Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/learning-day-by-day/5014962/
"Let's play rescue." "Yeah! I am the firefighter!" "I want to drive the truck." "We need to make a road." And off the children go into their imaginary world, where rows of blocks lined up and weaving around the play space become an emergency access road, a sturdy plastic plate quickly grabbed from the house corner is the steering wheel that creates a driver, and an unsuspecting but cooperative doll is rescued from a series of mishaps conjured up in the minds of heroic pre-schoolers. At the end of the story, everyone is safe and feeling positive about his or her role in the important business of imagining a problem, generating a solution, and implementing it effectively.This is constructive play in action. In it, you see many key elements of the type of play-based learning that early childhood experts recognize as developmentally appropriate for young children. Playing for Keeps (www.playingforkeeps.org), a national not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting healthy, constructive, nonviolent play for all children, is an emerging advocate for play-based programming in response to an increasing emphasis on academic-type instruction for younger and younger children.
Creating a "learning through play" classroom
If play is the most natural and effective way for young children ...