Discussing Play in Foundation Phase

Play is important to our young children especially focusing on Grade R children. Some children who are entering the foundation phase for the first time have never experienced how it is to play with other children. Children will start learning how to interact with others, how to share, how to solve problems and how to use their fingers in different kinds of ways. Another reason why children play is because they enjoy it, as quoted by Mardi Lucich “Children play because it is fun. Play takes many forms, but the heart of play is pleasure. And with pleasure comes the powerful drive to repeat such activities. With repetition comes mastery. And mastery brings a sense of accomplishment and confidence.” (Lucich, n.d.) It is very important for children to experience all kinds of play so that they can be fully developed. Play contributes a lot to holistic development. This development focusses on the whole child and each of these areas is being touched through play.

So what is the distinguishing between play and work? It’s very easy to describe what work is we all do it every day and this is not fun even for grown-ups. So we can’t expect a 5 or 6 year old to enjoy work? Work can be defined as an “Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.” (Google, n.d.) By looking at the definition of work it does not sound very fun or active for young children. Play can also be seen as a child’s work because play is a big learning experience for any child entering the foundation phase.

The word play can mean a variety of things to different people. Csikszentmihalyi described play as “a subset of life..., an arrangement in which one can practice behavior without dreading its consequences" (Csikszentmihaly, 1981). Garvey gave a useful description of play for teachers when she described play as an activity which is:
“1) positively valued by the player;
2) Self-motivated;
3) Freely chosen;
4) Engaging; and
5) Which "has certain systematic relations to what is not play"”
(C, 1977, p. 5) Play lets children learn a variety of different skills. They start learning social skills, emotional skills, fine and gross motor skills and language skills. With play children’s creativity will also expand. Play helps develop problem solving skills as they start interacting with one another and encounter problems.

To understand how play really contributes to a child’s development we must look at different types of play.
There is solitary play which means that children play alone. Children learn how to be independent with this kind of play they follow their own interests. While playing alone they also learn to use their imagination. So don’t get too worried if your child plays alone and not with others your child is still learning.
Parallel play is when children sit opposite each other and play independently but they use each other’s toys. This teaches the children to be independent but also how to share toys with others even if they don’t participate in one another’s activity.
Associative play is when children talk to one another and share materials with each other but they don’t share the same objective or interests. This kind of play lets children develop their social skills and language skills. Then we have Cooperative play children will organize them into different kind of roles such as doctors, nurses and patients and play doctor. This type of play help’s with creativity development, social development, imagination development, they also learn language development. With these in mind we can clearly see that play develops all areas of a child.

Now that we now the different types of play and how they contribute to child’s development, we can say that play evolves a child. We can call all these development processes Holistic Development this means that the whole child is being developed. A better definition of holistic development is provided by silkysteps “Holistic development sees the child as a whole person, this means that the child is considered as a unique individual and their development is centered around their personal circumstances. The development of the child may be affected by many influences, eg family background, economic circumstances, personal health, disabilities, special needs, previous experiences etc” (Anon., 2008)
Seeing as holistic development focusses on the whole child’s development we can say that the different types of play contributes to Holistic development.

How does play contribute to Holistic development?
Different kinds of play effects children differently not all of them will be critical thinkers not all of them will be good at sports; some will perform different than others in certain developing areas. When children play different areas are being developed at the same time. With the aid of play we can at least ensure that the child’s holistic development will be developed. This is how play contributes to Holistic development. With play children learn, they learn from their peers how to overcome obstacles and challenges. They learn how to get along with each other. There are some things children learn through play that we cannot teach them. They have to figure it out themselves to be able to become a healthy fully developed human being. There is no other activity such as play that develops the whole of the child and this is the importance of play for children in the early years.