Learning through Play

Play helps children develop the intellectual, emotional, social and creative skills that are of lifelong benefit to them and their communities.

For both children and adults, play is one of our favourite ways of learning. Play enables us to explore, practice and try out ways of tackling similar challenges in the real world. Skills like problem-solving, creativity; empathy, communication and teamwork all have their foundations in play.

When children learn through play, they are personally motivated by the satisfaction of being embedded in the activity, at their level of challenge and interest. This means children are joyful, actively engaged with their bodies and minds, taking risks and experimenting, to come up with ideas and questions, creating things and solving problems.

A quality learning through play experience requires the integration of both cognitive and emotional skills, by providing opportunities to set own goals, maintain focus and problem-solve, at the same time as reflecting on impact, being passionate and acting flexibly when circumstances change.

In other words, play is a meaningful way to equip children for the challenges they’ll face, yet over the past half century there has been a sharp decline in how much children play. In addition, there is a widespread lack of understanding of the impact and benefits of play and making play a natural part of the learning process.

That is why our work is about re-defining play and re-imagining learning.