and laboratory contexts. Child Development, 64, 556-571.

Cannella, G. S., & Reiff, J. C. (1994). Individual constructivist teacher education: Teachers as empowered learners. Teacher education quarterly, 27-38.

Crawford, K. (1996) Vygotskian approaches to human development in the information era. Educational Studies in Mathematics, (31),43-62.

Diaz, R. M., & Berk, L. E. (1992). Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Driscoll, M. P. (1994). Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Needham, Ma: Allyn && Bacon.

Frauenglass, M. & Diaz, R. (1985). Self-regulatory functions of children's private speech: A critical analysis of recent challenges to Vygotsky's theory. Developmental Psychology, 21(2), 357-364.

Fernyhough, C., & Fradley, E. (2005). Private speech on an executive task: Relations with task difficulty and task performance. Cognitive Development, 20, 103-120.

Freund, L. S. (1990). Maternal regulation of children's problem-solving behavior and its impact on children's performance. Child Development, 61, 113-126.

Hausfather, S. J. (1996). Vygotsky and Schooling: Creating a Social Contest for learning. Action in Teacher Education, (18),1-10.

Ostad, S. A., & Sorensen, P. M. (2007). Private speech and strategy-use patterns: Bidirectional comparisons of children with and without mathematical difficulties in a developmental perspective. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 2-14.

Piaget, J. (1959). The language and thought of the child (Vol. 5) . Psychology Press.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context. Oxford university press.

Saettler, P. (1990). The Evolution of American Educational Technology . Egnlewood, Co: Libraries Unlimited.

Schaffer, R. (1996) . Social development. Oxford: Blackwell.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R.W. Rieber & A.S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Volume 1: Problems of general psychology (pp. 39-285). New York: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1934.)

Winsler, A., Abar, B., Feder, M. A., Schunn, C. D., & Rubio, D. A. (2007). Private speech and executive functioning among high-functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 1617-1635.

Wertsch, J. V., Sohmer, R. (1995). Vygotsky on learning and development. Human Development, (38), 332-37.

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Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory Of Cognitive Development

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Lev Vygotsky's theory of child development, known as the sociocultural theory, emphasizes the importance of social interaction and cultural context in learning and cognitive development. Vygotsky proposed the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which is the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance from a more knowledgeable person.

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[Note: social media counts on this post all reset to 0 and have started over.] Play in our species serves many valuable purposes. It is a means by which children develop their physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and moral capacities. It is a means of creating and preserving friendships. It also provides a state of mind that, in adults as well as children, is uniquely suited for high-level reasoning, insightful problem solving, and all sorts of creative endeavors. This essay is the first in a series I plan to post on The Value of Play. The subject of this first installment is the definition of play. Clues to play's value lie in the definition.

Most of this essay is about the defining characteristics of play, but before listing them there are three general points that I think are worth keeping in mind. The first point is that the characteristics of play all have to do with motivation and mental attitude, not with the overt form of the behavior. Two people might be throwing a ball, or pounding nails, or typing words on a computer, and one might be playing while the other is not. To tell which one is playing and which one is not, you have to infer from their expressions and the details of their actions something about why they are doing what they are doing and their attitude toward it.

The second point, toward definition, is that play is not necessarily all-or-none. Play can blend with other motives and attitudes, in proportions ranging anywhere from 0% up to 100% percent play. Pure play occurs more often in children than in adults. In adults, play is commonly blended with other motives, having to do with adult responsibilities. That is why, in everyday conversation, we tend to talk about children "playing" and about adults bringing a "playful attitude" or "playful spirit" to their activities. We intuitively think of playfulness as a matter of degree. Of course we don't have meters for measuring these things, but I would estimate that my behavior in writing this blog is about 80% play.

The third point is that play is not neatly defined in terms of some single identifying characteristic. Rather, it is defined in terms of a confluence of several characteristics. People before me who have studied and written about play have, among them, described quite a few such characteristics; but they can all be boiled down, I think, to the following five: (1) Play is self-chosen and self-directed; (2) Play is activity in which means are more valued than ends; (3) Play has structure, or rules, which are not dictated by physical necessity but emanate from the minds of the players; (4) Play is imaginative, non-literal, mentally removed in some way from "real" or "serious" life; and (5) Play involves an active, alert, but non-stressed frame of mind.

The more fully an activity entails all of these characteristics, the more inclined most people are to refer to that activity as play. By "most people" I don't just mean most scholars who study play. Even young children are most likely to use the word play for activities that most fully contain these five characteristics. These characteristics seem to capture our intuitive sense of what play is. Notice that all of the characteristics have to do with the motivation or attitude that the person brings to the activity. Let me elaborate on these characteristics, one by one, and expand a bit on each by pointing out some of its implications for thinking about the purposes of play.

1. Play is self-chosen and self-directed; players are always free to quit.

Play is, first and foremost, an expression of freedom. It is what one wants to do as opposed to what one is obliged to do. The joy of play is the ecstatic feeling of liberty. Play is not always accompanied by smiles and laughter, nor are smiles and laughter always signs of play; but play is always accompanied by a feeling of "Yes, this is what I want to do right now." Players are free agents, not pawns in someone else's game.

Players not only choose to play or not play, but they also direct their own actions during play. As I will argue below, play always involves rules of some sort, but all players must freely accept the rules, and if rules are changed then all players must agree to the changes. That is why play is the most democratic of all activities. In social play (play involving more than one player), one player may emerge for a period as the leader, but only at the will of all the others. Every rule a leader proposes must be approved, at least tacitly, by all of the other players.

The ultimate freedom in play is the freedom to quit. A person who feels coerced or pressured to engage in an activity, and unable to quit, is not a player but a victim. The freedom to quit provides the foundation for all of the democratic processes that occur in social play. If one player attempts to bully or dominate the others, the others will quit and the game will be over; so players who want to continue playing must learn not to bully or dominate. People who don't agree to a proposed change in rules may likewise quit, and that is why leaders in play must gain the consent of the other players in order to change a rule. People who begin to feel that their needs or desires are not being met in play will quit, and that is why children learn, in play, to be sensitive to others' needs and to strive to meet those needs. It is through social play that children learn, on their own, with no lectures, how to meet their own needs while, at the same time, satisfying the needs of others. This is perhaps the most important lesson that people in any society can learn.

This point about play being self-chosen and self-directed is ignored by, or perhaps unknown to, many adults who try to take control of children's play. Adults can play with children, and in some cases can even be leaders in children's play, but to do so requires at least the same sensitivity that children themselves show to the needs and wishes of all the players. Because adults are commonly viewed as authority figures, children often feel less able to quit, or to disagree with the proposed rules, when an adult is leading than when a child is leading. And so, when adults try to lead children's play the result often is something that, for many of the children, is not play at all. When a child feels coerced, the play spirit vanishes and all of the advantages of that spirit go with it. Math games in school and adult-led sports are not play for those who feel that they have to participate and are not ready to accept, as their own, the rules that the adults have established. Adult-led games can be great for kids who freely choose them, but can seem like punishment to kids who haven't made that choice.

What is true for children's play is also true for adults' sense of play. Research studies have shown that adults who have a great deal of freedom as to how and when to do their work often experience that work as play, even (in fact, especially) when the work is difficult. In contrast, people who must do just what others tell them to do at work rarely experience their work as play.

2. Play is activity in which means are more valued than ends.

Many of our actions are "free" in the sense that we don't feel that other people are making us do them, but are not free, or at least are not experienced as free, in another sense. These are actions that we feel we must do in order to achieve some necessary or much-desired goal, or end. We scratch an itch to get rid of the itch, flee from a tiger to avoid getting eaten, study an uninteresting book to get a good grade on a test, work at a boring job to get money. If there were no itch, tiger, test, or need for money, we would not scratch, flee, study, or do the boring work. In those cases we are not playing.

To the degree that we engage in an activity purely to achieve some end, or goal, which is separate from the activity itself, that activity is not play. What we value most, when we are not playing, are the results of our actions. The actions are merely means to the ends. When we are not playing, we typically opt for the shortest, least effortful means of achieving our goal. The non-playful, goal-oriented college student, for example, does the least studying in each course that she can in order to get the "A" that she desires, and her studying is focused directly on the goal of doing well on the tests. Any learning not related to that goal is, for her, wasted effort.

In play, however, all this is reversed. Play is activity conducted primarily for its own sake. The playful student enjoys studying the subject and cares less about the test. In play, attention is focused on the means, not the ends, and players do not necessarily look for the easiest routes to achieving the ends. Think of a cat preying on a mouse versus a cat that is playing at preying on a mouse. The former takes the quickest route for killing the mouse. The latter tries various ways of catching the mouse, not all very efficient, and lets the mouse go each time so it can try again. The preying cat enjoys the end; the playing cat enjoys the means. (The mouse, of course, enjoys none of this.)

Play often has goals, but the goals are experienced as an intrinsic part of the game, not as the sole reason for engaging in the game's actions. Goals in play are subordinate to the means for achieving them. For example, constructive play (the playful building of something) is always directed toward the goal of creating the object that the player has in mind. But notice that the primary objective in such play is the creation of the object, not the having of the object. Children making a sandcastle would not be happy if an adult came along and said, "You can stop all your effort now. I'll make the castle for you." That would spoil their fun. The process, not the product, motivates them. Similarly, children or adults playing a competitive game have the goal of scoring points and winning, but, if they are truly playing, it is the process of scoring and trying to win that motivates them, not the points themselves or the status of having won. If someone would just as soon win by cheating as by following the rules, or get the trophy and praise through some shortcut that bypasses the game process, then that person is not playing.

Adults can test the degree to which their work is play by asking themselves this: "If I could receive the same pay, the same prospects for future pay, the same amount of approval from other people, and the same sense of doing good for the world for not doing this job as I am receiving for doing it, would I quit?" If the person would eagerly quit, the job is not play. To the degree that the person would quit reluctantly, or not quit, the job is play. It is something that the person enjoys independently of the extrinsic rewards received for doing it.

One reason why play is such an ideal state of mind for creativity and learning is because the mind is focused on means. Since the ends are understood as secondary, fear of failure is absent and players feel free to incorporate new sources of information and to experiment with new ways of doing things.

3. Play is guided by mental rules.

Play is freely chosen activity, but it is not freeform activity. Play always has structure, and that structure derives from rules in the player's mind. This point is really an extension of the point just made about the importance of means in play. The rules of play are the means. To play is to behave in accordance with self-chosen rules. The rules are not like rules of physics, nor like biological instincts, which are automatically followed. Rather, they are mental concepts that often require conscious effort to keep in mind and follow.

A basic rule of constructive play, for example, is that you must work with the chosen medium in a manner aimed at producing or depicting some specific object or design. You don't just pile up blocks randomly; you arrange them deliberately in accordance with your mental image of what you are trying to make. Even rough and tumble play (playful fighting and chasing), which may look wild from the outside, is constrained by rules. An always-present rule in play fighting, for example, is that you mimic some of the actions of real fighting, but you don't really hurt the other person. You don't hit with all your force (at least not if you are the stronger of the two); you don't kick, bite, or scratch. Play fighting is much more controlled than real fighting; it is always an exercise in restraint.

Among the most complex forms of play, in terms of rules, is what play researchers call sociodramatic play-the playful acting out of roles or scenes, as when children are playing "house," or acting out a marriage, or pretending to be superheroes. The fundamental rule here is that you must abide by your and the other players' shared understanding of the role that you are playing. If you are the pet dog in a game of "house," you must walk around on all fours and bark rather than talk. If you are Wonder Woman, and you and your playmates believe that Wonder Woman never cries, then you refrain from crying, even when you fall down and hurt yourself.

To illustrate the rule-based nature of sociodramatic play, the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky wrote about two actual sisters-ages seven and five-who sometimes played that they were sisters.[1] As actual sisters, they rarely thought about their sisterhood and had no consistent way of behaving toward one another. Sometimes they enjoyed one another, sometimes they argued, and sometimes they ignored one another. But, when they were playing sisters, they always behaved according to their shared stereotype of how sisters should behave. They dressed alike, talked alike, always loved one another, talked about the differences between themselves and everyone else, and so on. Much more self-control, mental effort, and rule following was involved in playing sisters than in being sisters.

The category of play with the most explicit rules is that called formal games. These are games, like checkers and baseball, with rules that are specified, verbally, in ways designed to minimize ambiguity in interpretation. The rules of these games are commonly passed along from one generation of players to the next. Many formal games in our society are competitive, and one purpose of the formal rules is to make sure that the same restrictions apply equally to all competitors. Players of formal games, if they are true players, must adopt these rules as their own for the period of the game and be willing to stick to them. Of course, except in "official" versions of such games, players commonly modify the rules to fit their own needs, but each modification must be agreed upon by all the players.

The main point I want to make here is that every form of play involves a good deal of self-control. When not playing, children (and adults too) may act according to their immediate biological needs, emotions, and whims; but in play they must act in ways that they and their playmates deem appropriate to the game. Play draws and fascinates the player precisely because it is structured by rules that the player herself or himself has invented or accepted.

The student of play who most strongly emphasized play's rule-based nature was Lev Vygotsky, whose example of sisters playing sisters I just mentioned. In an essay on the role of play in development, originally published in 1933, Vygotsky commented, as follows, on the apparent paradox between the idea that play is spontaneous and free and the idea that players must follow rules:

"The ... paradox is that in play [the child] adopts the line of least resistance-she does what she most feels like doing because play is connected with pleasure-and at the same time she learns to follow the line of greatest resistance by subordinating herself to rules and thereby renouncing what she wants, since subjection to rules and renunciation of impulsive action constitute the path to maximum pleasure in play. Play continually creates demands on the child to act against immediate impulse. At every step the child is faced with a conflict between the rules of the game and what she would do if she could suddenly act spontaneously. ... Thus, the essential attribute of play is a rule that has become a desire. .... The rule wins because it is the strongest impulse. Such a rule is an internal rule, a rule of self-restraint and self-determination .... In this way a child's greatest achievements are possible in play, achievements that tomorrow will become her basic level of real action and morality."[1]

Vygotsky's point, of course, is that the child's desire to play is so strong that it becomes a motivating force for learning self-control. The child resists impulses and temptations that would run counter to the rules because the child seeks the larger pleasure of remaining in the game. To Vygotsky's analysis, I would add that the child accepts and desires the rules of play only because he or she is always free to quit if the rules become too burdensome. With that in mind, the paradox can be seen to be superficial. The child's real-life freedom is not restricted by the rules of the game, because the child can at any moment choose to leave the game. That is another reason why the freedom to quit is such a crucial aspect of the definition of play. Without that freedom, rules of play would be intolerable. To be required to act like Wonder Woman in real life would be terrifying, but to act like that in play--a realm you are always free to leave--is great fun.

Along with Vygotsky, I would contend that the greatest of play's many values for our species lies in the learning of self-control. Self-control is the essence of being human. We commonly say that people behave like "animals," rather than like humans, when they fail to abide by socially agreed-upon rules and, instead, impulsively follow their immediate drives and whims. Everywhere, to live in human society, people must behave in accordance with conscious, shared mental conceptions of what is appropriate; and that is what children practice constantly in their play. In play, from their own desires, children practice the art of being human.

4. Play is non-literal, imaginative, marked off in some way from reality.

Another apparent paradox of play, also pointed out by Vygotsky, is that play is serious yet not serious, real yet not real. In play one enters a realm that is physically located in the real world, makes use of props in the real world, is often about the real world, is said by the players to be real, and yet in some way is mentally removed from the real world.

Imagination, or fantasy, is most obvious in sociodramatic play, where the players create the characters and plot, but it is also present to some degree in all other forms of human play. In rough and tumble play, the fight is a pretend one, not a real one. In constructive play, the players say that they are building a castle, but they know it is a pretend castle, not a real one. In formal games with explicit rules, the players must accept an already established fictional situation that provides the foundation for the rules. For example, in the real world bishops can move in any direction they choose, but in the fantasy world of chess they can move only on the diagonals.

The fantasy aspect of play is intimately connected to play's rule-based nature. Because play takes place in a fantasy world, it must be governed by rules that are in the minds of the players rather than by laws of nature. In reality, one cannot ride a horse unless a real horse is physically present; but in play one can ride a horse whenever the game's rules permit or prescribe it. In reality, a broom is just a broom, but in play it can be a horse. In reality, a chess piece is just a carved bit of wood, but in chess it is a bishop or a knight that has well-defined capacities and limitations for movement that are not even hinted at in the carved wood itself. The fictional situation dictates the rules of the game; the actual physical world within which the game is played is secondary. Through play the child learns to take charge of the world and not simply respond passively to it. In play the child's mental concept dominates, and the child molds available elements of the physical world to meet that concept.

Play of all sorts has "time in" and "time out," though that is more obvious for some forms of play than others. Time in is the period of fiction. Time out is the temporary return to reality-perhaps to tie one's shoes, or go to the bathroom, or correct a playmate who hasn't been following the rules. During time in one does not say, "I am just playing," any more than does Shakespeare's Hamlet announce from the stage that he is merely pretending to murder his stepfather.

Adults sometimes become confused by the seriousness of children's play and by children's refusal, while playing, to say that they are playing. They worry needlessly that children don't distinguish fantasy from reality. When my son was four years old he was Superman for periods that sometimes lasted more than a day. During those periods he would deny vigorously that he was only pretending to be Superman, and this worried his nursery school teacher. She was only partly mollified when I pointed out that he never attempted to leap off of actual tall buildings or stop real railroad trains and that he would acknowledge that he had been playing when he finally did declare time out by removing his cape. To acknowledge that play is play is to remove the magic spell; it automatically turns time in into time out.

An amazing fact of human nature is that even 2-year-olds know the difference between real and pretend. A 2-year-old who turns a cup filled with imaginary water over a doll and says, "Oh oh, dolly all wet," knows that the doll isn't really wet. It would be impossible to teach such young children such a subtle concept as pretense, yet they understand it. Apparently, the fictional mode of thinking, and the ability to keep that mode distinct from the literal mode, are innate to the human mind. That innate capacity is part of the inborn capacity for play.

The fantasy element of play is often not as obvious, or as full-blown, in adults' play as in children's play. That is one reason why adults' play is typically not of the 100% variety. Yet, I would argue, fantasy occupies a big role in much if not most of what adults do and is a major element in our intuitive sense of the degree to which adult activities are play. An architect designing a house is designing a real house. Yet, the architect brings a good deal of imagination to bear in visualizing the house, imagining how people might use it, and matching it with some aesthetic concepts that she has in mind. It is reasonable to say that the architect builds a pretend house, in her mind and on paper, before it becomes a real one.

When I say that my writing this blog is about 80% play, I am taking into account not only my sense of freedom about doing it, my enjoyment of the process, and the fact that I'm following rules (about writing) that I accept as my own, but also the fact that a considerable degree of imagination is involved. I'm not making up the facts, but I am making up the way of stringing them together, and I am imagining how you might respond to what I am writing. Sometimes my fantasy goes even further, and I imagine that the ideas I'm presenting will have certain positive effects on society. So, fantasy is moving me along in this, much as it moves a child along in building a sandcastle or pretending to be Superman. The fact that parts of my fantasy could possibly turn into reality does not negate its status as fantasy.

5. Play involves an active, alert, but non-stressed frame of mind.

This final characteristic of play follows naturally from the other four. Because play involves conscious control of one's own behavior, with attention to process and rules, it requires an active, alert mind. Players do not just passively absorb information from the environment, or reflexively respond to stimuli, or behave automatically in accordance with habit. Moreover, because play is not a response to external demands or immediate strong biological needs, the person at play is relatively free from the strong drives and emotions that are experienced as pressure or stress. And because the player's attention is focused on process more than outcome, the player's mind is not distracted by fear of failure. So, the mind at play is active and alert, but not stressed. The mental state of play is what some researchers call "flow." Attention is attuned to the activity itself, and there is reduced consciousness of self and time. The mind is wrapped up in the ideas, rules, and actions of the game.

This point about the mental state of play is very important for understanding play's value as a mode of learning and creative production. The alert but unstressed condition of the playful mind is precisely the condition that has been shown repeatedly, in many psychological experiments, to be ideal for creativity and the learning of new skills. Such experiments are normally not described as experiments on play, but it is no stretch to interpret them as that. What the experiments show is that strong pressure to perform well (which induces a non-playful state) improves performance on tasks that are mentally easy or habitual for the person, but worsens performance on tasks that require creativity, or conscious decision making, or the learning of new skills. In contrast, anything that is done to reduce the person's concern with outcome and to increase the person's enjoyment of the task for its own sake-that is, anything that increases playfulness-has the opposite effect.

Strong pressure to perform well inhibits creativity and learning by focusing attention strongly and narrowly on the goal, thereby reducing the ability to focus on means. In the pressured state, one tends to fall back on instinctive or well-learned ways of doing things. That way of responding to pressure is adaptive in many emergency situations. When a tiger is chasing you, you use whatever means you have already learned for getting away or hiding; that is not a good time to experiment with new ways. Experts in any realm can usually perform well in the pressured state because they can call on their well-learned, habitual modes of responding and don't need to learn anything new or act creatively. Their attention can focus on producing the best possible outcome using the repertoire of actions that are already second nature to them.

When we pressure students to do well on their schoolwork by constantly evaluating their work, we put them into a non-playful, goal-directed state that may motivate those who already know how to do it to perform well, but inhibits experimentation and learning in those who don't already know how. Pressure widens the performance gap between experts and novices. Even experts, though, must play at their activity of expertise if they are going to rise to still higher levels of expertise. And, in some realms, such as art and essay writing, creativity is required no matter how much experience a person has had, and a playful mind always performs best in those realms.

When an activity becomes so easy, so habitual, that it no longer requires conscious mental effort, it may lose its status as play. That is why players keep making the game harder, or different, or keep raising the criteria for success. A game is a game only if an active, alert mind is required to do it well.
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Does this extended definition of play make sense to you? Does it fit with the way that you think of play in everyday life? I ask this question genuinely. I want, for my own work, to be sure that I am using a concept of play that fits with the concept of play that people find useful in everyday discourse. I would very much appreciate your comments on this.

As I said, over the next few weeks I will be elaborating on the various functions of play, both for children and for adults, and I will refer from time to time to the definition of play that I have provided in this post. Keep tuned.

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See new book, Free to Learn

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Reference
Lev S. Vygotsky, "The Role of Play in Development," in M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, 92-104. (1978, original essay published in 1933).

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The Value of Play I: The Definition of Play Gives Insights

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To understand play's many purposes, it is useful to think deeply about what play is. In this essay I argue that play is activity that is (1) self-chosen and self-directed; (2) motivated by means more than ends; (3) guided by mental rules; (4) imaginative; and (5) conducted in an alert but non-stressed frame of mind.

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Peter Gray, psychologist and author of Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books, 2013), discusses how to bring more play into kids' lives, the catalyst that led him to explore play's benefits, his theories on play as a primal mode of education, and advice to inspire play!
What led to your play studies?
My interest in play came out of my interest in children's education. When my son was very young and rebelling in school, I found an alternative school that worked for him. Then I got interested in how the school worked, conducted a systematic study of the school's graduates, and learned how well they progressed in life. What I learned by observing the school is that children were playing and exploring all the time, yet they were coming out educated.

It led to my interest in hunter-gatherer cultures and how those children learned and acquired their skills, values, and knowledge. Anthropologists I interviewed, who observed such cultures, said they learned through play.

So I developed a theory that play came about through natural selection to serve the purpose of education. Play is the method by which children practice being adults and can be in charge of their lives.
What is your definition of play?
One of the crucial defining characteristics of play is that it's directed by the children or players themselves. It's self-directed. Adult-directed games like sports, or activities in school where a teacher is telling children what to do, is not play by my definition.
How prevalent is play, by your definition, in modern U.S. culture?
We are living in an age that might be thought of as a "play deprivation experiment."

Children are deprived of the freedom of play - they are constantly in school or school-like activities. Even when at home they might not be allowed to just go out and play with other kids, and if they do, they don't see other kids to play with so they come back inside.

I have seen that change in my lifetime - I was a child of the 1950s and my son was a child of the 1970s and early 80s. Over this period there has been a continuous decline in children's freedom to play, especially to play outdoors.

"One of the crucial defining characteristics of play is that is directed by the children or players themselves. It's self-directed. Adult-directed games like sports, or activities in school where a teacher is telling children what to do, is not play by my definition."
What sort of societal impact does this scenario have?
This can lead to an overall downward spiral. From the 1950s to the present, we have witnessed play time decline. Not coincidentally, we have seen gradual and huge increases in all sorts of mental disorders in childhood, like depression, anxiety and other stress related issues in the same time period.

We've seen declines in empathy and creativity. All this has been documented over the decades using well validated, clinical questionnaires with normative groups of school-age children and college students. In Free to Learn, I argue for the cause-and-effect relationship between these trends. I believe the decline of the freedom to play has led to this psychopathology in children, decreases in certain social skills and abilities and in creativity.

I argue that this is what you would expect, knowing that we learn through play and what the evolutionary function of play is. If we take play away, then we deprive children of the opportunities to learn the skills that could prevent these problems.
What can U.S. parents and communities do to foster more self-directed play?
We can draw inspiration from some other countries.

There are Adventure Playgrounds in the U.K. and Europe where fully trained play workers are present but won't intervene unless necessary - like a lifeguard on a beach - and parents are encouraged to leave. It's slowly catching on in the United States, too, but parents have a harder time leaving.

Our schools can become play areas.

The after-school period from 3 - 6 pm really could be a period of free play where schools can use gymnasiums, outdoor playgrounds, art supplies and other resources, and there can be age-mixed play. This would not be curriculum-based activity; it would just use the school as a venue and be a relatively inexpensive means to make use of facilities that are already there. It would only take a few adults or responsible teenagers to be the "play workers" to make sure things are safe. This would solve the babysitting problem that parents have during the time of day between the end of the school day and the end of their own work day; and, most important, it would bring joyful play and natural learning into their children's lives.

Communities can organize play areas.

In his book Playborhood, Mike Lanza detailed how a group of mothers in an inner city got together to enable outdoor play in their neighborhood. They approached the city to close a street in proximity to the local school to let the kids feel free to go out and play. Some local grandparents would sit outside and make sure it was safe, but largely be in the background. It does take effort and initiative on the community level, but this proves it can be accomplished.

When parents understand the true benefits of free play, I think they would welcome these ideas and find ways to bring more play into their children's lives.

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the evolutionary importance of self-directed play

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The Evolutionary Importance of Self-Directed Play | Expert Advice | The Genius of Play

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Peter Gray, psychologist and author of Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books, 2013), discusses how to bring more play into kids' lives, the catalyst that led him to explore play's benefits, his theories on play as a primal mode of education, and advice to inspire play!

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Early childhood teachers know that hands-on learning is essential. Sensory play encourages open-ended thinking, language development, collaboration, and builds fine motor skills. Sensory materials are magically both engaging and calming.

The great thing about sensory tables and bins is that reinventing the wheel is not required. Tried-and-true materials like sand, beans, rice, and water will always delight children. But, since mixing it up is fun, too, we've gathered some of our favorite next-level sensory play ideas below. If you need even more inspo, we suggest grabbing a copy of Exciting Sensory Bins for Curious Kids by Mandisa Watts. She's the creator of Happy Toddler Playtime (see #19) and she knows her (ooey, gooey, squishy) stuff.

Worried about kids swapping germs while they scoop and pour? Check out the end of the post for some ideas for when you need to keep sensory play extra squeaky clean.

1. Confetti and Eggs

What kiddo wouldn't go wild for an entire bin of confetti? Eggs for opening, closing, scooping, and hiding "treasure" make it extra fun.

Source: Wildly Charmed

2. Gems in Epsom Salt

Source: @secondgradethinkers

3. Colored Ice Blocks

Freeze water and food coloring into ice cube trays and any containers you have handy. (For super cool balls, freeze colored water balloons!) Add a few utensils, and play away!

Source: Fun-A-Day

4. Mini "Skating Rink"

A pan of frozen water + figurines frozen into ice cube "skates" = miniaturized skating fun!

Source: @playtime_with_imagination

5. Itsy Bitsy Spiders and a Spout

Investigate water in motion while singing the classic nursery rhyme.

Source: @playyaypreK

6. Iceberg Ahead!

Hop on! Freeze a couple of pans of water and float them in your sensory table with some Arctic animals.

Source: @ganisraelpreschoolsantamonica

7. Gourd Wash

Washing pumpkins is a preschool fall staple. Adding colored water and fun-shaped sponges definitely adds some oomph!

Source: @friendsartlab

8. Button Boats

Buttons are fun, foil and container "boats" are really fun...together, LOTS of fun!

Source: @the.life.of.an.everyday.mom

9. Floating Flower Petal Fun

Deconstruct a spent bouquet, or bring in some clippings from outside. Just add water and utensils for hours of flower-themed fun. (It's also amazing to freeze flower petals in ice cube trays or muffin tins of water!)

Source: @the_bees_knees_adelaide

10. Magic Puffing Snow

Okay, so you will need one unusual ingredient (citric acid powder) to make this Magic Puffing Snow, but it's so, so worth it. Check out the whole Fun at Home With Kids site for every other kind of slime, dough, and foam you could ever want to make, too.

Source: Fun At Home With Kids

11. Shaving Cream and Blocks

Shaving cream "glue" adds new possibilities to block play!

Source: @artreepreschool

12. Shaving Cream and Water Beads

Water beads are tons of fun on their own. When they start to get a little slimy and ready for the trash, squirt some shaving cream into your sensory table with them for one last hurrah!
Source:@letsplaylittleone
13. Birds and Nests

Tweet, tweet! Sandi at Rubber Boots and Elf Shoes is your guru for themed sensory bins. Be sure to check out her entire A to Z list.

Source: Rubber Boots and Elf Shoes

14. Rainbow Pom Pom Fun

How can you not smile when you see this colored rice sensory table with giant pompoms and cupcake liners? (No time to dye rainbow rice? Check out readymade kidfetti for a similar feel. It's even washable!)

Source: @friendsartlab

15. Hot Cocoa Bar

There are many variations of this activity across the web, but how cute and fun is this simple one? All you need are some pinto beans, mugs, spoons and cotton ball marshmallows!

Source: @luckytoteachk

16. Three Billy Goats Gruff

Trip, trap, trip, trap! Retell a favorite story with fun props. Growing Book By Book has lots more ideas for book-themed sensory tables, too.

Source: Growing Book by Book

17. Grassy Playground

Curriculum for days! Plant grass in the sensory table and play with it once it grows. Genius!

Source: @truce_teacher

18. Ramps and Chutes

Raid your recycling pile and get kids thinking out of the box about how to move sensory materials around, like with this corn chute setup!

Source: Fairy Dust Teaching

19. Acorn Drop

Add an element of mystery to your sensory bin simply by adding a cardboard box with holes on top. Drop, plop, retrieve, repeat!

Source: @happytoddlerplaytime

20. "Bake" Up a Pie

Doesn't this apple pie look good enough to eat? You could vary the pie recipe based on the season.

Source: @PreK4Fun

Tips for Keeping Sensory Play Good, Clean Fun

The only trouble with friends' little hands digging into a bin of fun is ... that's a lot of germy little hands. You can always station a bottle of hand sanitizer next to your sensory table to clean hands before and after playing. If that's not enough, here are some other strategies to try.

(Note: We definitely aren't the CDC. Please defer to any regulations or guidance put forth by your district or state!)

21. Add soap!

Move hand washing right on over to the water table. You can soap up pretty much anything in a sensory table and kids will love it, but this pumpkin potions setup is especially cool. Bubble, boil, and brew!

Source: @pocketprovision.eyfs

22. Individual Mini-Trays

Play together, separately. How cute are these individual labeled trays? (Though dollar-store lasagna pans or other budget options would work just as well!) You could periodically sanitize and trade the accessories around.

Source: @charlestownnurseryschool

23. Take Turns

Set up a table of individual sensory bins and mark each child's spot with their photo. Sanitize or quarantine the bin contents before inviting a different set of children to use them.

Source: @charlestownnurseryschool

24. Sensory Bags

Yeah, it's more fun to get your hands messy. But bags can easily be wiped down between kids, so they could be the next best thing. Plus, these may get some sensory-cautious kids to play when they otherwise wouldn't! You could go in so many directions with these seek-and-find examples.

Source: @apinchofkinder

25. Multi-Bin Table

Major props to the person who figured out this cheap and easy DIY PVC solution for a four-bin sensory table. In the classroom, you could set up a simple water play center in each bin. When one kid moves on, swap in clean water and toys, and the next kiddo is good to go!

Source: @mothercould
How do you use sensory tables in your classroom? Share your favorite sensory table ideas in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook. Plus, our favorite preschool games and activities.

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Preschool Teachers, You'll Want to Try Every One of These Fun Sensory Tables

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Early childhood teachers know that hands-on learning is essential. Sensory play encourages open-ended thinking, language development, collaboration, and builds fine motor skills. Sensory materials are magically both engaging and calming. The great thing about sensory tables and bins is that reinventing the wheel is not required.

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Pintrest photos of early childhood classrooms

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Pintrest photos of early childhood classrooms

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60 Inspiring Early Childhood Environments ideas | early childhood, reggio classroom, classroom environment

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Dec 8, 2015 - Explore Melissa Wylie’s board “Inspiring Early Childhood Environments ” on Pinterest. See more ideas about early childhood, reggio classroom, classroom environment.

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Our April preschool themes are full of fun and easy ideas to keep your preschoolers learning, exploring nature, and enjoying the beauty of springtime. For even more amazing theme ideas, make sure to check out our ultimate list of preschool themes. April Preschool Themes April provides us with the perfect opportunity to celebrate the Earth and how we can make it a more beautiful place to learn, play, and work. Many of the April themes revolve around nature and plants, including: Birds ThemeBugs and Insects ThemeEarth Day ThemeFlowers ThemeGarden ThemePond Life ThemeRain View Post

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Our April preschool themes are full of fun and easy ideas to keep your preschoolers learning, exploring nature, and enjoying the beauty of springtime. For even more amazing theme ideas, make sure to check out our ultimate list of preschool themes.

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Good play environments have magical qualities that transcend the here and now, the humdrum, and the typical. They have flow qualities-qualities that take the child to other places and other times. They are permeated with awe and wonder, both in rarity and in imaginative qualities. Bad play environments are stark and immutable, controlled by adults, lacking resiliency and enchantment. Few dreams can be spun there, and few instincts can be played out. The wonders of nature, the delights of creating are all but lost for children restricted to such places.
- Joe Frost, Evolution of American Playgrounds

Throughout our careers, one of our primary goals has been to ensure that all children experience the magic of good play environments. Although some people may believe that frequent opportunities for playful learning outdoors, including explorations of nature, are merely niceties, we see them as critical for healthy whole child development. As history scholars, we know that our current efforts are grounded in a movement that began almost two centuries ago. In this column, we provide highlights from the history of playful outdoor learning and playgrounds, then turn to today's tension between child safety and natural free play.

The kindergarten concept

Recognition of the importance of outdoor play and immersion in nature for whole child development goes back to the very beginning of early childhood education. Friedrich Froebel- influential 19th century German scholar who recognized the uniqueness of childhood, created materials for playful learning, and coined the term kindergarten -emphasized the role of the garden and the importance of nature in development. He believed that humans and nature are connected at a spiritual level, and so outdoor games were an important part of his concept of kindergarten.

During the 1850s, the kindergarten movement came to the United States, bringing with it Froebel's emphasis on the importance of nature. Margarethe Meyer Schurz, who studied with Froebel, opened the first kindergarten in America in the mid-1800s (Shapiro 1983). The idea of kindergarten spread over the next several decades, thanks largely to the efforts of Susan Blow (who is credited with opening the first public school kindergarten in 1873), John Dewey, and well- known psychologists such as Herbert Spencer and G. Stanley Hall. During the early 20th century, universities formed centers for child study, and play and outdoor play environments in kindergartens were considered to have significant educational value.

The democratic imperative of parks

In the mid to late 1800s, as the concept of kindergarten was spreading, so too was a desire for preserving natural spaces. During the 1840s, early social reformers began to realize that the unplanned growth of cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia had negative consequences for children. Large cities at this time were very crowded and dangerous due to heavy traffic. This led to the first major public park project in the United States: Central Park in New York City.

It became a model for urban centers across the United States for bringing play and recreational opportunities to people of all backgrounds. One of the driving forces behind the park project was the belief that for the United States to fulfill the promise of being a truly democratic country, beautiful parks and natural spaces had to be preserved for all citizens, not just the wealthy.

By the 1880s, many social reformers were concerned about the needs of children living in congested urban environments. They saw outdoor play as an important way to meet children's needs. As a first step, German-style sandgartens were developed for young children in large urban cities. Sandgartens were simply large sand play areas placed in urban parks. These were supervised by matrons who kept children safe, as streetcars and heavy carts took over the streets (Olsen, Hudson, & Thompson 2016).

The playground movement

The playground movement quickly followed, emphasizing the importance of play, exercise, and vitality for the development of young people. Soon, playgrounds filled with heavy manufactured equipment dotted cities. These supervised playgrounds were intended to protect immigrant children from the hazards of playing in the streets and to help them become healthy American citizens. "The diversion and active incentive offered by playgrounds appeared to reduce the tendency for juvenile criminality among those who used them" (The Charities Review 1898, 352). Playground supervisors served as role models for the children. They were expected to be clean-shaven, have "well cared for hair," and be "neatly dressed" (Chicago Parks Department 1906, 166). By the 1920s, including parks and playgrounds in city planning had become the norm, with widespread political support.

While growing up in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas during the Great Depression, I enjoyed long periods of unsupervised outdoor play, both as breaks from helping with my family's farm and during recess at my elementary school. At school, there was no manufactured playground equipment. Play activities included building dams in the creek that ran by the school, climbing trees, and playing war in the hills.
- Joe Frost

While this democratic imperative was laudable as far as it went, it was severely limited. American playgrounds and parks were typically segregated, with many cities having no spaces for African Americans at all. Mexican Americans and Native Americans also tended to be segregated, and little provision was made for their playgrounds. These disparities continued through the civil rights movement and largely persist today, due to ongoing unequal distribution of resources (although many community groups have been working hard to increase park, playground, and garden spaces in low-income neighborhoods) (Sutterby 2017).

In addition, the ideals of the playground movement rarely reached outside large cities. There were only limited provisions for playgrounds for low-income families in rural areas. Fortunately, most children in rural areas had open spaces, farm animals, and natural materials to allow for abundant outdoor play.

The playground safety movement

Prior to the 1950s there was little concern about the safety of playground equipment. The equipment was often excessively tall-30 feet or more-and placed over hard earth, asphalt, concrete, or cinders. Equipment such as merry-go-rounds and giant strides allowed for high rates of speed but had little provision for keeping hands, feet, and even heads out of mechanical moving parts. (To see a giant stride, go to www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ggb2005014004/.)

Regulation of play equipment safety became more common starting in the 1950s. After Ralph Nader's attention-grabbing report on automobiles, Unsafe at Any Speed (1965), the report Toys That Don't Care cast a light on how products given to children were not designed with safety in mind (Swartz 1971). Under pressure from concerned citizens, the United States Congress created the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1973. The commission published A Handbook for Public Playground Safety (USCPSC 1981) in two volumes and has continued to make periodic revisions.

Playground safety advocates worked to remove unsafe playground equipment from playgrounds and improve guidelines for surfacing materials. In recent years, playground injury litigation spurred playground equipment designers, manufacturers, installers, and sponsors to take playground safety seriously.

Unfortunately, as the regulations were updated and became more extensive, concern for playground safety clashed with community initiatives and children's needs. Stringent national and state safety guidelines, standards, and regulations deemed many playgrounds that had been designed and built by community members- including children-out of compliance. Unique designs based on inexpensive materials did not fit neatly within safety standards.

Now, coinciding with the international play-in-nature movement, playground professionals are searching for the best solutions to safety and legal issues in playground development and use.

Today's question: How safe is safe enough?

For myriad reasons, from the allure of technology to the reduction of recess time due to pressure for higher test scores, today's children tend to be less active and less connected to nature than is optimal for healthy development. Since the early 2000s, many parents and educators have embraced the importance of dramatically changing the experience of outdoor play for children.

As a third grade student growing up in suburban Houston, I rode my bicycle to school alone. In fact, I was a "latchkey kid" throughout elementary and middle school. My sisters and I spent long summers unsupervised while both of our parents worked. Our only oversight was the handful of teenage lifeguards at the local swimming pool. These types of activities are almost unheard of today.
- John Sutterby

Professional organizations like the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Association for Childhood Education International, the International Play Association, and the more recently formed US Play Coalition, Children in Nature Network, and the Association for the Study of Play, encourage whole-child development approaches that include free play and outdoor exploration. No Child Left Inside and Project Wild are reintroducing children to nature and outdoor activities, and the publication Free Range Kids, by Lenore Skenazy (2010), sparked major discussion about how much supervision is overkill.

Despite the ebbs and flows of movements over the last several decades, there have been consistent efforts by many educators and advocates to make lives better for children through engagement in outdoor play and nature, and with the many forms of playgrounds-all ostensibly acting within the broad scope of whole child development.

Many people around the world are collaborating to improve education and development for children in the midst of rapidly expanding cultural and technological changes. Excellent schools balance sedentary, structured, academic instruction with open-ended experiences in the world of nature, art, the humanities, and creative, productive play. The need for playful learning in nature is receiving unprecedented interest in schools and parks in response to the dramatic changes seen in children's play opportunities, resulting in the creation of integrated natural and built playgrounds throughout the world-including, importantly, the developing world (Frost 2010).

While the lack of supervision that we and many others enjoyed as children was not without risks, playing video games for several hours a day is also a risk to children's physical and emotional health. Integrated whole child approaches, indoor and outdoor playful learning, built and natural playgrounds, and hands-on projects must keep pointing the way to healthy and happy child development.

References

Chicago Parks Department. 1906. "Municipal Gymnasiums of Chicago: Their Equipment and First Year's Administration. American Gymnasia 2 (8): 165-67.

The Charities Review. 1898. "The Playground Movement." The Charities Review 8 (8): 351-53.

Frost, J.L. 2010. A History of Children's Play and Play Environments: Toward a Contemporary Child Saving Movement. New York: Routledge.

Nader, R. 1965. Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed- In Dangers of the American Automobile. New York: Grossman.

Olsen, H.M., S.D. Hudson, & D. Thompson. 2016. Safe and Fun Playgrounds: A Handbook. St. Paul, MN: Redleaf.

Shapiro, M.S. 1983. Child's Garden: The Kindergarten Movement from Froebel to Dewey. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Swartz, E.M. 1971. Toys That Don't Care. Boston: Gambit.

Skenazy, L. 2010. Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self- Reliant Children (without Going Nuts with Worry). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Sutterby, J. 2017. "The Democratic Playground." In Play in American Life, eds. M. Moore & C. Sabo-Risley, 22-27. New York: Archway.

USCPSC (US Consumer Product Safety Commission). 1981. A Handbook for Public Playground Safety. Washington, DC: USCPSC.

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Our Proud Heritage: Outdoor Play Is Essential to Whole Child Development

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Although some people may believe that frequent opportunities for playful learning outdoors, including explorations of nature, are merely niceties, we believe they are critical for healthy whole child development.

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Ms. Elena's Head Start classroom is filled with eager 3- and 4-year-olds. It's center time, and the children have split into small groups. At one center, Ms. Elena has carefully selected play materials-including a barn, a chicken coop, and animal figurines-that reflect the story lines and specific vocabulary words from books she read aloud related to farm life as part of the class's storybook theme of the week. While Ms. Elena looks on, Sara, Javon, and Ashish arrive at the center and immediately pick up the toys. They each choose a figurine and begin playing. Sara says to Javon, "I'll be the cow!" Javon says, "Okay, then I'll be the chicken. I'm going to go sleep in the coop. The cow should go sleep in the barn." Ashish says, "Then I'll be the horse, and I'll go sleep in the barn too."

Together, the three children move their figurines to the coop and the barn while making mooing, clucking, and neighing sounds. Since coop was one of the week's focus words, Ms. Elena joins in the children's play, making sure that Sara and Ashish understand the word as well as Javon: "Sleeping in the coop sounds like a great idea, Javon! A coop is a house for chickens. Remember when we saw a coop on our field trip to Maple Farm? Javon, Sara, and Ashish, where do you think the chickens would live if we didn't have a coop on the farm?" Ashish says, "I think they live in the barn!" Then Sara says, "Yes, they live in the barn, because it's nice and warm inside there." Ms. Elena says, "That sounds like a really good place for the chickens to live if we didn't have a coop!"

At this point, Ms. Elena steps back and the children take up a new direction for the play. She continues to listen for ways to build on the children's interests and reinforce their weekly focus words during the session without interrupting their play.

Monkeys play. Dogs play. Rats play. Even octopuses play. And without any instruction, children of all races and genders, in all cultures of the world, invent and reinvent play in every generation. Something this ubiquitous must provide evolutionary advantages to both animals and humans. Decades of research suggest just that. In particular, free play and guided play-together known as playful learning-are pedagogical tools through which children can learn in joyful and conceptually rich ways, as is evident in the opening vignette. Brain science research in animals has left clues along a path that may begin to reveal play's human biological underpinnings, but more research is needed to investigate why play promotes learning and development.

From animal brains to children's behavior

Perhaps the most striking finding about play comes from research with animals in which play-specifically, rough and tumble play-has been shown to promote early brain development. When young rats play, their brains become primed to be more adaptable in later life (Pellis, Pellis, & Himmler 2014), especially with social skills and executive functions (e.g., attention, memory, and planning). Indeed, findings suggest that playful rats act more appropriately in social situations than rats that do not play (Burgdorf, Panksepp, & Moskal 2011). These findings offer a potential model of how play may help develop children's social functioning and brain architecture.

A growing body of behavioral research establishes relationships between children's play and development in several areas, including language (Toub et al. 2016), executive functions (Tominey & McClelland 2011), mathematics and spatial skills (Fisher et al. 2013), scientific thinking (Schulz & Bonawitz 2007), and social and emotional development (Dore, Smith, & Lillard 2015). One reason that play might be such a valuable pedagogical tool is that it features the precise contexts that facilitate learning. An amalgamated research field called the science of learning has identified four key ingredients of successful learning: learning occurs best when children are mentally active (not passive), engaged (not distracted), socially interactive (with peers or adults), and building meaningful connections to their lives (Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2015). These features are evident in Ms. Elena's classroom:

Javon is mentally active when he thinks about where he learned the name of the place where chickens sleep and then uses the word coop appropriately. Sara is engaged when she chooses to be the cow and moves in concert with Javon and Ashish instead of being distracted by other groups at play. Ms. Elena made the word coop more meaningful for the children by making a connection to when the children visited Maple Farm. Finally, the children were socially interactive when they built a play scenario that involved all three of them, with Ms. Elena joining in as a scaffolder.

These kinds of playful interactions between children and adults may be essential for creating the kind of supportive social environments necessary for healthy social and emotional development. Guided play in particular features this type of social interaction and has demonstrated promising outcomes for learning and development.

What is guided play?

Today, most researchers agree that play is fun, flexible, voluntary, and intrinsically motivated; it involves active engagement and often incorporates make-believe (Sutton-Smith 2001; Pellegrini 2009; Fisher et al. 2010; Lillard et al. 2013). Guided play maintains the joyful child-directed aspects of free play but adds an additional focus on learning goals through light adult scaffolding (Weisberg et al. 2016). It offers an opportunity for exploration in a context specifically designed to foster a learning goal. As such, it features two crucial elements: child agency (the child directs the learning) and gentle adult guidance to ensure that the child progresses toward the learning goal. Research suggests that guided play is a successful pedagogical tool for educators in a variety of areas (Weisberg et al. 2016). Here, we outline some examples of how guided play can work in the classroom to build specific language, mathematics, and spatial skills.

Guided play features child agency and gentle adult guidance toward the learning goal.

Language Development

Guided play is a model setting for language learning. For example, infusing vocabulary instruction in guided play fosters word learning for preschoolers, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds (Toub et al. 2016; Han et al. 2010). One study tested the effectiveness of word learning through guided play against a more teacher-directed learning activity (Toub et al. 2016). All children participated in shared book reading and then reviewed half of the vocabulary words through guided play and the other half through a picture card word-recall activity. The guided play resembled the learning taking place in the opening vignette. After play-based word learning, children defined the target words more readily than they did after picture card-based word learning.

Mathematics and spatial skills

Guided play is also effective for fostering spatial skills-important in and of themselves and also tied to later mathematics success (Verdine et al., forthcoming). For example, a study with preschoolers (Fisher et al. 2013) compared children's ability to learn about geometry and shapes through guided play, free play, and direct instruction. In the guided play condition, the adult followed the children's lead and scaffolded the interaction. Children learned more about geometry and shapes than those participating in either the direct instruction condition, where the children listened passively while the adult delivered the content in a fun way, or the free play condition, where children interacted with the shapes in whatever way they wished.

To envision how a similar effect might occur in the classroom, imagine a different center in Ms. Elena's room:

Pablo, Keisha, and Nari arrive at a table filled with tiles of different shapes. They all pick up pieces and begin snapping Magna-Tiles together. Nari says, "I'm going to build a tower! I can't get these pieces to fit." Ms. Elena is observing the children and chooses this moment to join in and say, "What shapes do you have, Nari?" Pablo says, "Nari has a square." "That's right, Pablo. Nari has a square. Nari, can you find another square?" Nari holds up a square. Ms. Elena says, "What makes that a square?" She pauses to let the children think about it, then continues, "It has four sides that are all the same length." She then says, "I wonder if it's possible to make a bigger square using the pieces you are holding up." Keisha says, "Hmmm ... I want to try!" The children look at each other and lay the pieces down-eventually discovering that by putting all four of the squares together, they create a larger square. Ms. Elena notices their discovery, and says, "Wow! You made a bigger square! It still has four sides, and all of the sides are the same length."

Ms. Elena wove the definition of a square into the children's play without taking over, but she also encouraged the children to push themselves to make an important discovery about the shape tiles. Guided play allows teachers to piggyback on children's joy and engagement to reinforce important skills.

Why does guided play work? Fledgling evidence from brain science

Guided play represents an enhanced discovery approach to learning that increases children's knowledge through opportunities to receive immediate, meaningful adult feedback (Alfieri et al. 2011). It is also an ideal example of an active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive learning context (Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2015). Consider, for instance, children playing with a shape sorter. The children discuss how to insert the shapes so that the sorter lights up. They keep inserting shapes and notice that sometimes the sorter lights up and sometimes it doesn't, but they can't figure out why. Their teacher joins in and makes some gentle guiding suggestions to help them by asking what the children have already tried and what they could try next. As children incorporate this feedback while continuing to experiment, they generate hypotheses and draw causal connections, becoming little scientists. Play helps children discover causal relationships through this type of informal experimentation (Schulz & Bonawitz 2007; Gopnik 2012). And light scaffolding, when needed, prevents frustration and enables the children to engage in longer periods of playful experimentation.

Adult-scaffolded play experiences might be particularly important because they help children develop what scientists call proactive control: neural mechanisms in the brain's prefrontal cortex that use clues from the environment to help the brain figure out what might happen next (Weisberg et al. 2014). Guided play might support the development of proactive control by fostering a mise en place -a term (derived from the culinary world meaning "everything in its place") suggested by the famed psychology professor Jerome Bruner (2013, personal communication with Brenna Hassinger-Das):

Think about preparing to make a pizza. You gather the dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings. You also get out the required tools: rolling pin, pizza stone, and pizza cutter. In this way, you have prepared yourself and your workspace for the task at hand.

Similarly, a psychological mise en place-a readiness to anticipate events and explore an activity (Weisberg et al. 2014)-helps children prepare their minds to embrace learning experiences in a positive way. Ms. Elena cultivated such a mise en place through her inclusion of farm-focused play activities. By preparing the play environment in service of her pedagogical goal-the children learning the focus words-Ms. Elena allowed children to work toward this goal in their own playful way. This type of gently scaffolded, playful learning fosters children's desire to seek out similar meaningful learning opportunities (Weisberg et al. 2014).

Guided play increases children's knowledge through immediate, meaningful adult feedback.

Imagine a different week in Ms. Elena's classroom. She sets up one center with a castle play set that mirrors a book read during that week's storybook theme of knights and dragons. The prepared play set encourages children's organic use of the theme's vocabulary words while playing-words like talons and nostrils. Ms. Elena can then draw attention to these words and help children make meaningful connections to them. This type of adult support during guided play may be the mechanism through which children's fledgling proactive control mechanisms emerge (Weisberg et al. 2014).

Using a prepared play environment to foster a mise en place-a readiness to anticipate events and explore an activity.

Looking Forward

The bottom line is that play is ubiquitous across species, and it likely has a significant role in many aspects of human development. Though behavioral research is still unfolding (Lillard et al. 2013; for a rebuttal, see Weisberg et al. 2013), evidence is mounting that guided play scaffolds young children's development and that it might prime critical neural mechanisms to make healthy adaptations (Weisberg et al. 2014). It also helps children develop an understanding of how the world works (Gopnik 2012). To deepen our understanding, research investigating play's biological foundation in children is urgently needed. This research could prove particularly important for developing interventions to assist children from vulnerable populations, such as those from low socioeconomic-status backgrounds, children with disabilities, or children experiencing stress or trauma.

As we await new discoveries from brain science, one finding is already clear: Play is a wonderful metaphor for active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive learning. And, as two of the authors of this piece described in their book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children, play also prepares children to become social, caring, thinking, and creative citizens (Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek 2016). In fact, many researchers and teachers now concur that the "child-driven educational methods sometimes referred to as 'playful learning' are the most positive means yet known to help young children's development" (Lillard et al. 2013, 28).

References

Alfieri, L., P.J. Brooks, N.J. Aldrich, & H.R. Tenenbaum. 2011. "Does Discovery-Based Instruction Enhance Learning?" Journal of Educational Psychology 103 (1): 1-18.

Burgdorf, J., J. Panksepp, & J.R. Moskal. 2011. "Frequency-Modulated 50 kHz Ultrasonic Vocalizations: A Tool for Uncovering the Molecular Substrates of Positive Affect." Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 35 (9): 1831-36.

Dore, R.A., E.D. Smith, & A.S. Lillard. 2015. "How Is Theory of Mind Useful? Perhaps to Enable Social Pretend Play." Frontiers in Psychology 6. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01559/full.

Fisher, K.R., K. Hirsh-Pasek, N. Newcombe, & R.M. Golinkoff. 2013. "Taking Shape: Supporting Preschoolers' Acquisition of Geometric Knowledge Through Guided Play." Child Development 84 (6): 1872-78.

Fisher, K.R., K. Hirsh-Pasek, R.M. Golinkoff, D.G. Singer, & L. Berk. 2010. "Playing Around in School: Implications for Learning and Educational Policy." In The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Play, eds. P. Nathan & A. Pellegrini. New York: Oxford University Press.

Golinkoff, R.M., & K. Hirsh-Pasek. 2016. Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Gopnik, A. 2012. "Scientific Thinking in Young Children: Theoretical Advances, Empirical Research, and Policy Implications." Science 337 (6102): 1623-27.

Han, M., N. Moore, C. Vukelich, & M. Buell. 2010. "Does Play Make a Difference? How Play Intervention Affects the Vocabulary Learning of At-Risk Preschoolers." American Journal of Play 3 (1): 82-105.

Hirsh-Pasek, K., J.M. Zosh, R.M. Golinkoff, J.H. Gray, M.B. Robb, & J. Kaufman. 2015. "Putting Education in 'Educational' Apps: Lessons From the Science of Learning." Psychological Science in the Public Interest 16 (1): 3-34.

Lillard, A.S., M.D. Lerner, E.J. Hopkins, R.A. Dore, E.D. Smith, & C.M. Palmquist. 2013. "The Impact of Pretend Play on Children's Development: A Review of the Evidence." Psychological Bulletin 139 (1): 1-34.

Pellegrini, A.D. 2009. "Research and Policy on Children's Play." Child Development Perspectives 3 (2): 131-36.

Pellis, S.M., V.C. Pellis, & B.T. Himmler. 2014. "How Play Makes for a More Adaptable Brain: A Comparative and Neural Perspective." American Journal of Play 7 (1): 73-98. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1043959.pdf.

Schulz, L.E., & E.B. Bonawitz. 2007. "Serious Fun: Preschoolers Engage in More Exploratory Play When Evidence Is Confounded." Developmental Psychology 43 (4): 1045-50.

Sutton-Smith, B. 2001. The Ambiguity of Play. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tominey, S.L., & M.M. McClelland. 2011. "Red Light, Purple Light: Findings From a Randomized Trial Using Circle Tim e Games to Improve Behavioral Self-Regulation in Preschool." Early Education and Development 22 (3): 489-519.

Toub, T.S., B. Hassinger-Das, H. Ilgaz, D.S. Weisberg, K.T. Nesbitt, M.F. Collins, K. Hirsh-Pasek, R.M. Golinkoff, D.K. Dickinson, & A. Nicolopoulou. "The Language of Play: Developing Preschool Vocabulary Through Play Following Shared Book-Reading." Manuscript submitted for publication, 2016.

Verdine, B.N., R.M. Golinkoff, K. Hirsh-Pasek, & N.S. Newcombe. Forthcoming. "Spatial Thinking: Fundamental to School Readiness." Society for Research in Child Development Monograph series.

Weisberg, D.S., J.M. Zosh, K. Hirsh-Pasek, & R.M. Golinkoff. 2013. "Talking It Up: Play, Language Development, and the Role of Adult Support." American Journal of Play 6 (1): 39-54.

Weisberg, D.S., K. Hirsh-Pasek, R.M. Golinkoff, A.K. Kittredge, & D. Klahr. 2016. "Guided Play: Principles and Practices." Current Directions in Psychological Science 25 (3): 177-82.

Weisberg, D.S., K. Hirsh-Pasek, R.M. Golinkoff, & B.D. McCandliss. 2014. "Mise En Place: Setting the Stage for Thought and Action." Trends in Cognitive Sciences 18 (6): 276-78.

Photographs: 3, courtesy of Brenna Hassinger-Das; 1, 2, 4 © iStock

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The Case of Brain Science and Guided Play: A Developing Story

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Free play and guided play-together known as playful learning-are pedagogical tools through which children can learn in joyful and conceptually rich ways.