Play based learning
should be nature based. Eg. a plastic apple is always going to be an apple, but
a pinecone could be an apple, a ball, a remote control for a space ship etc.
Play Based Learning
Activities/ideas for the seniors.
- ART - Journal Art by the Sea.
My class did the balancing art and grabbed all kinds of natural materials
from the bush. They absolutely loved doing it!
- Going into the bush and making
huts. Have categories - largest, most people can fit in, tallest, smallest
but can still fit a person. Or ones with different rooms etc.
- Have a construction afternoon.
Find building construction from around the school and just put it out for
students to play and build with.
- Deconstruction - are there old
computers or technology that children can disassemble with tools?
- Building - Could we find that
wooden building station and have wood and hammers and nails and just let
them go for it?
- Go to your younger buddy class
and just let the class play with all the equipment and PBL activities in
there. My boys LOVED dressing up in the dress ups in Dana’s class.
- Nature art - tell students to
create an art piece from natural materials in the bush. They can only take
things from the ground (not pulling new leaves off trees etc). Some
examples - Nature art examples, More art examples, another example
- Scientific investigations that
they organise
- Problem solving activities -
break out kits
- Cardboard arcades/miniature
buildings or just offer them cardboard boxes and see what they turn them
into or use them for.
- Have dress ups for the seniors
too. I have some your can borrow. I use them for wet day lunches.
- Have a box full of school
journal plays they can create. My class love having the opportunity to do
plays for reading, but I control it too much. I might trial them choosing
their own friends to do it with, and them choosing their own creative
direction.
- Opportunities to create their
own dances or art or invent games for the class to play, both board games
or physical games.
- Maybe be prepared to be messy
and to use the outdoors. Give a group some dishwashing liquid and see what
bubbles they can create.
- Take
the lead from the students. What do they want to play with? Could the
bring stuff from home?
Different forms of play
- some obviously young, but you could advance the activity for students in your
class.
Gathering - Gathering or collecting items.
Transporting - Transporting can be the urge to carry many
things on your hands at one time, in jars, in buckets and baskets, or
containers.
Deconstruction - Breaking things comes before making things -
for most children.
Construction - Creating and building.
Enclosure - The urge to fill up cups with water, climb
into cardboard boxes or kitchen draws, build fences for the animals or to put
all the animals inside the circular train track, it is the Enclosure/Container
schema. Shelter and safety are deep within the human experience. Trajectory
- The urge to throw, drop and other actions that are all part of the Trajectory
schema. Some other Trajectory actions are things like climbing up and jumping
off (Trajectory of ones own body), putting your hand under running water
(interacting with things that are already moving) and the classic, throwing and
dropping (making it happen). It can be diagonal, vertical or horizontal... this
is a multi-dimensional urge, after all learning is based on movement in the
first years of life.
Connection - Joining train tracks, clicking together
pieces of lego, running a string from one thing to another... the urge of
Connection. Putting things end to end, tying things together to make a ‘convoy’
of wheelbarrows, trucks, friends.
Enveloping - Putting things into things is an urge, to
have a sheet over your head, wrapping things in fabrics or with tape and paper,
all actions seen in the Enveloping schema.
Patterning and Ordering - Do you find yourself positioning things
neatly into alignment on your desk, ordering the books on the self, getting
creative when you plate the dinner or even just tidying-up. Perhaps you see
your child lining up their cars, making sure the whale is next to the cow or
turning all the cups upside down? It is about sorting, classifying, and
seriating.
Role Playing - Children role play to explore their place in
society, as well as examine social justice (good versus bad).
Rotation - Anything that goes around anything that is
circular - wheels, turning lids, watching the washing machine on spin cycle,
drawing circles, spinning around on the spot, being swung around. These are all
experiences of the Rotation schema. Starting with rolling when babies learn to
move off their backs to spinning round and round and falling down dizzy,
children have a pattern of the circular to unfold. Low, horizontal tyre-swings
extend this, wheeled vehicles, a spinning wheel, retro wind-up gramophones.
Orientation - The urge to hang upside down, get the view
from under the table or on top of the dresser and other actions that are part
of the Orientation schema. In order to 'know' what it is like to hang upside
down or see things from a different point of view, you must take yourself into
those positions. It is looking at things from another angle.
Transformation - The urge to Transform can come in many forms;
holding all your food in your mouth for a long time to see what it turns into,
mixing your juice with your fish pie, water with dirt, or mixing the bread
dough. It's only natural that once you have explored and learnt about a raw
material you should want to do further testing. Turning something into
something else, watching the properties morph and change: soil and water mud
pies, clay and water sculpting, flour, butter, etc.
Climbing - Children are going to climb - some more than
others. It is about position yourself to a higher state. Seeing things from a
different perspective.
More research...
The Importance of Play
According to (Gray,
2013; Brewer, 2007) play needs to be;
- self-chosen and self-directed;
- process rather than product driven;
- contains structures or rules established
by the players themselves;
- imaginative, non-literal and removed from
reality;
- occurs between those who are active,
alert and non-stressed.
"Play by
definition, is, first and foremost, an activity that is
self-chosen and
self-directed. It is an activity that you are
always free to quit.
Activities that are chosen by teachers and
directed or evaluated by
teachers, is not play" Peter Gray
A child's play is not simply a reproduction of what he has
experienced, but a creative reworking of the impressions he has acquired.
(Vygotsky, 2004).
This is that play is
self-chosen and self-directed; it is a focus on process, rather than a product.
The structure (or rules) are established by the players, it needs to be
imaginative and non-literal, and it occurs between those who are alert and
active. It is also important that the child has the knowledge that they can end
the play when they wish. Aiono states that the ultimate freedom in play is the
freedom to quit. When an adult leads, a child feels less able to quit. When a
child feels coerced, the play spirit vanishes. How does it feel when you have
to follow directions, versus being given the opportunity to have your own creative
input?
Teachers need to observe
and support the learning when the students are 'stuck' and the play becomes
stagnant.
Aiono and Cheer (2017) state that numerous research has defined
pretend or socio-dramatic play as the most beneficial play for children.
This type of play has been shown to have the strongest links to executive
functioning development. This type of
thinking develops flexible and abstract thinking, it also helps develop
self-control. This play also allows children to build on their knowledge
of what is known, as well as what could be, as well as developing.
Assessing through play
As teachers observe play
they can make links to the curriculum. Play can cover a variety of curriculum
strands and key competencies, it is the teacher's job to identify these, expand
on these and then provide provocations/invitations to areas of the curriculum
that have not be covered yet.
Links to Literacy -
Jessie’s reflection from readings.
Children who don’t have
experiences can’t verbalise experiences. Play based learning gives them new
experiences, both social and independent.
Language develops
through children communicating and learning from each other. They also learn
problem solving and conflict resolution strategies themselves when a teacher is
not always jumping in to solve it.
Lots of links to the
NZC’s Key Competencies - most all of them can be developed through play-based
activities: innovation, inquiry, curiosity, and sustainability, respect,
thinking, using language, and managing self, relating to others, participation
and contributing.
If children are writing
about personal experiences that are relevant to them, the writing will be
authentic with their voice and word choice.
