Albert Einstein was right, play is indeed the highest form of research.
Experts widely agree that it serves as a natural way for young children to investigate and discover the world around them. By free play, children enhance their cognitive, physical, and social abilities, including problem-solving, creativity, and communication skills. Yes, play is hard work!
Preschoolers learn best through hands-on experiences, interacting with their environment and manipulating objects. By using their hands and bodies, they explore and experiment. In this way, children can develop a better understanding of concepts such as size, shape, and texture. Hands-on experiences also help children to remember information better.
They also learn by observing and imitating others. By interacting with peers, siblings, parents and other adults in a nourishing environment, they can learn important social skills such as sharing, taking turns, and cooperation. Don’t underestimate the value of a visit to the shop and interacting with the cashier or a trip to the library. Though frustrating for parents, even those unavoidable bickering among siblings and friends can be beneficial: they will learn about conflict resolution, and emotional regulation, grow empathy, and improve their communication skills.
Worksheets
Although people may think that worksheets are a great way to help their young children learn, worksheets are not the most effective way for them to learn. It would be best to postpone using formal worksheets until later years. If your young child does enjoy completing worksheets, keep it short, simple and most of all, fun! Click here for some fun preschool resources.
Some play-based learning ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
- Collect rocks from the garden and paint them or draw happy, sad and silly faces on them.
- Build structures such as houses, trucks, robots, and baby doll beds from materials like boxes, string, plastic bottles and caps, empty toilet paper rolls and anything else in and around the house. Provide scissors and glue.
- Get the playdough out, or even better, let your child help you make your own. Create simple objects, and cut the dough into pieces using cookie cutters and child-safe knives.
- Sort objects such as rocks, leaves, and sticks according to size, length, and colour. Count the cutlery on the table before dinner or count how many slices of pizza are left. Divide a handful of sweets among siblings.
- Play with water. Drop objects in the water, and see which ones float and which objects sink to the bottom. Play with all kinds of plastic containers and cups. Add mud for messy play.
- Listen to audio story books or read aloud to your child. Be sure to choose stories that your child would find interesting. Ask questions and discuss the stories.
- Play games such as “Simon says” or “I spy with my little eye”.
- Build a simple obstacle course to do; see if you can beat your records. Add fun stations such as bowling, jumping over a box, climbing up and down a tree, pushing the wheelbarrow, and walking with an egg on a spoon.
- Bake a dessert together or cook a special dinner. Let your child help measure and mix ingredients.
- Build age-appropriate puzzles together and don’t forget about the Lego sets!
Lastly, remember to have fun! To quote Maria Montessori: “The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s natural desire to learn.”