The Benefits of Play-Based Learning
Boost your child’s success using play-based learning
Ask any kid what they would like to do – Play or Learn? The answer very often would be PLAY. Kids love to play. Play comes naturally to living beings. It doesn’t need to be taught. Take, for example, wolf pups.
They start playing at an early age, which lays foundation for their hunting skills and eventually even decides who becomes the leader of the pack. Play is an essential activity to ensure the skills for survival are acquired in an efficient manner. Similarly, human babies discover their world through play and create strong bonds through fun activities. Each one of us at some point in our lives have played and learned.
When children play, it’s more than just fun and games. They are learning too. For kids, play is as vital as eating or sleeping to ensure sharpness of mind and development of various emotional, social, motor and gross skills. Valuable skills like social, cognitive and physical are imbibed through playing. This has led to the rise of “Play-Based Learning.”
What is play-based learning?
Play-based learning is a form of teaching based on play. For example, let’s take an activity that is fun and aspirational for a child, like being a chef. Through this activity you let the children role play and enjoy a new experience but subliminally teach the kids concepts of maths like addition, subtraction, fractions and so on. These are fun and interactive ways of teaching educational and social skills. It also helps them understand the practical application of various academic concepts.
Why is play-based learning important?
Play-based learning activities create a comforting zone for the kids, in which their mind becomes more curious and eager to learn new things and concepts. It is an important part of early childhood. Kids often try to make sense of things through their surroundings. When you give them a world that is based on their interest, they gain liking towards learning and exploration. They are motivated to learn and explore things in a better way.
Play-based learning has many benefits like developing essential social, cognitive and numeracy skills. It teaches them about shapes, sounds, colors, and competition and encourages them to be attentive, focused, and to communicate and negotiate.
That’s why at Luma World, we design our activity kits and board games on play-based learning principles. Along with enhancing learning and developing skill building, our curriculum-aligned kits create a fun atmosphere of play for the kids. It is an excellent way for educators and parents to teach the kids about real-life situations and ways to deal with them. This enhances their logical thinking ability. They also become critical thinkers. At Luma World, we believe in the importance and power of play-based learning.
Benefits of Play-Based Learning
Social Skills Development
Social skills are extremely important for the development of kids. Play-based learning involves interaction between kids and parents or kids and their peers, thus teaching them about dealing with people. Children learn social skills like cooperation, collaboration, sharing, team building, negotiation and problem-solving through various play activities.
Positive attitude:
Play inculcates having a positive attitude towards life among the children. The fun, excitement associated with play-based learning promotes kid’s likeness towards learning. The social interaction especially associated with board games teaches the kids to lose gracefully. This prepares them to take any setbacks in life with a positive attitude.
Imagination and Creativity
Play enhances imagination and creative thinking. It is an excellent way of developing problem-solving and strategic skills among the kids. It teaches them the importance of originality and thinking out-of-the-box. You will be surprised at the kind of creative solutions the kids come up with during play-based activities.
Communication
Communication is an important outcome of Play-based learning. Imaginary play-based activities encourage the kids to use various modes of expressions like oral, written and facial. This enhances the way the kids communicate with the world and develops their literacy skills.
Focus and Retention
Play-based games are high on involvement. They engage the children and involve them in a way that stimulates the kid’s curiosity and need for exploration. The drive to know more about their environment makes the kids focus better. There is self-desire to pay more attention to the surroundings. Even their retention power improves.
Emotional Development
While growing up, one of the toughest things for the kids to deal with is their emotions. When the kid is involved in play-based activities, they learn more about various emotions and the ways to deal with it. They also get to know more about their emotions and learn how to control them. One of the important emotional skills that a kid learns through these activities is empathy.
Types of Play-based learning
Free Play
As the name suggests, free play doesn’t follow any guidelines. It is initiated and freely chosen by the child. It is a spontaneous, self-motivated and creative form of play. Imagination of the kid often forms the base for this kind of play. For example: a broken stick becomes a magical wand or a cloth becomes a cape.
Adult-Led
This is an adult initiated play. They may or may not include instructions. The purpose of this play is usually clear. These activities are played with specific learning goals to teach certain skills and learning to the kids.
Guided-Play
The child or adult can initiate Guided Play. This play often takes place in a planned environment to promote the child’s curiosity. They explore everything around them with enthusiasm; interact with other kids and with the things around.
Play-based learning activities
The best thing about growing up for anyone is playtime. Our childhood is filled with such beautiful memories of play. Right from hide and seek to building sand castles, from running an imaginary doctor’s clinic to climbing trees. We all have had our share of play-based activities.
These activities are so much fun, yet they teach the kids some important educational and life lessons. What is really fascinating about play-based activities is that it can be played indoors as well as outdoors with minimal available toys.
Some play-based activity ideas:
Outdoor Play Ideas:
- Use natural materials like twigs, small branches, flowers, rocks and leaves. Turn them into objects like swords, tiara etc and use them in play.
- Obstacle course to develop physical strength and to make the kids mentally strong.
- Take your kid’s help in gardening. It is a great way to teach them about plants, soils, flowering and the functioning of the ecosystem.
Math Play Ideas:
- A fun way to teach kids about maths-related topics like fraction, division, multiplication and percentage is through involving the kids in baking or cooking.
- Ask the kids to sort kitchen supplies according to its types and weight.
- Have family board games night.
- Create fun patterns with the kids to decorate their rooms.
Literacy Play Ideas:
- One of the fun ways to improve kids’ literary skills is through playing rhyming games.
- Give the kids certain words to create their own stories.
- Draw, scribble, and doodle with your kids.
- Create famous signs and symbols to hang around the house.
- Make them write small notes to their friends and family.
Want to know how to add fun to learning with Luma World, check www.lumaworld.in
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