The Importance of Play for Developing Physical Literacy in Children

Physical literacy is defined as 

               “the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding required by participants that allows them to value and take responsibility for engaging in physical activity and sport for life ” (Margaret Whitehead). 

We want to encourage children to be active, have the physical skills to be active in society so that they lead lives that are healthy and so they will value physical activity throughout their lifetime. 

We can use play as the medium to encourage physical activity for children of a young age. 

               “Play allows children to experience fun, joy and laughter in a way that is important to them. It’s also where they develop and practice life skills” (Sport NZ). 

SportNZ has highlighted the importance of play for children in their article 'The Importance of Play' and this has helped me to understand how play is important for children not just for their social, cognitive and emotional development but also for their physical development. 

We know that play can help children to develop their fundamental movement skills such as running, jumping and throwing, play encourages creativity and innovation, it improves children’s understanding of their relationship in the physical environment and can help to improve resilience (SportNZ). 

In addition to this children have a right to play under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We need to give children "time, space and permission to play" (SportNZ).  Children are not playing as much as previous generations due to;

• constraints around time
• changes to the environment they are brought up
• changed perceptions around health and safety regarding where young people can play
• increased technology resulting in more screen time 
• lack of adult awareness regarding the importance of quality play

We need to ensure that our children are given the opportunity to play as it is important for their well being. Play is a fundamental component of physical literacy in terms of building children's physical, cognitive, social/emotional and spiritual development. Play we want to encourage and facilitate includes; 

• a variety of play
• individual and group play
• space for play (man made and natural)
• sensory rich play and play that encourages lots of physical movement. (SportNZ). 

Through play we can encourage children to improve their physical competence and understanding of how to be physically active, thus building their physical literacy. Physical literacy develops throughout our life and we want to give children the best start to build this physical literacy.

Having previously completed a physical education degree I strongly believe that physical literacy is important in both children and adults. I do believe that things have changed recently and children are not playing outside as much anymore and they are losing some of these fundamental skills. There appears to be a lack of importance on playing outside and as a result children are not learning the skills of running, jumping, throwing and catching incidentally. They instead need to be taught these skills. I believe that physical literacy is important and that play is a good vehicle to improve this in children. Play is a natural way to encourage physical literacy in children, they enjoy playing, it is what children do, it is something that should be an essential component to their day.

Questions I now have is around time. How much time should children be playing outside? How can we bring more natural resources into the school. Do we need to schedule time for children to play outside beyond what they already do at break times?

Resources

The Importance of Play  https://sportnz.org.nz/assets/Uploads/attachments/Sport-New-Zealand-Play-Principles-Nov-2017.pdf 

https://sportnz.org.nz/about-us/who-we-are/what-were-working-towards/physical-literacy-approach/ 

How does Maths fit into a Learning through Play Environment?

How can we stimulate math learning through play? 

What mathematical concepts children are picking when they are learning through play and what we can do to facilitate their learning in the classroom?

Play is very important for learning mathematical concpets, play is the natural way that children learn and make sense of the world around them. Play is enables children to “explore, investigate, recreate and come to understand their world” (earlyyears). This enables children to grasp many mathematical concepts, including; experimenting with math language such as measurement, shapes, patterns and ordering, children can begin to understand positional words such as in, on, outside, they show an awareness of time, are aware of shape in their environment and become to me aware of conservation. Children are making sense of how number systems work and not just reciting numbers i.e. playing “supermarkets” ‘can I have 3 pieces of fruit?’. Children understand what three means and looks like.

Math experiences need to be both planned and spontaneous. Children need both teacher-initiated group work and freely chosen play activities. Children need to be interested in what they are learning, play is a vehicle, it gives students plenty of opportunities to experience mathematical concepts. There needs to be a balance between teacher initiated and child-initiated activities. Content matter and student choice is important for math as it creates meaningful learning experiences, play provides this opportunity. When students learn in meaningful contexts this enables children recognise their own strengths and interests and build on these through engaging in play they find interesting. 

So how do we facilitate this in the play environment to ensure our children are experimenting and learning about these mathematical concepts? 

• Sand and water, language dough, imaginative play, books and rhymes i.e. ‘one, two buckle my shoe…., physical play and nature help to introduce mathematical concepts to children. 
• Further equipment could include; a bakery kit: recipe cards, bowls, cooking utensils, supermarket kit: empty boxes, play money, scales, shopping lists, price tags, cash register, measuring and weighing kit: tools such as rulers and scales.

To implement this into my teaching I will ensure that children have a lot of access to these materials when they are learning through play. When talking to them and questioning them in the play based environment I will ensure that we are using mathematical terminology in our conversations. I will continue to run my math programme with both planned teacher activities but also with lots of play as I acknowledge the importance of play to stimulate math thinking. When they are playing they are learning and they don’t need to constantly be doing activity sheets as the play they are engaging in is very important to the concepts they are picking up.

Questions I now have include what about the children that are not naturally drawn to maths activities, do we want to push/encourage them towards more mathematical talk or will they pick up on mathematical concepts in any play they are incidentally doing? 

Resources/Readings

http://www.ero.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/ERO-Early-mathematics-March-2016.pdf

https://education.govt.nz/early-childhood/teaching-and-learning/learning-tools-and-resources/play-ideas/maths/

http://www.early-years.org/parents/docs/maths-through-play.pdf

Perry, B., & Dockett, S. (2007). Play and mathematics [Abstract]. The Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers. doi:10.1107/s2052520617010769/ps5062sup1.cif

Longworth Education - Learning through Play

Looking back on the Longworth Education Learning through Play course the biggest thing I took was learning about the importance of children's ‘urges’ or schemas (patterns of repeated behaviour which allow children to explore and express developing ideas and thoughts through their play and exploration (flyingcolours.uk). Children may exhibit these urges through engaging in play such as construction, throwing, rotating objects, ordering, families, transformation (i.e. turning something into something else) and jumping. What I took out from the course was that all children have urges and as educators we need to facilitate these urges through play in the classroom.

A further important aspect I took out of the Longworth Education course was not being afraid of using the word ‘play’. Learning through play is a powerful learning process for the children and is our method of teaching. Play teaches children to develop their social, cognitive, mental and emotional skill sets through decision making, problem solving, creative thinking and sharing. Furthermore play helps to develop children's oral language through complex discussions with each other. There is real learning happening through play despite the perception that we might come across through the term ‘play’. We shouldn’t try to downplay it, we should embrace the term play. We need to look at play as a learning process not a privilege.

When children are playing it is essential that their play is self-chosen and self-directed, we want children to be intrinsically motivated. Play should be process driven, what students are making is the learning not the final product. One interesting point I took away from this course was for the children to have the ‘freedom to quit’. This was an interesting aspect that I hadn’t considered as important, but by allowing children to ‘quit’ this helps them to grow their intrinsic motivation. If they want to stay in the game they will explore all the possible avenues. However, if they quit, they have to deal with not going back into that game and finding an alternative. Another interesting point I picked up from this course was not interfering in children's discussions when they are sorting out a problem. It is important for them to sort it out themselves and not always run to the teacher.

Brain development is an important element that comes from play. By allowing children to be imaginative and involve themselves in fantasy and dramatic play this creates the highest level of thinking. Fantasy play stimulates and enhances children in their creative thinking. With creative thinking children are able to think outside the box. Along with creative thinking, children are also developing problem solving skills. Both sets of these skills are essential skills for the adult workforce.

As alluded to above, play should be an essential part of schooling. Five year old children are not coming to school ‘school-ready’. They are not ready to sit down in formal instruction as this is not developmentally appropriate at this age. Roughly 3-7 year olds are in the pre-cognitive stage of development. At this stage language development is important. They need to be involved in make believe play, open ended science questions, building with blocks etc. which will set them up for formal schooling at a later stage.

I have also learnt that it is ok to set back and just observe the children. We don’t have to be playing with them constantly and talking to them, but it is just as important to look back at what they are doing with their peers or by themselves and what skills they are using and developing.

Observations that I have already made in the classroom since the course includes the ‘ice-cream shop’. Children are ‘selling’ and making ice-creams from this shop. Already through playing this game they have demonstrated concepts relating to maths through giving and receiving money, right and wrong i.e. it is not right to steal money, problem solving i.e. how will we deal with the robbers who steal our money, oral language development through conversations with the setting up of the shop and creative thinking i.e. making ice-creams out of sticks because the rest of the ice-creams have been sold. This play has been fun and effective for the children and it is all intrinsically driven.

Questions that I now have from this course include the equipment. I would like to know how often we should be changing the play equipment around and how important student voice should be in this decision. I would also like to know, is it ok for students to be doing the same thing every day or should we be encouraging them to try out different play or extend them to other areas.

This course will and has already impacted my teaching. This course has taught me to observe children's urges and find ways that we can facilitate this in the classroom to support children in their play. Another important I note I took from this course is the language we are using surrounding play. Instead of using ‘play based learning’ we need to start saying ’learning through play’. Play is the major vehicle in the learning and this is what children are learning from. Play is the sole component to this learning area and not a contributing factor.

The next steps for my teaching will be to find more ‘random/small bits’ for the children to play with such as sand, shells etc. Play equipment doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be expensive. A further next step is to look into our classroom now and see what adjustments we can make to make it even better to support children with their play.

Resources

Longworth Education. (2016). Retrieved from https://www.longwortheducation.co.nz/single-post/2016/12/11/Play-The-Four-Letter-Word-in-Primary-School

The Best Schools. (n.d.). Retrieved June 20, 2018, from http://www.institute4learning.com/resources/articles/the-best-schools/

Engaging in fantasy play could benefit creative thinking in children. (2016, September 15). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160915085731.htm

http://www.flyingstart.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Schema.pdf

Play based learning. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.discoverytime.co.nz/play-based-learning/