Importance Of Play

For this extended assignment I am going to focus on play and the importance of play is for children and young people. I am going to focus on children up to age of 6. “Play is a spontaneous and active process in which thinking, feeling and doing can flourish.” (http://www.playwales.org.uk/ ). Play is Important for children and young people’s as it can help children to build their confidence. Also, play helps children to develop their physical, mental, social and emotionally. If children and young people have access to good play provision then it many benefits for them, these may be:

To answer this question we must first understand the importance of play. If we understand, on the most basic level, that play is essential for a child to have a good health and wellbeing. Then it could be concluded that outdoor play needs to be considered as an important component of education and care.

Evaluate the key principles of play and their relevance to Forest SchoolThe Encyclopaedia of Children’s health (healthofchildren.com) defines play as" ...activities performed for self amusement that havebehavioural, social and psychomotor rewards. It is child directed, and the rewards come from within the individual child; it is enjoyable and spontaneous" At Forest School unstructured play can provide a sense offreedom in wilder spaces not normally found in day to day play. It can give participants a stronger sense of responsibility and self preservation. They give themselves permission to try things and if they don’t go according to plan they have learned and explored anyway. There is no-one there to judge them or tell them their ideas have failed or were wrong. It was just play. When children play together in this way they have to look out not just for themselves but each other. Their communicationskills are tested and honed. They hopefully learn to listen to the

When arranging activities for play based learning within early years provision there can be barriers towards it from taking place. Before the week begins, planning is needed. When planned activities are prepared resources are needed too. Resources can become a barrier towards play. This is because the resources that were needed were not available to be used. Due to this what could take place instead is for the early years practitioner to gather other resources for the children to use for the activity or to just to begin a different activity for the children to join in with. Staffing can become a barrier too. When playing with children it is important that at least another adult is in the room with you. If not then it could potentially have an impact on you completing the activity. If a child has a disability or

It is important that children are able to receive holistic care while in a play environment, both inside and outside. Some of the principles which would apply to both indoor and outdoor play include a child centred practice, ensuring the child 's welfare and safety, promoting a child 's rights, and enabling a child to reach their full potential. It is important that we provide a child centred practice, as it promotes a child 's learning and development through play. By having a child centred approach, we should support the children giving them guidance, but to allow the opportunities for them to learn independently, instead of taking over an activity and showing them. It encourages us as practitioners, to encourage children to explore and to make their own

Play accompanies and encourages development while keeping the child interested and engaged (Thompson, Stanford,

"Play is so critically important to all children in the development of their physical, social, mental, emotional and creative skills that

Play allows children to explore situations and make sense of the real world, practice and build upon ideas, they develop an understanding for rules, and what is right and wrong. Children learn through play how to take risks and accept that mistakes are going to be made, they have the chance to think creatively and use their imaginations as much as they can to invent situations which can be based on real life or fictional. They are taught to communicate with others whilst playing and problem solving, this also encourages them to play fairly and learn how to share (Glenn et al, 2006). In 2004 the Children Act was introduced which recognised the relevance of pay within early years, the act suggested that there were five key outcomes that play based learning contributed towards. The first outcome was that play can support a child physically, mentally, and emotionally through their development and growth, play can teach children how to stay safe by challenging safely and exploring physical and emotional risks.

Children are able to develop and practise motor skills and bodily movements through physical plays. During some cognitive games, such as board games and educational toys, children can improve their mental fitness and brain function. Play also provides opportunities for children to make friends, to negotiate with others, and to develop their communication skills. It helps extend language and improve children’s social ability. I believed that play is essential to children’s education that cannot be minimized and separated from learning.

Therefore, social and emotional development can be supported by practice as adults play a key role in helping children to socialise and engage with others. Tassoni (2015) suggests that we need to start by making sure that we create the optimum conditions for children to socialise and there are many ways to do this within a setting depending on age, stage, and needs of the children who you work with. Play is a marvellous way in which children are able to explore their emotions and develop their social skills. It allows children to legitimately and safely show emotions whilst being destructive and realising their feelings, but also explore social situations and develop essential social skills such as interpreting others emotions. The DCSF (2008) support this by saying through play babies and young children learn, grown and have fun.

1. INTRODUCTION A play where children create and act the roles are defined as dramatic play. It is when they play or act the roles out of reality and become someone or anything that different from themselves. Children that are growing up like to play dramatic play and roles and pretend be someone else like superheroes, doctor or anything that they like and dramatize the situations and also will did the action to play along with the roles that they played.

It has been shown that play is very important to a childâ€TMs learning. Learning through play helps a child make positive contribution.

The adult also has to be clear on the range of potentials for learning that play offers such as:

A key underlying commitment ratified by a number of governments is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This Convention has 54 articles that cover all aspects of a child’s life and set out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights that all children everywhere are entitled to. It also explains how adults and governments must work together to make sure all children can enjoy all their rights. Many of the principles from this have been incorporated into statutory law.

Play therapy refers to a method of psychotherapy with children in which a therapist uses a child's fantasies and the symbolic meanings of his or her play as a medium for understanding and communication with the child. The aim of play therapy is to decrease those behavioural and emotional difficulties that interfere significantly with a child's normal functioning. Inherent in this aim is improved communication and understanding between the child and his parents. Less obvious