DRAMATIC PLAY

Dramatic Play is considered the most highly developed form of symbolic play involves the child representing an absent object with another object. For example, a child may substitute a wooden chip for a boat, a stick for a horse, or a block for a car. At first the symbols (wooden chip, stick, block) are subjective and individual. The child makes the transformations for himself as he plays by himself.Besides object transformations, a child may take daily routines, such as going to bed, and transform these events into a play episode. These make believe transformations enter the play experience while at the same time the child is well aware of reality. In dramatic play, the child may also pretend to be someone else. She will imitate the actions and speech of that person. The imitative behavior may be of real life people and situations, such as when she plays house or doctor. The knowledge base for such imitations is usually from first hand experience, but she may also use vicarious experiences through film, discussions, or role modeling by an adult as her basis for imitation.

Dramatic play may involve fantasy roles such as when a child pretends he or she is Superwomen, Wonder Women, or Batman. Or the play may be literature-based, where a child re-creates the characters and actions of a story such as The Three Little Pigs.

When a child plays dramatically with another person, the play than becomes sociodramatic play are supported by a wealth of research. Pretend play (pretense) usually revolves around the child’s daily routines and involves day to day problems. The child is "adapting to reality." He is solidifying how the world functions an how he functions in the world. The cognitions are enumerable; they leave us in awe of the profound developments in the young child.

A child is able to take a multitude of experiences and lace them together into new ones, which represents a monument to her creativity. She is able to focus on the main characteristics of a role and enact the role within a give theme, which is a credit to her concentration and organization. She is able to control herself within the chosen context, restricting and elaborating her role in the play. Dramatic and sociodramatic play promote her mobility of thought as she sequences events using past, present, and future. For example, in pretense, she gets into the car, sees the doctor, and goes home.

Within the play is the opportunity for a child to solves problems, make decisions, and use open-ended thinking. In addition, he must match his actions with his words. his thought becomes more abstract as he generalizes his actions to different contexts. As his imagination and creativity lead him on, he also exploring new concepts.

As a child’s dramatic play becomes more sociodramatic, she must transcend from being an egocentric person to being a person who sees the world from another person’s perspective. This is an important developmental milestone for a child. The social interaction allows the opportunity for a child to see her peers’ points of view. She also learns rules for positive social relationships. She learns how to cooperate, settle disagreements, take turns, negotiate, persuade, and defend, with the play giving her plenty of "practice" time in these skills. The social side of this play affords the child the opportunity to exchange ideas and expand her knowledge. She adds the dimension of group problem-solving skill to her individual problem-solving skills. She learns how to cooperatively plan and implement the play experience.

CONSTRUCTIVE PLAY

Functional Play becomes constructive play as the child moves from simply sticking a finger in paint to drawing a figure, or instead of stacking and re-stacking blocks, the child builds a "house." In constructive play, the child si creating, constructing a product, or solving a problem. Constructive play combines the sensory and motor functional play with symbolic play. It is the most common form of play for young children.In constructive play, a child begins using intellectual processes in play. She symbolically represents objects, ideas, or processes. She must recognize and retrieve previously stored information (memory). She must create in her mind and then construct in reality. The child build complex structures. She makes representations of objects and ideas as she draws or paints pictures of people, things, and even abstract ideas such as war, peace, or truth. She create designs and constructs images and objects with clay. She constructs and creates with blocks. She is the engineer with blocks, the artist with paint, the sculptor with clay, and the designer with "junk". And the values of this type of play are impressive.

In constructive play, a child engages in higher levels of thought as he solves problems, hypothesizes, and uses his memory. For example, in a building a sand structure, he must experiment with the right consistency of sand and water to keep the walls from collapsing. In mud play, he develops concepts of mass, volume, and the nature of change. He uses memory and develops problem solving abilities.

For social studies, block building is an early form of mapping. A child constructs buildings to represent building in environment and "maps" out their placement in the environment. The child in constructive play also experiments with simple machinery such as a ramp, a pulley, or an elevator.

Constructive play with art materials gives the child opportunities to makes choices and judgments. she solves problems as the creates and experiments, and she develops a pattern for problem solving.

A child’s language is also affected by constructive play. In block play, he uses words to indicate direction and prepositional phrases such as in, under, over, and through. He learn the language to represent the concepts of more than, smaller, larger, higher than, and half as high. In constructive play, he share ideas verbally and describes his building or interprets his art projects.

Physically, a child develops eye-hand coordination. She develops a body sense in the relationship to the objects of constructive play.

Socially, a child learns to take turns, listen to ideas of others, share materials, cooperate, and take responsibility for cleaning up.

Personally, the child develops confidence in his ability to create. He develops his own sense of taste and the ability to judge in light of his perspective. His creative works supply him with a sense of accomplishment and emotional satisfaction.

The following activities are open-ended constructive play ideas. Suggestions for extending the play to other play areas are noted. For example, block building and "playing house" can be combined. Activities also include ways to expand concept development.

FUNCTIONAL PLAY

Functional Play is sometimes called the "first play of children." Early in life, a child repeats simple actions and finds pleasure in "playing" with his environment. The child enjoys the results of his action such as moving something back and forth, hitting an object against another, splashing in water, etc. These first experiences with play revolve around the child’s senses; thus it is also called "sensorimotor play." As the child’s senses "function," interplaying with the environment, the child finds "functional pleasure." Functional play is not symbolic, but it is repetitive actions for pleasure.Functional play includes fine and gross motor play. The child practices variations of motor activity as she plays. She jumps up and down and rocks back an forth. Functional play is also called "practice play" because of this repetition of activities. Functional play is also "manipulative play" where the child engages in motor exercise with or without object.

"Exploratory play" is another name used to describe functional play. Play is use by the child to explore his environment. As he explores, he practices playful interactions with his environment. Through his senses and motor actions in functional play, a child learns about his world. The child explores his physical capabilities in relationship to the environment. The child is the cause of events. He has power over himself and what he can do in his world-even power over his world and what happens to it. The child squishes and plops mud. He thickens it and thins it out. He develops concepts of the nature of things, of change, and cause and effect. He acquires his sense of body in the world, develops hand-eye coordination, recognizes the permanence of object, and explores concepts of time and space.

Functional play is evident throughout childhood. Children run for the sake of running, climb up and down, twirl, jump, chase, pour, splash, and scribble. A variety of materials such as water, sand, paints, crayons, and blocks should be readily available for children to choose for their functional play.

The need for functional play decreases as the child grows. Three-to-five-years-olds engage functional play about 33 percent of their time. Functional play is gradually replace with constructive play where the child builds a bridge rather than just stacking blocks, or she draws a flower rather than moving a crayon across the paper. Functional play also combines with other types of play. For examples, "chasing" combines with dramatic play as a child pretends she is a giant chasing the little people. Young children will often use functional play to explore objects before they use them constructively or dramatically. For elementary age children, functional play represents a way to master motor skills for games or sports.

Functional play has an important role for children throughout their childhood. They gain pleasure from influencing their environment and have feelings of power as they master new skills. Their function in the world is being defined, and conceptually they are defining their world.

TYPES OF PLAY

The divisions in play categories : functional, constructive, dramatic, and game with rules. The following lists show the play types and their definitions.

Cognitive play

• Functional play : repetitive muscle movements with or without objects. Examples include : (a) running and jumping, (b) gathering and dumping, (c) manipulating objects or materials, and (d) informational games (parading).
• Constructive play : (block, Legos, Tinkertoys) or materials (sand, Play-doh, paint) to make something.
• Dramatic play : role-playing and/or make-believe transformation. Examples include : (a) role-playing : pretending to be a parent, baby, shark, superhero, or monster; and (b) make-believe transformations : pretending to drive a car (arm movements) or give an injection with a pencil (object use). Use of miniature version of real objects (toy cars, toy iron) is not scored as dramatic play unless there is evidence of role taking and/or make-believe transformation.
• Game with rules : recognition and acceptance of and conformity with pre-established rules. Examples include tag, "Mother My I", marbles, checkers, and kickball.
  

Social Play

• Solitary play : playing alone with materials different from those children within speaking distance; no conversation with others.
• Parallel play : playing with toys or engaging in activities similar to those of other children who are in close proximity; however, there is no attempt to play with the other children.
  
• Group playing ; playing with other children; roles may or may not be assigned.

THE VALUES OF PLAY

Researchers have found that values of play are extensive and encompass the whole child-cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically.

Cognitive Development

Play in a vital medium for thinking processes. It contributes to cognitive growth by providing exposure to a multitude of experiences, wich enriches thinking of children.

Child’s play is the infantile form of the human ability to deal with experience by creating model situations and to master reality by experimenting and planning. Play as practice in consolidating newly acquired mental skills. Play facilitates the translation of experience into internal meaning. Research substantiates a strong relationship between play and cognitive development. Play as having a direct role in cognitive development with symbolic play having a crucial part in developing abstract thought.

Playfulness in kindergartners was found to correlate with higher scores in divergent thinking. Through play, children use divergent thinking to research solutions to problems. Play provides many opportunities for children to create, invent, and design as they build, draw and dramatize. Play is a natural avenue for the expression of creativity. Creativity is considered the highest form of problem solving.

Play also encourages cognitive flexibility in the solution of problems. Consider how adults use language to talk through problem so seek solutions. In the same way, children play through problems for solutions.

Children test out concepts and revise them as they play. Processes of categorization, generalization, class inclusion, and concept acquisition which occur during play foster concept development. As children play, they have a wide range of opportunities to categorize. This developing behavior keeps pace with the child’s ability.

During the play process, children observe events and begin to make fairly accurate predictions as to their probable occurrence. Children learn probabilities through these repeated observations. Perspective taking is a cognitive process that occurs during sociodramatic play. Academic skills and attitudes were also found to be improved through play. Finally, a positive relationship between IQ scores and sociodramatic and constructive play. Children who were taught how engage in sociodramatic play gained in both play and IQ scores.

Social Development

Perspective taking, which often occurs during sociodramatic play, is an important process in a child’s social development. Play also provides children with unlimited practice of social patterns. Children try out social conventions through play, which give them the freedom to accept or reject those conventions.

play encourages social interaction. Children learn to deal with their playmates feeling and attitudes. They learn about negotiating, resolving conflicts, fairness and competition. In essence, they learn through play how to get along with each other. For example, they learn how to take turns, be patient, cooperate, and share. In addition, play help children develop friendships. In the backdrop of play, children have many opportunities to see the someone else values them.

Emotional Development

Play is a powerful medium for children to express their thoughts and feelings. In play, a child feels comfortable and in control of his or her feelings. He or she can express unacceptable feelings in acceptable ways. A child can work through conflicting feelings. Play softens the realities of the world. The haven of play is a "risk-free" environment where unpleasant experiences may be worked out. Play also affords children the opportunity for self awareness. Play aids in the development, of self-confidence and competence. Play is essential in contributing to a child’s well-being and self-concept.

Physical Development

Play is the primary way physical and motor development are promoted. Play provides opportunities for both fine and motor development. Play help children test their balancing systems through swinging, jumping, acrobatics, etc. Through play children develop a command of their bodies as they hop, skip, throw, and climb. They develop a concept of body size, which helps them move through their space successfully.

Play give children opportunities to judge distance. It contributes to the development of hand-eye coordination through activities such as building with blocks, painting, cutting, and pasting. In perceptual development, young children tend to focus on the whole without seeing the parts, or they focus on a part without seeing the whole. Play provides the opportunities children need to take things apart and put them together. Play gives children opportunities to test out their bodies and see how they best function. Play helps children feel physically confident, secure, and self-assured.

The research on the values of play is formidable. In fact, there is so much evidence of play’s overall benefits that to provide an "education" for young children without play seems ludicrous. Educators must take advantage of this "natural learning" and provide diverse opportunities for children to learn through play.

INTRODUCTION

Play in every land. Play in every culture. Play in every language. Play everywhere. The children of the world play. Expert have defined play as intrinsically motivated, freely chosen, process-oriented as opposed to goal-oriented, enjoyable, ordered, just pretend behavior. This activity of play is a function of the entire human race. Is it purely entertainment? Is it valueless? Is it unimportant? Or, does it serve a multitude of roles in the development of children?

For educators, play is increasingly seen as a fertile field where a broad range of learning can thrive and flourish. And its values are continually being assessed, defined, and affirmed.

Play is real. It is vital. It helps children learn about their world naturally. Children use play to test ideas, discover relationships, abstract information, express their feelings and ideas, define themselves, and develop peer relationship. Active "players" develop and accumulate their own knowledge about their world and their place in it.

Piaget states that "children should be able to do their own experimenting and their own research. Teachers, of course, can guide them by providing appropriate materials, but the essential thing is that in order for a child to understand something, he must construct it himself, he must re-invent it. Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from re-inventing it for himself. On the other hand, that which we allow him to discover by himself will remain with him visibly.

"For all the rest of his life" is a powerful statement. Through play, we see a child becoming who he or she is and will be. The play processes children use give them "ownership" of them selves and their world. In play, the key word is "engaged." Children are actively involved in play. They internalize their discoveries, discoveries that belong to the individual child for the rest of his or her life.

For educators, who are child-centered in approach, it is essential that play be an important component of the educational process. Unfortunately, play is often taken out of the curriculum for young children when learning is defined in terms of only the academic. Play has been undervalued as a curricular tool by educators and by parents because society has defined the goals of learning, especially school learning, very narrowly, which allows children to choose their learning focus and which fosters a broad range of developmental goals, should be included as an essential learning element.

For young children, curriculum should be child centered with open ended learning experiences and a broad range of developmental goals. A structured, narrowly defined program can only inhibit a child’s educational development. A less structured program will put more emphasis on intrinsic motivation, learning by discovery, cognitive process, and the well being of the child from a whole child perspective. A program with a focus on play provides these important ingredients.

Play education affords teachers the opportunity to go with the "natural flow of learning." Consider, for example, a father and his young son who venture into a river in a canoe. The father and son wish to take the river to a designated spot. The father knows how the river circles about, twisting and turning, meeting itself from time to time. He knows he may choose to reach his destination by going up rivers against the flow or down river with the flow. Wisely, the father chooses to go with the flow knowing he will reach his destination faster and with less stress.

Wise teachers see a river of knowledge. When the young child enters the river, the teacher may direct him or her to "go with the flow" by providing play experiences, or "against the flow" by providing a structured, regimented academic program. Play affords children the freedom to learn without stress. And with this freedom comes the joy of learning that can last a lifetime.