Learning through Play

A lot of people don’t realize that children can learn so much through play. Now when people hear “learning through play” (myself included), a lot of the time they picture the scene in Kindergarten Cop when the whole classroom is in utter chaos and then all of a sudden Mr. Kimble freaks out.

This isn’t what I’m talking about thankfully.

To be quite honest, I wasn’t entirely sure of what it meant myself until I got to see firsthand with my daughter.

Although we’ve only been using the Mother Goose Time Curriculum for 6 months I’ve already noticed how much she’s been learning already.

Learning through play doesn’t look one specific way. Every classroom and teacher will display it differently. It’s about growth and observation.

There are days with Miss M wants to just color and that’s it. That’s ok. There’s other days when she wants to play with blocks for an hour or two straight and that’s ok too. We also have to learn to be flexible and be sensitive to our children or students’ specific needs and interests.

When they want to focus on a specific activity, they are experiencing deeper levels of processing and understanding.

Every child has different strengths and interests. There’s no one specific way to make sure they’re learning through play the “right way.” As long as they’re learning and the activities are causing them to engage, discover, and grow then we’re on the right track.

As the great Albert Einstein said, “Play is the highest form of research.”