I am writing this just after the Bank Holiday weekend – (as an aside, I have decided a three-day weekend should happen every week!)
We spent the weekend with friends and family, relaxing and enjoying spending quality time together. It made me reflect about the importance of play in young children, and by that, I mean play that does not involve devices. I watched our 3-year-old grandson having the best time using his imagination and interacting socially with those around him.
Our friend, Paul, has a boat and he decided that Paul was a pirate because he spends time living on his boat some of the time. He called him Pirate Paul all afternoon, and they went on adventures together all created within his imagination. From these interactions, he wanted to do the pirate jigsaw that we have and was excited to show Pirate Paul when he had completed it. We had races in the garden, and he loved running and jumping with everyone involved. Music was played and he sang and danced for us, even though he was shy at times. He had the Octonauts toys out on the rug and made up games while enjoying the warm sunshine on him. He calls one room in our house Pumpkin Land because the chairs remind him of pumpkins – he created imaginative stories when he was in there. While playing, he asks questions all the time as he is curious and interested in the world; listening to him make sense of everything around him is a delight. We went for a walk, and we had to pretend to be dogs; he even told me that I had to stop taking as dogs cannot talk! So much learning through his play in one afternoon.
I think about the young children who are given a tablet to play on, instead of being encouraged to explore their imaginations and the world they live in, and I think about how much they are missing out on. Seeing, hearing, feeling, touching everything around and using imagination to create amazing stories and adventures is what we need our young children to be doing. Our grandson is exploring the world, being told ‘no’ if he does something that he shouldn’t, he is learning social skills all within a supportive, fun environment and this will hopefully help him to develop skills that he will use in life.
Good luck to all the Year 6 children doing their SATs next week. Think of the play opportunities when the tests are over!
Reach Behaviour 