About this course

The LEGO Foundation has put together the best and brightest minds to make this course. It is your opportunity to learn how to support the children in your life as they go through crisis and transition by learning through play to promote their social emotional development and well-being.

The course follows five guiding principles, and we invite you to follow them in your journey through the course.

Adaptable

Many of you may be accessing this course in different formats and ways, with different goals in mind. Thus, we provide resources and activities that can and should be adapted to address the needs of you and the children in your life. This may be using a different material or changing the level of challenge associated with a game to fit a child’s developmental needs.

Play-based

Next week, you will learn about the LEGO Foundation’s five characteristics of learning through play (meaningful, joyful, socially interactive, actively engaging, and iterative). Throughout the course, these will be intentionally woven through your own journey, with activities that aim to elicit joy, be actively engaging, provide interaction (with other learners and/or the course), provide iterative learning, and be meaningful for your life.

Practical

Although the course is grounded in the evidence, each week also includes practical tools that you can begin using immediately. You will experience strategies and activities that you can adapt for children, and you will have access to a wealth of resources compiled and created by our team of experts.

Sensitive

This course aims to be sensitive to the needs of a wide audience. As such, it asks you to reflect on your and your child’s own needs and lived realities. This course is meant to provide a safe space for everyone. To ensure that we maintain a playful, enjoyable, and constructive experience for all, please follow the code of conduct and be respectful of others’ experiences, perspectives and opinions.

Holistic

Although this course provides you with resources to support the children in your lives, the resources and activities address different parts of the child’s world. Children, and adults, are part of a complex network of relationships and communities, so the course aims to address your well-being needs and encourage you to think about the resources outside of yourself that you can connect to bring into the child’s life.

Navigating the course

Beside the introduction and wrap up weeks, the course covers seven week topics:

• What we mean by Learning through Play
• What we mean by SEL and MHPSS
• Coping with change and transition
• Adults wellbeing
• Early Childhood
• Middle Childhood
• Adolescence

Each week is broken down into smaller steps that you can do in 5-10 minutes. In each week, you will have the opportunity to practice what you learn and apply it to your own life and the children in it. At the end of each week, you will have the opportunity to reflect on what you learned and how you will use it.

If you are new to FutureLearn, you may want to familiarise yourself with how FutureLearn courses work before getting started.

You may also be interested in learning more about FutureLearn’s Terms and Conditions and how they apply to you.