How Pretend play Spurs Learning, Growth & Development in Children?
Pretend play is known as one of the most important and a fun way in a child’s learning and development phase
Imagine a situation…..š¤
Police officers, doctors, office employees, chefs, parents etc are all happily working together in a happy place.
This is only possible in a dramatic play at Jumpstart International Preschool.
A child pretending play is deemed as fun and imaginative way of playing. However, with limited educational and developmental value.
On the contrary, early childhood experts state that children benefit significantly through engagement in pretend play activities.
How does pretend play help children:
Learn about themselves and the world:
Through these play experiences, children often learn about their likes and dislikes. They also learn their interests, skills, and capabilities. Ā In addition, they try to make sense of their observations and experiences.
New life experiences:
For instance, if you would have witnessed children pretending to role-play as a doctor and patient. One child pretends to perform a check-up on the other, using a stethoscope or giving an injection. In other words, Children experience things and situations that are common and at times confusing or scary.
Engaging them in such activities, children get more comfortable and are ready for different life events and experiences.
This also helps them to understand personal life events and challenges, like family memberās illness, or the absence of a parent, etc.
Cultivation of social and complex thinking skills:
Contrary to the general belief, pretend play requires advanced thinking strategies, along with social and communication skills.
Children learn to negotiate. They understand and consider the other personās perspectives.
They are able to transfer knowledge and information from one individual and situation to another, express and listen to thoughts and ideas, create a strategy and act on it, assign tasks and roles.
Develop social and emotional intelligence:
Communication is the key to success. Our lifelong success and happiness rely greatly on the way we interact with others.
Pretend play helps children understand how to interpret social clues, identify and control feelings, negotiate and take turns.
Learn to use knowledge and skills together:
Children need a variety of opportunities to blend and use their skills and knowledge together and pretend-play is an ideal way to do this.
For an example:
Going to the āgroceryā store:
a. The children learns to recognize the store
b. Groups items in different sections
c. Communicates through words or signs
d. Experiments with shapes and weights
e. Uses math and calculations to determine prices and estimate grocery bills
f.Ā Works collaboratively with their friends as they assign roles to each other
You can also read:
Pretend play is the best form of play as they naturally explore so many things by themselves. As correctly stated in this blog, it helps them with so many different aspects and it is the best way for them to learn with utmost interest and excitement
Pretend play benefits children hugely in developing their self-esteem and self-awareness. There is a sense of freedom which flows from theĀ realisationĀ that you can be anything by just pretending, and children love this! Itās a safe and secure way to experiment and test boundaries, and build confidence.
It’s a wonderful blogš
The most wanted play by a child is PRETEND PLAY. Children enjoy pretend play the most. Their thinking boosts while interacting while it also helps improvising their vocabulary at the same time. Golden words are learned in situations needed. A very informative blog. Thankyou Jumpstart.
Children are very good at observing the things in their surrounding. During this kinds of pretend plays they perform the characters that they have observed. Through this kinds of play we can get idea of development the child has done so far.
Wonderful write up. Pretend play puts children in situations they only observe and gives them an opportunity to enact in a creative way. Great tips shared.
Great blog. Very righfully explains how important is pretend play in all ivet development and learning of life skills among children. Very interesting and helpful read.
Amazing write-up!
Thank you for sharing
Pretend play benefits children hugely in developing their self-esteem and self-awareness. There is a sense of freedom which flows from the realisation that you can be anything by just pretending, and children love this! Itās a safe and secure way to experiment and test boundaries, and build confidence.