Play Types

With thanks to Debra Laxton, University of Chichester.

a.          Play to Promote the Building and Maintaining of Relationships

• Allow children to engage in play freely and discover objects and materials whilst providing a secure base for children to explore from. Be warm and responsive to verbal and non-verbal cues.
• The ‘dance of dialogue’ (Read, 2014) – Consistent adults foster relationships with specific children, learn about them as individuals to attune to their needs.
• Engage in two way communication from birth
• Use stories to support emotional literacy i.e. for children to identify feelings, manage emotions and develop empathy.
• Use feeling stones and carved branches to support emotional literacy.
• Play ‘peek-a-boo’ games
• Songs that use children’s names e.g. Hello song
• Be a play partner and co-learner
• Turn taking games
• Games to encourage self-control e.g. dead lions

b.         Play to Promote Language and Listening

Conversation is the major priority: introducing words for everyday objects, colours, rhymes and concepts up/down, hot /cold, fast/slow, big/small. Culturally specific stories help a child, understand history, how we live with each other, how we live every day: in our culture, this is what we do.

• Encourage ‘talk’ through warm reciprocal relationships
• Create dens and quiet spaces for children
• Short, meaningful circle times to share experiences
• Stories
• Action songs and traditional rhymes
• Display drawings of children and their families to encourage talks and shared experiences between children and adults that hold meaning, local environment.
• Sound discrimination games e.g. listening walks
• Use familiar and unfamiliar objects to distinguish and identify different sounds
• Fantasy role play
• Space to act out personal experiences

c.          Play to Promote Literacy

• All of the above (Language & Listening)
• Pictures, books and texts as available
• Story telling
• Create situation stories that mirror children’s lives/ experiences
• Story scribing
• Writing materials available for role play
• Language games e.g. rhyming words

d.         Sensory Play

• Play with natural materials e.g. pebbles, sticks
• Malleable materials as available for exploration
• Games that promote sensory integration so therefore include sounds, sights, movements & touch combined or all at once e.g. Parachute games

e.          Physical activities (fine and gross motor skills)

• Use the outside environment and community space for learning and going for walks
• Obstacle courses e.g. tunnel crawling, tree and climbing
• Engaging in sports e.g. running races, egg and spoon race
• Engaging in hand eye/ foot eye coordination activity e.g. throwing, catching
• Balancing opportunities e.g. logs, benches, tree stumps, on a chalk line
• Dancing
• Body percussion
• Music and movement sessions
• Body movement action songs e.g. head and shoulders, jelly on a plate, row the boat
• Floor based play time for babies to use different muscles and movements
• Outdoor imaginative play
• Ribbon/ material strips for waving and movements – ribbons on sticks and dancing scarves
• Handle a variety of tools, objects and materials in different contexts inside and outside
• Small loose parts play for manipulating
• Provide time and opportunity for children to manage their own toileting and dressing needs
• Den building

f.           Problem Solving

• Den making
• Natural resources for exploration

g.          Art and music

• Making and listening to music and sounds
• Songs, poems and rhymes including those with associated movements including rocking, swaying, bouncing, finger and toe songs or clapping

h.         Play for mathematical development

• Shape walk
• Number songs and rhymes
• Games with dice
• Sorting activities e.g. with natural materials, everyday objects

i.           Play to promote understanding the world

• Imaginative role play
• Exploration of environments e.g. indoor, outdoor, local community
• Stories to gain an understanding of self and empathy for others
• Exploration of living things e.g. plants, habitats
• Exploration of open-ended materials, natural and reclaimed, to encourage children to investigate, developing their curiosity, imagination and creativity
• Vigorous physical activity (impact on body)
• Adjustable ramps, materials and objects
• Exploration of light and dark and Sunlight and shadows – drawing around shadows at different times of the day, measuring shadows