A Deeper Understanding of Play
A: Stages of play refer to the different developmental phases that children go through as they engage in play activities.
The common stages of play are:
- Unoccupied play
- Onlooker play
- Parallel play
- Associative play
- Cooperative play
A：Types of play refer to the nature or the kind of activity your child is doing when engaging in play. Different types of play can occur within each stage of play.
The common types of play are:
- Explorative play
- Physical play
- Constructive play
- Competitive play
- Dramatic play
- Symbolic play
A：It provides an opportunity for children to learn from others, understand different play styles and gather ideas for their own play.
A：Children often use similar toys, share the same space or engage in similar activities, but they do not actively engage with one another.
A：Associative play is characterized by children playing together in a loosely organized manner. There is no specific goal or organized structure to their play. In cooperative play, children actively play together with a shared goal or purpose.
A：It involves open-ended activities that do not have specific rules, goals or predetermined outcomes.
A：Dramatic play happens when children pretend to take on different roles or characters. It usually involves imitating real-life events, e.g. pretending to be a doctor or reenacting parts of a story from a book.
A：Dramatic play helps children explore different social roles, express their emotions and expand their descriptive language skills. There is often a social element to dramatic play where your child can practice exchanging dialogues with another person.
A：Symbolic play involves using objects or actions to symbolize something else. Children assign meanings to objects that do not realistically connect to their function. For example, using a block as a shoe, or using a piece of paper as a hat.
A：Symbolic play encourages creativity, abstract thinking and the concept of symbols and representation.