2-10-10

The first two weeks of class have really gotten me to start thinking about the role of play in both child development as well as in education. I have been lucky enough to have witnessed play being used in education in both my sophomore block placement at Aldo Leopold as well as during my work at the children's center on campus. I have seen how play can really foster learning. At the children's center, all of the learning is done through play. There are different play-based centers set up in which children can do math, science, art, dramatic play, blocks and other activities. The dramatic play area especially demonstrates how play can foster learning. The dramatic play area is usually set up to coordinate with what the children are learning about or have recently learned about in preschool. The children learned about the senses during fall so the dramatic play area was set up as a doctor's office. The children were able to really demonstrate the understanding of a doctors office through their play. It was evident that they really understood the role of the doctor through their play. They would ask their friends, dolls, or teachers what hurt or what was wrong and then give then write a prescription for medicine. Many of the children would have had a hard time communicating their knowledge verbally, but when they were playing their knowledge was evident. At Aldo Leopold, many different games were used to teach math. One such game was "Banker, Banker" in which the children learned about the value of different coins as well as equalities between different coins. It would have been really boring for the children to just do worksheets to demonstrate their knowledge, but playing the game was much more fun and as a teacher you could clearly see the evidence of their knowledge. Overall, I am really excited about this class and its content because it will help me to be able to better incorporate play into my own classroom one day. I really feel that learning through play is a much more effective way to teach children of all ages, especially early childhood.