As the saying goes, play is the work of the child. Children apply knowledge and practice skills by playing.
While the amount of play in kindergarten classrooms across the country decreased in the 2000s and 2010s due to an increasing focus on academics, play-based learning in schools is starting to make a comeback, with some states passing legislation that mandates or protects play in the early grades.
Teachers say guided play helps students improve both academic and social skills, and research backs that up.
At Coltrane-Webb STEM Elementary School in Concord, N.C., educators have gone all-in on using play-based learning to reinforce math and literacy instruction.
“We’re learning about counting to 10, and then we’ll start bringing that into their play by putting 10 objects [in front of them]—10 pieces of fruit, 10 vegetables—and that way they can really start practicing those numbers,” said Jennifer Petersen, a kindergarten teacher at Coltrane-Webb. “They don’t know that they’re practicing it. They think they’re just playing.”
See the guided play in action in the above video, which is part of a five-part EdWeek series focusing on early childhood and the benefits of play-based learning for pre-kindergarteners and kindergarteners. (You can watch the first video in the series here.)
