Review: Foundations of Learning through Play

A growing body of evidence supports play’s fundamental role in children’s positive development, regardless of their situation. Play is an essential way to foster the skills required to thrive in today’s world.

This week we covered the importance of learning through play as it relates to social and emotional skills, defined the 5 characteristics of learning through play, and practiced playful strategies for supporting social and emotional skill development for children of all ages.

We say that learning will happen when an activity:

1. is experienced as joyful,
2. helps children find meaning in what they are doing or learning,
3. involves active, engaged, minds-on thinking,
4. as well as iterative thinking (experimentation, hypothesis testing, etc.), and
5. is social interactive.

These five characteristics draw on evidence for how children learn best and how to foster a playful mindset.

In this course, we take a holistic view of the complexity of children’s development and learning, highlighting the importance of their physical, social, cognitive, creative, and emotional skills, and how they complement and interact with one another.