We looked at the different stages a child goes through while developing through play. Those stages are commonly referred to as the 'Social stages of Play Development' and they are important and vital to your child's social development. At the same time, Play Development is also classified according to type or nature of play behaviour. These 'Types of Play' also largely contribute to a child's development and learning.
Children’s play activities
mainly fall under two main categories: Structured Play and Unstructured Play.
Structured Play:
Like the name suggests, Structured play, is goal-oriented play, or 'play with a purpose' kind of activity which is generally adult-led or supervised. It may involve a specific task that would help a child learn a new skill. eg: an ADL activity like buttoning, tying a shoe lace, etc, or a specific learning objective like days of the week, or colours of the rainbow.
Structured play involves following rules or instructions to reach a particular goal, and using logic to solve problems.
Examples of Structured play activities would be
- Following directions to assemble a toy, or Lego theme set
- Organized sports like football and basketball
- Card games or board games involving rules, etc
Unstructured play:
Unstructured play is is also called free play. It is child-led and allows children to experiment with different things. This provides children with experiences in creativity, imagination, decision-making and the development of overall emotional and social skills. Unstructured play is open ended and not bound by rules.
Examples of Unstructured play activities would be
- Playing with blocks
- Drawing, coloring and painting on blank paper
- Playing on playground equipment
- Pretend-play with toys and other objects
Further subtypes of Play
Play can be further classified into different types based on the nature of the activity. There are more and more types and subtypes if we go deeper down, so for convenience and ease of understanding, lets stick to 5 commonly described types of play
1.Physical Play:
Physical play is the type of play that gets a child perform big movements like running and jumping to small movements like picking up a pencil or tying a shoe lace.
The earliest stages of play (the Unoccupied, and the Solitary stages) are those where physical play begins. Babies experience a lot of movement and playing with their hands and legs at this time. Body play and movement is largely a way for children to develop a spatial understanding of themselves and world around them.
Mother-child bonding also takes place through physical play with activities like peek-a-boo and baby talk, which help parents establish an emotional connection with their child. It is the early building blocks for all forms of play.
It lays the foundation for many complex skills like object permanence, and also helps build awareness and he/she learns to mimic your expressions and eventually smiles back and begins to vocalize as well.
Physical play is one of the most active forms of play and it improves balance, coordination, muscle strength, reaction time and promotes overall physical development.
2.Social Play:
Just like it sounds, social play is all about playing with others. Considered one of the most complex forms of play, social play helps children establish social norms. It is mostly competitive in nature, eg: team games, races, etc, but can also be simply interactive and fun, eg: a group project
By playing with others, children learn and practice social skills, like cooperating, being flexible, taking turns, and solving problems. The interpersonal skills that social play helps develop, paves the way for children to have successful friendships and relationships as adults.
It also helps to develop emotional intelligence as it teaches children vital soft skills that are essential for emotional intelligence, such as how to communicate effectively, negotiate and work together as a team.
In short, to be prepared to function effectively in the adult world, children need to engage in lots of social play.
3.Constructional / Constructive Play:
On hearing the term 'Constructional/ Constructive Play' the first thing that may come to our minds would be building blocks, or Lego, or sand castles. Experimenting with materials, building towers with blocks, constructing objects with loose parts, and making sand castles, all fall under constructional play, but that is not all that is there to it.
Constructive Play involves manipulating objects and any other element of a child's environment to 'construct' or create something new. It could be anything from drawing, to music, to actually building something with blocks or other substances.
Constructive play begins at around 2 years of age, where children start to have a longer attention span.
Through constructive play, children learn a vast range of skills and behaviours. They learn through trial and this aids in facilitating creative thinking and problem solving skills. Constructive play helps develop physical skills (both fine and gross motor) necessary to manipulate and control the chosen toy or material, problem solving skills, flexible thinking skills, the ability to plan the use of materials to see a design idea become a reality, the ability to test ideas, and many more.
Children who are provided with ample opportunities for manipulating objects and materials, become good at manipulating ideas, words and concepts in later life.
4. Pretend Play:
There are many usages that ultimately mean 'Pretend Play'. Fantasy play, Dramatic play, Creative play, Imaginative play, etc all refer to the same type of play in children.
Pretend play begins as early as 18 months, where children begin imitating and acting out actions their parents do, like talking on the phone, using cooking utensils, etc. At this age it is mostly symbolic, and the child starts to use objects to represent (or symbolize) other objects. For example, they may use a block to mimic a phone, or a stick to represent a spoon. Symbolic play is a time when creativity really starts to shine.
As the child is between 2 and 3 years of age, he/she will use be able to use better thinking skills to play pretend with props, like a doll and toy bottle, or a doctor set and a soft toy. They will now act like they are feeding the doll or checking the temperature of their sick teddy.
When a child plays dress-up, doctor, or policeman, it is called dramatic or fantasy play. Fantasy play, not only improves the child's imagination, but also help them learn how to negotiate, consider others' perspectives, transfer knowledge from one situation to another, develop a plan and act on it, assign tasks and roles, and many more. Through role-play, children learn about functioning in the greater community.
5. Games with rules:
As children develop through the various stages of play, they progress from an immature and egocentric pattern to a wider understanding of the need for guidelines and social order. Games with rules contribute to this part of a child's development.
Games like 'Follow the leader', 'Simon Says', Basket ball, Football, etc. and board games like Chess, Checkers, Scrabble, etc. teach them that there is no smooth function without everyone adhering to the same set of rules.
These games also require the children to self-regulate, curbing their own desires and needs to adhere to the rules of the game. Games with rules are often characterized by logic and order, and as children mature they can develop method and planning in their game playing (Frost et al., 2004).
They also help cultivate in children, a sense of fairness and help them develop their own ideas about good behavior, friendship, and justice. Rules reflect and create social identities among children, help them develop an understanding of cooperation and competition, and encourage the development of strategy.
Both structured and unstructured types of play are important in cultivating a sense of curiosity and purposeful learning. When structured play activities are ideal for building skills of problem solving, active listening or meeting a target, Unstructured play activities help the child explore possibilities, improve imagination and approach problem solving from an 'outside-the-box' perspective.
I believe that children should always be provided opportunities for active learning, and what better a medium can we offer, than play!
"If you want to be creative, stay in part, a child,
with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are
deformed by adult society."
Jean Piaget
(Swiss Psychologist)
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