Settings in which children's play takes place.

Ystrad Mynach College – 498.000 Pin Number – 11/714308

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There are many different settings where children can play. Three of them could be:

Nursery – A nursery is a private provision which people need to pay for.
Infant school – An infant school is a statutory provision which is normally free of charge.
Youth clubs – Youth clubs are normally voluntary provision. There is normally a small charge for this.

In a nursery the age range is normally between 0-5 years. Children aged between 0-2 years are concentrating on controlling their bodies. They are also exploring the environment. By the age of two children can normally repeat the same activity. This is called solitary play. Between the ages 2-5 years start using more language to communicate. They also like to imaginative play. This could be using a stick as a wand. When children turn 3 they tend to parallel play. This is when children play next to each other but may not communicate with each other. Associative play is when children start to watch what other children are doing and even start to copy them.

In infant school the age range is normally 5-7 years. They start to learn more things when in infant school. This could be writing their own names or drawing pictures of their family and writing a little sentence of who is in the picture. They still like to do imaginative play. This is where they play together. This could be in a home corner and they have a mum and dad. By the age of seven children can normally play games with rules in and are able to follow these rules. Children at this age are becoming more aware of the surroundings that they are in, and want to explore the environment around them. At this age children are becoming more independent and want to follow rules of games, still having room for imagination and creating their own rules to a game.

Youth clubs are normally aimed for children in comprehensive school. It is a place where they can spend time with their friends. Many youth clubs will have lots of different types of games to play. It could be physical games like pool, netball or even football. There are any more physical games youth clubs tend to use. A youth club is places were children from the ages of 11-16 are able to learn new skills. Children are able to develop their social skills and interact with children from different ages and find that the older children help the younger children when different activities. E.g. cooking, netball, etc.

There are many different types of play which could take place in all three settings. I have chosen to do a different type of play in each setting. For nursery I have chosen creative play. This could be playing with sand and water. Children create play can be developed in everyday environment but it’s important for practitioners to encourage children when they are in the setting asking the children what they would like to do such as a painting, and they shouldn’t tell the child what to draw. There should also be a creative area such as the messy play area where children are able to develop their creative learning. Different colour paints, glitters and materials should be used for children to have more option and be able to creative different models that they would like to do not what they have been told to do. For an infant school I have chosen imaginative play. This could be playing in the home corner. Children can also use the outdoor environment where they have a wide area where that are able to play and developing the imaginative play. Setting that provide forest school activities are giving the children not only a good opportunity to develop different outdoor skills such making different objects using wood and nails but also development on their creative learning as they are able to make different dens and stories on who lives in the den and whether it’s a castle or a cave etc. For a youth club I have chosen physical play. This could be football, netball and many more. Physical development is very important for children as it’s more common for children to become over weight and become unhealthy leading to further problems in their life. Practitioners should be encouraging children to do more physical activity making sure that P.E lesson are being put in place and to also insure that children are giving area where they are able to run around in and develop their gross motor skills. Also setting should provide equipment such as balls; skipping ropes etc, this will encourage children to different activities developing their physical development.

In a nursery one activity could be playing with the sand and water this will develop children fine and gross motor skills as they are able to use different objects and being able to see how sand and water can travel differently when using different objects. As a practitioner it’s important that these are changes such as changing the water try having different coloured glitter and also different toys. The sand should also be changes making the sand wet and dry this can also help to develop children censers.

This could be a child making a castle with the ...

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This could be a child making a castle with the sand. In an infant school one activity could be imaginative. This could be talking with the class about a place that they like to go, it could be as imaginative at they like. You can encourage them to paint a picture on the place where they would like to go using as much imagination as they like.

In a youth club one activity could be football. This could be a group of people making up a team to play football. Also the youth club could arrange different trips such as bike riding, mounting climbing and other physical sports where they are able to go to different places to develop their physical skills. As a youth club they are able to take the children to different area where children are able to do activities that they enjoy making them more likely to develop more as they are enjoying the activity they are doing.

Jean Piaget was born in 1896. She died in 1980. Jean Piaget’s theory looks at how children play in different age groups. Jean Piaget developed his theory on his observations on children play. In Jean Piaget’s theory he saw children pass through three stages of play. He says each stage helps build on the knowledge and experience. Children also gain an understanding of their world. Jean Piaget done his theory’s on his own children. Jean Piaget theories were mainly on cognitive development.

‘This theory suggests that learning and cognitive development is a process and children need to pass through different stages. The most famous psychologist who worked with this theory is Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980), a Swiss biologist. He was working on intelligence test when he became interested in finding out why children’s logic was different from that of adult’.

Childcare and Education 4th edition Penny Tassoni 200 Page 371

One example of a play activity for nursery could be sand and water. There are many different risks with sand and water. There is a risk of drowning with water. There is also risk of sand being thrown into children’s eyes. Also the floor could become very slippery if there is sand and water on it. I would make sure the children are aware of the risks and then I would provide the children with a challenge by letting the children play with the sand and water safely.

An example of a play activity for infant school could be playing in the home corner. I would make sure that the children are aware of the risks and them I would be providing the children with a challenge by letting them play in the home corner safely.

For a youth club an activity could be playing football. There are many different risks which could happen when playing football. One of the risks could be getting hit in the chest with the ball. This could easily wind someone. I would make sure the children in the youth club are aware of the risks. I would then provide the children with a challenge by letting them play football safely.

The resources that will support the nursery children playing with the sand and water is the right equipment, making sure that children are developing by the equipment that is in the sand and water tray such as, different toys that sink and float, different textures of sand will also develop children development as they are able to see what happens when dry sand turns wet sand, seeing the different textures it can go into. Also water tray can be changed having different colour glitter and adding water colouring in to the tray. It’s important that as a practitioner I’m giving the correct support to the children making sure that the equipment that is put in the tray is used correctly to develop the children learning.

The resources that will support the infant school children when developing their imaginative, is an area that provides children with lots of different activities. They should be giving the option to choose what they want to play with and use. A good area to develop children imaginative development is an outdoor area, with loads of space where the children are able to run around in. The children can use their imagination to change the environment into something completely different. Practitioners are able to do this following the theorist Reggio Emilia as the theory stated that children should use the environment to develop their own learning.

The resources that will support the youth club children to be able to play football are good team work and communication, the correct equipment and an understanding of the rules of football. Children should be provided with outdoor/indoor space, where they are able to do sport activities, depending on the weather. Activities should still continue and not be affected in bad weather. It’s also important that the setting provides a trained member of staff that understands the different rules to the activity as they need to be able to support the children physical development correctly and teaching the children the correct rules.

Children benefit from play activities that provide challenge as taking risks has a positive impact on their development. It has been noticed that children who take small risks in a controlled way use them in later life. If you over protect children you can delay their development. This could be in their social and emotional needs as well as their overall health. Children who control their own risks benefit as they will use this knowledge in adulthood. Practitioners should support children when trying different risks as if they are always giving correct ways of doing activity they are never going be able to develop their own opinion towards different challenge and risks that they are taking.

One example of a play activity could be riding a bike. There are many risk involved in this activity. One risk could be falling off. A child might graze their knee. All children need to learn how to ride a bike as they will be able to go out with their friends who can ride bikes. They will feel left out if they cannot go out with their friends because they are all on their bikes. This could affect their social development. Children can also benefit from this as they can find out their own limits. For example some might ride their bike with stabilisers and others ride their bike without them. Each child has different learning styles and it is important for practitioners to encourage all types of learning skills and encourage learning in their own individual way.

“Children need to be kept safe but not in a way that restricts their fun, enjoyment and, importantly, their potential learning. This means that you must always be vigilant and consider the risks in situations but avoid creating circumstance where children have nothing meaningful to do.”

Childcare and Education 4th Edition Penny Tassoni 2007 Page 172

Adults can encourage investigation and exploration through play by talking with the children and asking them what they would like to do. Adults can also use observation to plan activities which involve investigation and exploration. The observations can be done on free play which could give ideas of what the children would like to do.

There are many different activities that you can do with the children. One indoor activity could be adding food colouring to the water tray. You could speak to the children and ask them what they think about it. Or you could observe the children and see them using it in a different way.

There are many different activities that you could plan for outside. One outdoor activity could be collecting leaves that have falling off trees. You could use the leaves to make pictures. This could be sticking the leaves to a piece of paper or panting the leaves to make patterns. You could leave the child to choose what they would prefer to do.

At the end of each lesson you could ask the children for their feedback which can help plan another activity. If the children enjoyed the activity you could plan another activity like this one. If they did not like it then you could plan a different activity for them to do.

Practitioners should always encourage the children to join in with activities, and adapt the activity for every child to enjoy. Practitioners can help the children to read books and let them make up stories using the pictures this can help them with imaginative play. Practitioners should always encourage imaginative play.

The theory of play states that children can have fun and learn new things from play. This helps us understand why it’s important for children to be encourage playing with either themselves or other children, with activities such as pretend play, role play and many more. From my point of view the theory of play teaches us that it is ok for children to play and that it will benefit them in the future. Play is not just about learning it is also about letting the children still have a fun childhood while gaining skills they could use in later life. Frederich Froebel believed that children could learn from play both indoor and outdoor, she also believed in learning through rhymes and songs, a theory that is still used all over the world.

“Frederich Froebel was one of the first people to believe that children need to learn from doing are playing rather than being taught. This approach is often called ‘child-centred learning’.”

Childcare and Education 4th edition Penny Tassoni Page 149

When on placement I was asked to do many different tasks. Some of these tasks included, observing a child, collecting resources, setting out a play area for an activity, and being involved with the play activities. As a practitioner it is important that I put this information in to good use putting it in to planning that would be further used to better children education. From observations I was able to see what worked well in the setting and what could use improvements.

One of my tasks was to set up the area for cutting and sticking, to do this I needed to get paper for the pictures to go on. I also had to get things that the children could stick on to the paper. They were coloured paper, sequins, beads and lolly pop sticks. I also had to put the glue in pots for the children to stick the items down on the paper and I had to get the glue sticks out. I then needed to get aprons for the children to wear, which is to protect their clothes from getting damaged, and then I had to get the safety scissors out so that the children could cut out what they needed to for their task. This didn’t take me too long to do and then I was allowed to help the children with the cutting and sticking. While I was helping the children cut their coloured card I was able to observe that the children could safely cut a piece of coloured card without any injury’s happening. This gave me more confidence in the children so I suggested that they cut the lolly pop sticks into different lengths. This was more of a challenge because the lolly pop sticks were made of wood which is a lot tougher to cut than card. Some children managed to cut the lolly pop sticks without any problem this showed me that by challenging the children to try something harder they developed their cutting skills which will make a big difference when they are challenged to do something similar. It also helped me to identify children that needed more help with their fine motor skills being able to cut softer materials. It’s important that as a practitioner when observing a child, I need to identify each individual strengths and weaknesses, making sure that I support children through both. If I notice that an individual child or a group of children are able/not able to do an activity, I need to make sure that I make other practitioners aware of this, as they will also be able to help the children in the future developing. This shows that I am working as part of a team.

Before doing this unit I probably would not let 3-5 year old children play with scissors because I would have thought it was too dangerous for the children. By being involved I have more understanding that children need to take risks to help them develop. This has made me understand that there is risk assessments put into place to ensure that the children can do this type of activity and many others like it, without the risk of the children getting injured. As a practitioner I have been able to develop on my own learning that will help children development and knowledge.

Therefore I have learned that children need to learn how to use scissors for them to carry out further tasks that involve cutting so they can complete many of those tasks. Cutting different shapes in materials not only help the children to learn to cut put with the help of a practitioner, it can also help the child’s fine motor skills, hand and eye coordination and other development that can be improved throughout the activity.

I understand that you should always include all children no matter if they are boy/girl, white/black or have a disability or not. Every child is equal and should be treated that way. You should allow everyone to play the activities because if you leave a child out because of their appearance or learning difficulties you will make those children upset and lonely. Some things may have to be done different for example if the children would like to play football but there’s a child with a physical disability and cannot walk or run the other children need to help that child by allowing them to catch the ball and then throw it instead of running with it. This way no children will be left out and everyone is happy.