Play-based learning is gaining popularity as an important part of early childhood education. And there are good reasons for this. Play-based learning is exactly what it sounds like: learning through play rather than through lectures or drilling. Play and fun are the languages of our children. When we teach in a fun way, our kids retain information better. What better way to learn than through playing?
Play-based learning is considered to be a very effective way to help preschoolers develop as a whole. Think about first-hand experiences, hands-on projects and experiments, lots of exploration and discovery, and both real-life and imaginary discoveries.
Before we jump into some of the benefits of play-based learning, let’s look at a few signs to go along with this idea. This is a great time to learn the signs for play, fun, and learn.
Benefits of learning through playing
Cognitive development
When our kids learn through playing, it encourages their cognitive development. What’s that? Cognitive development involves problem-solving skills, creativity and imagination, and language development. It involves putting ideas together and expressing our own ideas.
Social and emotional development
Playing is often a social activity, and our kids can learn through playing with other kids. When children play together, they are pushed to grow in the way that they relate to one another. And so social play can teach our kids empathy and the ability to see things from someone else’s perspective. This process involves a lot of emotional processing as well, and that helps our kids learn emotional regulation.
When our kids play together, they also have to learn to work together. Cooperation and compromise are important social skills that our kids can learn through playing together.
Physical development
Play really can help our kids grow in their physical skills. Playing with small pieces helps our kids with fine motor skills, like specific movements with their hands. On the other end of things, running around and playing in large spaces develops their gross motor skills. This large range of movement also helps our children develop spatial awareness. As they learn to be aware of the space around them and where other people are, they learn to control their own movements better too.
These are just a few of the benefits of play-based learning and helping our kids learn through play.
How My Signing Time helps kids learn through play
While My Signing Time is a video platform, we actually do employ play-based learning as much as we can.
First, we use and produce interactive videos that encourage a response from children. So while it’s technically a one-sided platform, we work hard to make it into an interaction, to make children feel that their response is part of the experience.
Secondly, we have so much fun. And we do this to help your children have so much fun. The repetition required for learning can get boring, especially for children. But that’s not the case when you do it the way we do. Have you seen our Silly Pizza Song? That’s how we do repetition. Lots of silliness and giggles! It’s FUN. And that’s how kids hold onto new ideas – through fun.
Lastly, we show other children learning throughout our shows. This helps your child to see that other kids are trying too. And while they may not be getting it perfectly, they’re trying and they’re having fun. It helps our kids to participate through a virtual form of positive peer pressure.
So, as play-based learning continues to become more standard in early childhood education programs, let’s look for ways to help our kids learn through play in their own language of fun.