By Rebecca Honig, Chief Content & Curriculum Officer
This article has ONE purpose: to inspire adult caregivers to play.
Why? Because it boosts school and kindergarten readiness, builds a strong foundation for later success in school, strengthens the bonds between children and their caregivers, cultivates numerous social-emotional skills, and offers important learning experiences for all children’s healthy development.
Evidence-Based Reasoning: The Value of Play in School Readiness
Play holds an important role in kindergarten readiness for children. In fact, children do some of their deepest and most meaningful learning through play. It’s how they learn about the world and stretch their abilities. Play lets them explore roles and responsibilities, process emotions, and learn to collaborate. When kids play, they grow their physical abilities, increase flexible thinking skills, and stretch their creativity.
The benefits of play are so vast and profound that the American Academy of Pediatrics released an article that began:
“Imagine if pediatricians could write a prescription to help patients during the first two years of well-child visits that would boost social-emotional, cognitive, language and self-regulation skills. Research shows they can, and the ‘prescription’ to write is simple: ‘Play with your child every day.’”
American Academy of Pediatrics
School readiness has become more of a concern after the pandemic of course. After so much confinement and isolation, free play has surfaced as an important way for children to imagine and wonder, explore and express freely.
In Play and its role in the mental development of the child, Vygotsky stresses the fact that play is typically buffered from real-life consequences, which is exactly what kids need right now.
How adult play benefits school readiness for kids
Play lets kids try things out, learn, and discover on their own terms. In other words, the kinds of learning moments that kids couldn’t engage in during the pandemic. This is exactly the kind of activity that ParentPowered inspires with our family engagement programs.
But the gains do not stop with children!
- Research shows that when adults play, they report lower levels of stress and more frequently employ positive coping strategies.
- The benefits of play for adults can also include overall health and well-being.
- And a 2017 article in the Washington Post detail the evolutionary benefits of play, too!
- Finally, caregivers playing with kids helps strengthen the bond between them.
When caregivers are happier and healthier, they are better able to support the kids in their lives.
Remember back to when you were a child. Those days when you’d lose yourself in an activity. Maybe it was physical play outside with friends. Maybe it was an object, like a doll or car or building set that inspired you to imagine.
Little did you know, you were building school readiness skills.
I can still conjure the feeling of playing with my sister in a little cabinet under the bathroom sink. We spent hours crammed in that tiny space pretending it was a submarine, a bakery, a lab. Each time we’d emerge I remember feeling like I’d just come back from a secret vacation. Totally happy and exhausted.
YOU can have that feeling back, even in adulthood! Here are just a few of the many benefits of adult play for school readiness.
Socio-emotional benefits
If you play you will quite possibly get a break from many of the things that are bothering you. Would you like to feel better physically? Would you like to laugh? No problem, those are just a few of the benefits of play!
If you are not yet ready to play, try watching these videos from our series of ParentPowered Family Workshops on play for inspiration!
The many ways (for adults and kids) to play
I’m going to assume YOU. ARE. READY. Now what? What does play look like for you?
Play is hard to define. I like a definition offered by the American Academy of Pediatrics. And I think it maps well onto adult life too:
“The definition of play is elusive. However, there is a growing consensus that it is an activity that is intrinsically motivated, entails active engagement, and results in joyful discovery. Play is voluntary and often has no extrinsic goals; it is fun and often spontaneous.”
American Academy of Pediatrics
To get started playing, Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play recommends thinking back to the play you enjoyed as a child and trying to connect that to your life now.
1. Physical play
Did you enjoy physical play as a child? Our Director of Marketing, Mary, was a big fan of chasing games, rolling down grassy hills, going sledding, and skipping. And if the neighbors had drawn a hopscotch board in front of their house, she was definitely going to be late to school.
Now when it comes to physical play, she’s a big fan dancing to songs from the 80’s, dragon boat racing, paddle boarding, running, and yoga.
2. Playing with objects
Did you love playing with objects as a child—dolls, puppets, cars or blocks? Well, these same objects hold great play potential even for you as a grownup.
The pandemic brought me a newfound love of making puppets. I can tell you from experience, lima beans make delightful characters. Also, forts. SOOOO MANY FORTS.
Our Director of Partnerships, Megan, has turned her attention to LEGO. All day. Everyday (when she’s not working, of course). She plays along with her kids and has shared how she feels that these moments are important for school readiness.
3. Nature-based play
Did your childhood include lots of nature play? Curran, a member of our Sales & Partnerships team, used to hold snail races in her driveway, complete with little lanes and finish lines made of twigs. She loved playing in water and she LOVED climbing trees. She loved climbing so much in fact that she broke both wrists (on different occasions, falling from different trees).
Now she keeps both feet on the ground as she heads out to identify plants using an app she has on her phone. And she still loves playing in water.
4. Pretend play
Were hours of your childhood devoted to pretend play? Our Director of Content, Françoise, grew up in a neighborhood without kids her own age. So she created a group of imaginary friends to keep her company. They’d go on lots of adventures and they always wanted to do what she wanted to do!
When she wasn’t with them, she devoted much of her pretend time to putting on epic dance performances for a pretend audience of thousands (and a real audience of her dog, Charles).
As a grownup, pretend play may look a little different (or not). But it’s still just as fun.
Sometimes as I’m working, I sit up extra straight, put on a fancy hat, write with a Sharpie, and pretend that everything I put on paper is FINAL and IMPORTANT.
5. Music
Try out an instrument. Speaking from experience, the banjo is much easier to play than the violin. Kazoos are surprisingly delightful (for a short time) and the fastest way to feel like a rock star is to drum along to a song you LOVED in high school.
Karaoke can be a great way to pack in some play, too.
6. Play with your world
Grab a pen and play. Doodle, draw, try your hand at playing with words to create a story or poem.
Play with design, rearrange the furniture, try a collage, stack some rocks outside to make a tower.
Try some play in the kitchen. These days Megan and Françoise often can be found playing with ingredients, baking and creating new treats for friends and family.
FINALLY, if you need that last little nudge to get you inspired by the benefits of play, here’s my advice: find a child, any child (given your field, I’m betting you have access to one). Watch them build worlds, and then, when the time is just right. Ask that magical question…
“Can I play too?“
Ready to play for school readiness and wellbeing? ParentPowered’s digital family engagement programs are perfect to keep kids’ learning going, whether it’s in preparation for kindergarten, in the middle of elementary school, or during the summer break. Join an upcoming info session to learn more about our evidence-based approaches to whole-child development, from birth through high school.
About the author
Rebecca Honig is the Chief Content and Curriculum Officer at ParentPowered. She has authored numerous curricula, parent guides, and children’s storybooks for Sesame Workshop, Scholastic, Disney, Compass Learning, PBS, WGBH, HITN, Nickelodeon, Mo Willems, and The Norman Rockwell Museum. She has also served as a Curriculum and Content Specialist for Sesame Street and spent ten years teaching in public, private, and after school programs. Rebecca has a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street.
