How do children learn? They learn through play! To understand how to do this with our children, we must understand why it is important to play. But just what is play? For children, it is serious work; an opportunity for learning all the skills they’ll need for life:

• Play is created and directed by the players.
• Play is free of external rules.
• Play is enacted as through the activity were real.
• Play is meaningful to the players.

Babies learn through play. If we play with our babies in a loving, nurturing and joyful way, they learn to grow up trusting in people, forming solid relationships with those around them. Knowledge of the world grows out of a baby’s early play. Later, when the two-year-old begins make-believe play, it contributes to the goals of early education.

How can parents best play with their toddlers and help them towards these early education goals? Read them bedtime stories and extend these stories into make-believe games. Stories increase a child’s vocabulary and knowledge of ideas.

Playing “dress-up” also helps stimulate role-play and drama. During imaginary play, children’s language gets more complex than in most other activities. A child “playing” at being a teacher, mother or father, will recreate the language patterns they have overheard, using correct grammar and a wide range of advance communication skills.

Share games as a family as children learn important social rules, like turn-taking and fairness, from games. They come to accept losing (someone has to) and learn to value failure as an opportunity to evaluate and try again.

Play moving and speaking rhyme games that involve clapping, jumping, crawling, and miming daily are excellent ways to help your child develop mastery of gross and fine motor skills, and improve language.

Letting children help with chores such as washing up, cooking or painting is educational, and a great way to bond and have fun.

Julia Gabriel
Founder-director
Julia Gabriel Centre for Learning