Play

Home Play?

How can you support Play at home?

Students from Room 4 performing a puppet show, developed from reading they completed as a group.

Why do we use Learning through Play at OAS?

Starting at school is an anxious time for many of our younger students. Often many of them have been transitioning from ECEs or home environments where they are generally free to follow their urges with regard to their learning and interest. You might see for example, a child start playing with dolls, moving to playing with blocks to making art with their hands and then reading or being read a story. This is an example of a child following their urges and building on each experience with the one following.

It is not uncommon for us to see children who are reluctant writers, show a lack of resilience, escalate their emotions quickly, opt out of activities or show poor attention spans, underdeveloped motor skills and slow to transition into school routines.

Through focused play, children practise and consolidate their learning, play with ideas, experiment, take risks, solve problems, and make decisions individually, in small and in large groups. First-hand experiences allow children to develop an understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. The development of children’s self-esteem and feelings of self-worth are critical.

Learning through play is a pedagogical approach where play is the valued mode of learning – where children can explore, experiment, discover, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways. Learning through play is also called play-based learning. This philosophy easily incorporates all the key competencies when carried out effectively.

In 2017 the Education Review Office (ERO) reviewed OAS and part of their recommendations were that our school needs to focus on increasing student decision making with regard to their own learning, with the aim of achieving greater engagement.

"When children start school, they have often little experience with a system designed to manage large numbers of people, where for efficiency, everyone does the same thing at the same time. This is because it doesn't really fit with where their brain development and learning development is at, at the moment. Children learn through play. They have by moving, exploring discovering and practicing. Intellectual and physical is critical for children's development. This is a settled global consensus amongst child psychologists, leading educators, child development experts and pediatricians. " (Pasi Sahlberg 2019)

Play has for a long time be incorporated into our curriculum areas, in areas like science, technology and social sciences. It is balanced with the need to target literacy and numeracy teaching.

We have been working to build the well-being of our young people at OAS. This means (for students in years 1 & 2) that they:

feel more confident in themselves
can identify their emotions, and those of others in their classes
can regulate their emotions and control their actions related to these feelings.

We want our students to have equitable outcomes, so that no matter what their background is, they can contribute to the learning because learning through play is something that they have done before they arrived at school. We also want our students to be accepting of others' ideas and the contribution that they can make. Learning through play enables this. Research demonstrates that children who learn through play and are supported in their learning have increased rates of motivation for school, self-efficacy, confidence and resilience. (Longworth Education 2020)

New Zealand research (Best Evidence Synthesis) suggests that great teaching through play improves key learning skills that students can apply to numeracy and literacy learning.

The NZ council of Educational Research says in their research that for students to be successful we need to move away from teachers being in charge of student learning, to more shared responsibility with home, the student and the teacher.

Key Skills developed through Play

An effective learning through play programme enables children to engage in self-directed play that is internally motivated. Teachers can support children in play-based learning by providing an enabling environment and sensitive interaction. There is a role for the teacher to discuss, embed and extend the learning with students.

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that learning through play has a number of benefits for learning and development.

Smooth transitions to school. Schools that have adopted learning through play in junior classrooms report that new entrant students settle to school quickly because of improved continuity between school and early childhood education.

Interpersonal skills (between learners). Play-based learning often requires playing with others and gives students the opportunity to practise cooperation, negotiation, leadership, empathy, compromise and active listening. These skills support language development.

Intrapersonal skills (within learners). Play contributes to a child’s sense of well-being and is shown to develop self esteem, motivation, resilience, concentration, persistence, and time management. Important skills for learning.

Thinking skills. Play-based activities enable students to engage in flexible and higher-level thinking processes. These include inquiry processes of problem solving, analysing, evaluating, applying knowledge, innovation, and creativity.

Student agency and engagement. Play-based learning can encourage student agency and often results in deeper levels of student engagement in learning. Agency learning is the foundation of pedagogies used in years 3-10.

What does Learning through Play look like @ OAS?

At OAS you will see and hear our teachers:

Draw on curriculum knowledge to recognise the learning within play and be able to support the student to reach for the next step. This means that they let students lead the play, and then jump in to ask questions which link to areas of the curriculum.

Support students to develop their social interactions.

Provide lots of diverse and interesting opportunities for students to engage in different types of play - physical, intellectual, emotional.

Work with whānau and our community to create authentic connections that support students to continue to learn at home.

Engage a student’s prior knowledge and interests to help them feel connected to their learning and to help strengthen the home/school partnership.

Create a classroom environment that develops diverse interest areas that offer rich play opportunities. We want students' learning to broaden and deepen.

Challenge students' learning and thinking by having meaningful learning conversations that stretch their thinking.

Addison had organised what she needed to make a new game at school. She had asked her Mum to make playdough, and picked flowers as she wanted to make cakes. The group had all naturally assigned themselves to jobs to make their game fun and successful. They worked out what their responsibility was, and went about being a part of the “Cake Shop”.

Aria designed a menu and was writing it up.

Addison, Ketia, Kohine, Willow and Camryn were designing and making cakes and then cooking them.

Anna had a clipboard and was taking orders from customers in Room 3 & 4.

Mrs McLean and Mrs Foote got to place orders and have their cakes delivered to them.

How you can support Play and learning at home?

The Key Competencies

At school we are trying to help your child learn about 5 critical skills; The Key Competencies - thinking, using language, symbols and texts, managing themselves, relating to others and participating and contributing. You can support these competencies:

Thinking

Give children chances to be creative and critical with their thinking. Notice and praise them when they try to think about things differently.

Managing self

Notice and praise when your kids do things without being asked - taking the dishes from the table, doing chores, finishing homework. Help your kids get through tricky learning, challenges are part of life, help them see this with your support.

Relating to others

Talk about differences in the world and why this is. Be open and respectful of difference. Model listening and negotiating with your kids

Participating and contributing

Encourage your child to take part in new things, help them to take on leadership roles; looking after a pet or being responsible for a household chore.

Using language, symbols, and texts

Check that your child understands the meaning of different types texts or languages, ask them how they know that or what makes them think this answer. Talk about the different symbols that you see around your life. $ % @ - what do they mean?

Reading at home

Reading at home is one of the best strategies that whānau can use to help develop your child's learning. You can read together with your child, taking turns reading. Visit libraries together, read different types of texts (books, mail/email from whānau, junk mail) play games together.

Talk about reading with your child. Talk about what story the pictures tell before you read the words, sing together, make up rhymes and point out words on signs and journeys you take together.

Writing at home

Make writing fun, go on a letter treasure hunt around your house, write shopping lists and birthday cards, write in the sand at the beach. Write notes for your child to find around your house (or lunch box), help them email or write letters to whānau. Label special things - their bedroom door or their special toys name. Celebrate their writing by sticking it up around your home (the fridge).

Talk about writing with your child, "What letters does your name have? What about my name?", make picture stories of special events or trips, then help them (or your write it) write about the picture, underneath. Have tools for writing available, crayons, pens, felts and paper. Put magnetic letters on the fridge.

Maths at home

Find numbers (they are everywhere!) count forwards and backwards when ever you get the chance. Play with patterns (red block, blue block, red block, blue block) and make them increasingly more interesting. Talk about simple sums with objects "Oh, look! Everyone at the table has 1 orange and there are 5 people. How many oranges at there on the table?" Count the fruit into the bag at the supermarket.

Talk about sharing, time, amounts, comparisons between objects (over, under, big, small, up, down...) use different maths words (first, second, third, before, after....). Cook together and measure the ingredients out, play with measuring tools in the bath or sink, collect objects on your walks (stones, feathers, leaves) and compare them, put them in groups, arrange them into patterns.

Be SUPER positive about reading, wirting and maths - even if you didn't/don't enjoy them at school. It is really important for your child's learning.

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