Katrina leads our Critical Competencies and The Growing Brain professional development programs.
Picture a bustling child care classroom, brimming with life. Some children are in one corner of the room donning costumes ranging from police officer to fairy princess, while at another table children dip leaves into paint to create unique stamps on sheets of paper. A wooden train set functions like a mirror of the big world outside — with houses, shops, vehicles, and people.
Not a single child is sitting at a desk completing a worksheet, and with strategic involvement from early childhood educators, robust learning is taking place.
Playful exploration is a natural way of learning. When babies and toddlers get more chances to use their natural skills through play-based learning, they tend to stay engaged and creative learners even as they grow up. As early childhood professionals and parents, our job is to provide the tools and give them the freedom to learn at their own pace.
Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.
This quote from Fred Rogers sums up what many early childhood professionals already know. It also isn’t new information. We’ve long known that play-based learning is crucial to development, but it has not always been viewed as the keystone of early childhood education that it truly is. In the first three years of life, babies forge 1 million neural connections per second. Humans do not learn that fast at any other point in their lifespan — and most of that development is due to the act of play.
Furthermore, while there are numerous theories and models that suggest specific methods to facilitate play-based learning in early childhood, the key is understanding that research supports play as a central component of the learning process.
Educate professionals. They know play is important, that’s not a question. Still, it takes training and education to embrace a robust play-based model in child care centers, schools, and homes across the country. Helping professionals make connections between play and the skills it teaches (like through our Critical Competencies training) — as well as explain the importance of it to families — strengthens the programming we are able to provide.
Provide resources. While children are wonderfully inventive and can play with any object they stumble across, it is still important to stock early childhood education programs with high-quality, safe, and diverse toys that encourage creative play-based learning. When funding and equipping spaces where infants and toddlers spend time, play materials should always be prioritized.
Change our mindset. Even though we know the importance of play, this metrics-driven world still favors structured and formulaic learning experiences that provide data points. Play can be messy, chaotic, and loud — it doesn’t always fit that mold. When we think about curriculum for really young children, most of that curriculum comes from the ways we care for them and how they play. It’s time to make that the norm.
Encourage Quality Everyday Interactions
Each engaging and easy-to-understand leaflet corresponds to a ZERO TO THREE Critical Competencies for Infant-Toddler Educators™ sub-area and is focused on everyday parent-child interactions and their positive impact on early development.
