How Does Play Support Your Child’s Overall Development and Learning Ability?

Physical Development – active play with large and small muscles such as climbing, running, ball games, digging, jumping and dancing. It supports children’s overall health and well-being, physical growth, understanding of the benefits of an active lifestyle and independence skills in activities such as dressing and feeding themselves. 

Social and Emotional Development – Dramatic and imaginative play involving dress-up and role play can develop positive social and emotional skills and values. It gives children the opportunity to: 

• Practice working with other children, negotiate ideas and make choices and decisions 
• Develop self-confidence through the experience of success and challenges 
• Learn to control their emotions, reduce impulsive behavior or  stress to express feelings and events that can. Worry them 
• Develop empathy and fairness as they learn to play and play with other children. 

Cognitive Development – when your child plays alone and with others, his cognitive skills such as thinking, remembering, learning and paying attention develop. Through play, children develop the following cognitive skills: 

• Problem-solving 
• Imagination and creativity 
• Concepts such as shapes, colours, measurement, counting and letter recognition 
• Strengths such as concentration, persistence and flexibility. 

Developing literacy and numeracy  - Play requires thinking, language, communication, curiosity and exploration. Through play, children develop skills and understanding, including: 

• A better understanding of words and how they are used 
• Listening and speaking skills 
• Writing skills through scratching, painting and drawing 
• How stories work (plot, characters, structure, purpose and form) from words on the page) 
• Learning that objects can mean something else (a block can be a symbol for a telephone) is fundamental to learning  formal reading, spelling and counting because letters, words or numbers are part of symbolic systems 
• Learning that letters, words, symbols, numbers and signs have a purpose and are meaningful to others.