Three suggestions of playful activities to engage with young children.
- Frédérique and the Wooden Fellows
Close your eyes, and try to remember any playful moments you may have had as a young child. Why did you enjoy those moments? Were you playing on your own? Or maybe with another child? Or a beloved grow-up?
Now fast-forward your thoughts to nowadays. Do you have any favorite activities you enjoy engaging with a young child? Or do you think of any activities a young child may find them playful?
As I started working on the Land of Seven Colors, and its playful Rigolos, I knew I would share some playful ideas.
But I also took the time to reflect on the meaning of “Play” itself: How to define play? What are the key elements to play?
Such reflective work is all the more important that I am laying the foundation of Giggles and Chisels, with the creation of new wooden puppets, but also the highlight of core values around early childhood Giggles and Chisels built from (e.g., last week’s post around listening to young children).
Hence, I took a small detour, a historical journey, towards the grounding work of a few child development psychologists and early childhood educators—Froebel, Dewey, Piaget, Montessori, Vygotsky, and Loris Malaguzzi, to name a few. I will eventually write a whole post about the concept of “learning through play,” the materials that can be offered to young children, and the role of grown-ups to fully support such a concept.
Today, though, I will just elevate two critical components of play: 1) the child decides to engage with, and enjoys, the activity, and 2) the child decides when it is time to stop. In other words, the child take the lead. Why focusing just on those two components for now? Because, for grown ups, they are easy to forget. This week is about remembering the true meaning of play.
Below are three examples of activities that are playful for young children but also align with our discussion last week around listening to young children. These three examples provide guidance to grown-ups to let young children take the lead.
Amusing picturebooks
Another suggestion for playful activities: read amusing picturebooks. Although not perceived as a true play-related activity as such, picturebooks can indeed open the door to a lot of fun. If you have not read it already, I suggest for instance The Story of the Little Mole who Went in Search of Whodunit, a lovely and funny story of a mole determined to know who pooped on her head. A hit for all young children. And grown ups.
Fairy Tales
First playful activity — inventing stories. The imagination of young children can be endless, but how do we, not so young anymore, stimulate our own imagination to invent stories with a young child? Fairy Tales is a set of cards that provide prompts to start a story. I usually add a set of dice, so numbers are part of the story as well. In the picture, for instance, we would have to create a story that includes a barrel, a cauldron, an island with a volcano, and six of something. Very playful and engaging for all ages.
First orchard (Premier verger, in French)
Last playful activity (for now!) — playing games. First orchard is a collaborative game, in which all players work together to collect all orchard fruits before the crow eats them. I have played that game many times with preschoolers, and they all loved it. There is a die with the color of the fruit to pick, but I like to add use a die to get the number of fruits to collect, as well.
I hope those suggestions bring you joy and entertainment as you continue to listen to young children!
I will be back next week as I start working on the Land of Lumps and Bumps as well. The Tout-Tristes will take us to a deeper topic—talking about death with young children.
Meanwhile, as always, please share your thoughts either through the Contact form or the comment box below.
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