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.