ECS 306
3/17/2016
Score: 20
Changcan Li
Anji Play Reflection My Journey to Anji Play was quite an eye opener. I was specifically amazed by the educator Chen Xueqing’s courage of taking initiative in designing the true play. I was completely touched by her passion on pursuing the principles of education and engaging the most fundamental and core values of education. I would like to say that the educator Chen Xueqin is a pioneer in the early childhood education field and is my personal hero. Anji play is a brilliant workshop that every educator should attend. This workshop encompasses so much of what I could try to develop in relation to education and young children. Anji Play brings me the intention to change the old education systems which imprison the children in advance in academic learning and let the children follow the arrangements to adults’ learning. Anji Play means true play. True play means taking risks—physical, social, and even cognitive. In Anji, children are continuously trying out new things and learning a great deal in the process. Children are fond of moving from adventure to adventure. Children encounter the risk of mistakes and even of injuries, but that does not discourage
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Such children ask themselves—intentionally or unintentionally—“how high can I climb or jump”?” They become shrewd and well informed about themselves and their surroundings. Children who are confident about taking risks rebound well when things don 't work out at first. They are resilient and will attempt again and again until they master a situation that challenges them—or wisely avoid it, if that seems best. At Anji, teachers encourage the children as numerous opportunities to face age-appropriate risk as possible. In the various playgrounds of Anji, there are trees to climb and hills to slide
Leong was featured in the May 2003 issue of the NAEYC’s Young Children. The article explores the conflict between children's play and meeting academic standards; more frequently, teachers are forced to limit playtime in order to teach essential skills to students; however because of limited imaginary play, increased academic demands of young children, and more realistic toys, children are almost unable to imagine. Although play has been proven to benefit children’s cognitive and social development, administrators do not consider it to be an important aspect of young children’s education. Because of this, preschool and kindergarten teachers are put in a challenging predicament; in order to compensate for children’s lack of play, teachers would need to prioritize play development at the level in which they prioritize phonics awareness and fine motor skills development. Although it is difficult to do, it is not impossible to incorporate play into the curriculum. Teachers can facilitate mature play by providing multi purpose props, encouraging children to create their own props, and allowing time for children to plan their roles and scenarios for dramatic play. In addition to play helping children develop foundational skills and concepts necessary to master math and reading, it has been shown to increase classroom cooperation, the effectiveness of instructional time, and the number of friendships developed in the
Early Childhood is marked by a time in children’s lives when they develop “a confident self-image, more effective control over their emotions, new social skills, the foundations of morality, and a clear sense of themselves as boy or girl” (Berk, Kauffman & Landrum, 2011, pg. 45). According to Erik Erikson, early childhood is a period of “vigorous unfolding,” one where children have a sense of autonomy and a new sense of purposefulness or initiative (Berk, Kauffman & Landrum, 2011, pg. 45). Play is a means for children to learn about themselves and they begin to adopt the moral and gender-role standards of the society in which they live (Berk, Kauffman & Landrum, 2011). A negative outcome of early childhood is the guilt children feel as a result of excessive punishment and criticism by the adults in their lives (Berk, Kauffman & Landrum, 2011)....
Indeed, the safety of children is the main purpose of this article, so he provided us with a series of studies to confirm his argument. For example, some psychologists have shown the pattern: A child who’s hurt in a fall before the age of 9 is less likely as a teenager to have a fear of heights. They believe that if the children are allowed to go outside their safety zone, they will learn how to accept obstacles as well as hard situations. They will be stronger and more willing to confront new challenges as time goes by. Moreover, Dr. Ball said. “If children and parents believe they are in an environment which is safer than it actually is, they will take more risks." And a real example, Nayelis Serrano, a 10-year-old from the South Bronx, she used to play jungle gyms. Her experience about that game is so wonderful. She was scared it at first, but she kept continuing to the top of bar, and she won. She said. “I’d like to see it in our playground. Why not? It’s kind of dangerous, I know, but if you just think about danger you’re never going to get ahead in life.”
There was so much to learn about play and learning. I learned that play is very crucial to the learning and the development of a child. I knew the basics of the way we teach the children and how we are supposed to address and ask questions to the little ones to learn and be able to excel in their leaning. The understanding of why we need to is a different reason. To understand that the early childhood education plays a big role in the lives of these very young children. There is evidence that states that there is short and long term gains in cognitive, language, and the social-emotional development of the children. ( http://www.academia.edu/). I never realized that play contributes to these developments in so many ways. We as preschooler
An Article by Dr. Leong and Dr. Bodrova (2016) stated that play is beneficial to children’s learning especially when it reaches a certain degree of complexity. When they engage in play activities most of their early years, they learn to delay gratification and to prioritize their goals and actions. They also learn to consider the perspectives and needs of other people and to represent things significantly to regulate their behavior and actions in a cautious, intentional way.
Risky play is an important part of children’s play and children have shown a natural desire of outdoor risky play in the early years of ages (Brussoni, Olsen, Pike & Sleet, 2012). Risky play refers to play that allows children to feel excited and may lead to physical injury (Sandseter, 2007). In the video Adventurous play-Developing a culture of risky play, the interviewer Neville had discussed risky play with five educators. By consulting from this video, this report will provide rationales which are for creating opportunities for risky play in the child care centres, explain how to achieve the outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework through planning for risky play. It then attempts to analyse the observational learning in Bandura’s
Play is such an important part of the learning and growing, especially for children. Children engage in many different types of play, but the play I saw the most when I observe the children of my daycare is sociodramatic play. The book Understanding Dramatic Play by Judith Kase-Polisini defines sociodramatic play as “both players must tacitly or openly agree to act out the same drama” (Kase-Polisini 40). This shows that children play with each other and make their worlds together as equal creators. Children also work together without argument. There is also some personal play involved in their sociodramatic play. The children involved in the play worked to make a family having dinner, which is great example of how this will prepare them for
Children have a natural inclination to play, alongside a natural instinct to learn and to be curious and inventive, which are characteristics of the human race in general. This quote taken from Janet Moyles is a good starting point for this essay. It is well known that children love to play. If a child were to be left to his/her own devices they would happily play and create new worlds anywhere they were left. It has been well documented and researched that children learn excellently through play. However they are not always given the opportunity to do so, instead being told to, ‘finish your work and then you can go play’. Obviously this is not always the case, but the fact that it is a common practice shows that we do not all fully appreciate the importance of play to children’s learning. This essay will attempt to show how children learn through play, making reference to current theory and practice. I will also give examples from my own first-hand experience of how children learn and develop as people through play.
..., J., & Garzoli, E. (2007, November 11). The Effectiveness of a Play-Based Curriculum in Early Childhood Education. Retrieved from http://teachplaybasedlearning.com/8.html
...ng in the educational context requires teachers as the competent adults or instructors, it demonstrates the importance of teacher presence in all areas of the curriculum especially in play. Whether through Piaget’s cognitive constructivism or Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, it is important for teachers to actively participate and interact with the children to foster their cognitive and social development. To scaffold children’s play, the teacher is important in roles such as creating the right play environment by preparing adequate materials, designing the playing space and ensuring adequate play materials, designing appropriate play experiences to structure and facilitate the children’s development and facilitating interactions among the children and between themselves and the children to facilitate and support meaning making (Module 2 & Module 3, 2012).
The book, Exploring Your role in Early Childhood Education, defines play as, “any activity that is freely chosen, meaningful, active, enjoyable, and open-ended.”(pg. 140) Play has many positive characteristics such as freedom to explore and create. Suppose when a child enters his/her classroom and has various self-selection activities available, the child can become engaged in something of interest specifically to that individual child. The book also states, “Play is active and is natural process of mentally and actively doing something.”(pg. 140) When children can act out or explore experiences they are having hands on experience and learning by actually doing. Without knowing it, children are practicing body movements as well as mental processing though acting imaginary games out.
Children develop normally when they are exposed to different types of play that allow them to express themselves while using their imaginations and being physically active. According to the Center for Health Education, Training and Nutrition Awareness, “Play is child’s work”; this is true because it is a child’s job to learn and develop in their first few years of life, in order for them to do this, they play. Not only is playing a child’s full time job, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights listed play as a right of every child. Through their full time job of play, the children develop emotionally, socially, physically, and creatively. Children need to participate in child-led play in order to facilitate healthy development of their minds, body, and creativity.
Before diving into my research, I reflected on the knowledge I already knew regarding play and play based learning. From experience, I know that play is an enjoyable activity for children, and even some adults. I know that there are different ways one can play. For example, playing with others is known as cooperative play and playing alone is considered solitary play. There are different types of play. For example, there is dress up or pretend games, which is considered dramatic, play and there is playing with building blocks which is constructive play. After my reflection I realized that I was more knowledgeable on the action of playing rather then the benefits of it.
A very wise man; Charles Schaefer, once said “We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.” To begin with, there is no one explanation about what play really is, other than the fact that it holds infinite numbers of definitions according to every single individual. Play is just not a physical body movement involved in an activity, but more than that if you look outside of the box. For centuries, play has been practiced in its own unique way with not only children, but adults as well.
Risk taking is considered an everyday staple of life and a major part of growing up. When we limit the risks we take in our lives we also limit the capabilities those risks present, such as encountering new experiences and situations that improve us as human beings. Risk taking is imperative to personal growth and when discussed in good context it seems harmless, however that is only a half truth. To say risk taking is always safe is completely incorrect and sometimes these risks are often unsafe and not thought out. This essay addresses the following question, why do teenagers engage in this form of unhealthy risk taking? I will also be discussing whether or not certain groups are more at risk and any known strategies to make teenagers aware