My Connections to Play

"Children require long, uninterrupted periods of play an exploration." - Jean Piaget

"Play fosters belonging and encourages cooperation." - Stuart Brown

My personal experience with the use of play in my early years has been an overall experience. Being able to play for several hours after school and even often during class as part of the curriculum has allowed me to be more adventurous in different settings and learn to adapt.


Sports and ball play encourages teamwork and self-motivation. Active play is necessary for a child's development both physically and socially. Competitive play, in team sports, can allow children to use rules and taking turns and will teach children key responses when winning and losing. Physically, children develop gross and fine motor skills by engaging in physical play.

Cooperative play help bring together social skills that children have worked on and putting the in action. Playing games together with other children lays the foundation for future interactions as children mature into adults.



Water play allows children to enhance their problem-solving skills by manipulating water play materials and understanding why and how things happen. They begin to understand and experiment with math concepts of more or less and counting and water play also encourages the development of eye/hand coordination. Children learn new vocabulary, such as sieve and funnel, and describe predictions of experiments as well as use imagination by trying out new ideas and solutions to problems in safe environments.

When I was younger, I would often play with other neighbourhood children, join in several physical activities, as well as learn to play on my own (which was frequent as an only child). My mother would always encourage me to play with others as well as be independent in my play as she, being an early childhood teacher herself, understands the importance of play in early childhood. Throughout my early years, my teachers and daycare attendants would allow us to explore our environments and develop our own styles of play.

I can see many families, more so in Sweden than Singapore, playing in the playgrounds, organizing play-dates, and incorporating play in early childhood curriculum. However, I have found that more and more children are starting to use technology as a type of play in place of building blocks or more hands-on, creative techniques and at earlier stages in life. Although this is important, especially with our increasing reliance on technology, I believe that there is a certain limit that children should have in terms of exposure and utilization of technology, specifically in terms of fine and gross motor skill development.

Play has always been a large part of my life as a child with opportunities to engage in different types of play in and out of school. I believe that it has allowed me to be more patient and understanding and encouraged my social skills and ability to negotiate and compromise. Even as an adult I find myself playing different games, which help re-establish foundations of skills. I still play board games with my family, play computer games, and play hide-and-seek as well as other games with children at the school I work at, in order to incorporate more play into their lives as well.

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