Have you heard the term ‘child-led play’? Ever considered what it might really mean?
Some people might be forgiven for assuming it's about sitting back and letting kids get on with it… An easy ride, providing grown-ups the space and time to natter or do some admin.
In reality, child-led play has a lot more to it than you might first think.
What Is Child-Led Play?
The nursery environment can provide a huge range of learning opportunities. Child-led play is one approach to enhancing the learning environment, but first, let's look at what adult-led early years care looks like.
What Does Adult-Led Play Look Like?
Adult-led play is overseen by an adult. The overseeing adult chooses the game or activity, leads the group of children through it, and may or may not get involved themselves.
Examples of adult-led play include story times, nursery rhyme time, cooking activities, dance sessions, yoga, instructional and circle games and collaborative art projects.
Child-Led Play
Child-led play happens independently of adult input. To enable child-led play to happen naturally, adults must take a step back and allow children to drive their engagement and actions, though support can be offered by providing time, space and equipment.
Child-led play is typically more open-ended. During child-led play, the children choose who they will play with, what they’ll play and what the rules are - if there are any! It allows children to process and enact things they have seen or heard, and from the adult’s point of view, it provides a brilliant way to see things through their eyes.
What Do Staff Do During Child Led Play?
During child-led play, children are in full control and follow their interests. This can be incredibly immersive, but this time is far from downtime for staff. When children are in the throes of child-led play, staff members take time to observe and interact with the children differently.
The Space To Problem-Solve
Adults in the nursery space remain on hand to provide support if needs be, but over time, children can learn to manage what they need independently. This could be help with finding objects, or help in managing social situations.
Asking Questions
Just because the play is child-led, does not mean adults cannot offer help.
During adult-led activities, children’s thoughts tend to be directed to the task at hand. In child-led play, however, children’s minds are free to wander and they often ask all kinds of curious and surprising things! Adults can respond to the thoughts and queries of the nursery children, learning more about them and experiencing happier and incredibly engaged children.
Guided Questions
A guided question is a question that encourages someone to consider the information they have been taught but to come up with their own answers.
Nursery staff are taught to Watch, Wait, and Wonder. This means that they should watch a child, wait to see what they do and then wonder what lies behind the child’s play. Patience and time lie at the heart of this; by practising it, practitioners gain better insight into a child’s mind. When we interact too early, we risk robbing the child of their experience and stunting the thought process, curiosity and creativity that is at play.
The Benefits Of Child-Led Play
There are so many benefits of enabling children to dive into child-led play.
Self-Directed Learning
Children who are given the space to lead their own play experience self-directed learning.
During child-led play, children have not been given instructions for what to do. They might be using materials or resources but not know what they’re for. Playing this way enables children to explore their surroundings with curiosity and learn through doing.
Happier Engagement
When children are allowed to follow their own interests, they are naturally engaged. This rule applies to adults, too. When we are immersed in what we’re doing, we do it better, we feel good about it and we learn faster.
Skill Development
Children who are provided opportunities to learn through child-led play use and develop their innate skills faster than those who are led by an adult. They can prioritise what they learn and how quickly, at a pace that suits their individual needs.
Child-led play supports the theory that learning is not linear, allowing young people to put puzzle pieces of knowledge together in a way that makes sense to them rather than in an adult-led, prescribed fashion.
Insight
Adults observing children who are immersed in play can get a great sense of each child’s mindset, including emotional state, likes, dislikes and interests.
Emotional Development
When children are given space to explore ideas and concepts, they arrive at conclusions on their own. They learn that their opinions and ideas are important and can use play to work through emotions safely.
How Environment Impacts Child-Led Play
Albert Einstein once famously said, “I never teach my pupils, I only provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
Providing a rich learning environment is crucial to nurturing and empowering children in child-led play. This means creating areas that meet a variety of needs, such as quiet areas, outdoor spaces, accessible loose parts and art materials. The learning environment should ignite children’s curiosity and encourage exploration, where they can try out ideas and see what works.
The benefits of child-led play are proven and undeniable. Research on the topic tells us that children given the time to engage in self-directed play have higher concentration levels, more confidence and more motivation. By having a say in their learning journey, children develop skills like critical thinking, problem-solving and effective collaboration quickly.
Traditional teaching has its place in early education, but by understanding the power of child-led play and providing varied learning environments, nursery staff can nurture a love of learning and support children to explore the world around them at their own pace.
Child-Led Play Lays Sound Foundations
Children who spend plenty of time immersed in self-directed play become avid learners who aren’t afraid of exploring, experimenting and getting things wrong.
If you’re a parent, you may encourage self-directed play at home, too. Whatever your role, you might have observed children engaging in schematic play while they are busying themselves. Click here to read more about the ins and outs of schematic play.
