My voice: When we think about child, we will think about play

When we think about children, we will think about PLAY.

Food builds the body; play fuels the mind.

My philosophy of education is "be the voice of children and let kids be kids", it is important to let our children fall in love with learning and nurturing them during their crucial period which is the point of creation of a child's first sense or self or building of a first identity.

It goes without saying that, all parents wish that their own children will be able to have a bright future.

Especially in hope of getting their children into the top school, most parents send their children to tuition classes starting from three years old as soon as they are old enough to hold a pencil without realising the negative effect of stressing out the children as well as cutting off their inner necessity and impulse of children which is "PLAY".

Removing play from early childhood places children at risk. Children may miss the opportunity for play to contribute physical,intellectual,language,emotional,social and spiritual development in a fundamental way.

Hence, I BELIEVE as well that,

Early childhood should be pleasant and enjoyable as the children should be able to play because it is their beginning of stepping into a world that are full of wonders and magic around them.

Therefore i believe that children learn best through play-based learning.

Young children are born with a desire to explore, discover, learn as well as experience because they are ACTIVE LEARNERS who enjoy learning through PLAY in physical activities rather than just sit and listen quietly.

Playing with wooden block: children learn about how tall and how low, pretending to sell fruits at a stall, children learn about numbers.

Whereas using play dough: children learn about shapes, colours, creating and etc. During the play, children are engaged in learning experience that require them to use a range of different skills such as fine motor skills, intellectual skills and creativity.

Whether playing at indoor or outdoor, play is a way in which children learn and in the absence of play, children miss the experience of learning.

Next, children develop their physical motor skills or sensorimotor skills best through own experiences that occur in their every day lives.

Gross and fine motor skills learning opportunities can be built directly through play.

For example,children learn how to balance themselves through jumping or climbing and manipulating small objects through playing with finger puppets.

Besides that, playing with a sense of taste, touch, sight and hearing become useful for young children to explore, experiment and gather information about the world.

Sensorimotor play through physical skills help children to master and control the usage of their body parts and to control it more effectively. Therefore, preschool teachers are able to promote and enhance a child's physical development by providing a safe and healthy environment for natural play-based activities.



Apart from that, play involves a lot of thinking process whereby it builds up cognitive skills such as problem solving.

It is an approach that allows children to develop their critical thinking and inner strengths to solve the problems.

Through play experiences, children will adjust their own thinking because it enables them to make sense of their world whereby they will have the ability to use what they have already known to construct new knowledge. It is fairly obvious that the creativity of children through play is the key in developing brain cells better than follow the rigid rules alone. For example,children are able to use their imagination and try out new roles during a role play activity.

In addition,

Through play,

Children learn to use LANGUAGE for different purposes at various settings with different people. At one point, children may be using sophisticated language when playing with their own peers.

In a pretend play, for example, children have to learn how to communicate and express their thoughts about something that they have in mind through talking and showing actions where their peers may not be able to understand at an instant. Hence, this shows that playing appears to be helping children in language development.

NEXT,

Play supports EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT because it provides an environment or a way to express children's feeling.

It is certainly true that when a young child has only limited language abilities, it is better for her to express feeling and thought as well as understanding of her world through play rather than complicated words.

Self-esteem and self-awareness of children can be built by providing more support, encouragement and praise through play.

For instance, teacher encourage children who are shy to participate along with outgoing children when they are comfortable and ready. Thus, they have plenty of interaction with other kids that helps build up their self-confidence. Independence of children can be built too by providing choices for them to play according to their interest and needs.

Furthermore, play is vital to children's social development as it appear to help children develop social skills by interacting with their peers.

Playing with other kids: children learn to appreciate and respond to their peer's feeling by waiting for their turn and being fair to share the toys or materials; For example, they learn slowly that they can't always be the "KING" of the game and expect everything to go according to their ways and wants. Otherwise they'll start losing their playmates if it keeps on going.

Play nourish the growth of a healthy child in every areas of their development (P.I.L.E.S). It is an essential ingredient for developing children's physical skills, intellectual skills, language skills, emotions - spiritual and mind as well as their social skills.

By merely just having a plain understanding on the importance of play is insufficient, it is important for us to put our knowledge into actions for the sake of our young generations.

Hence, bringing up a child from early childhood to adulthood requires an investment of time, attention and thought as every child is unique, different and thus there are no specific formulas that are viable for every child.

What i believe in.....

DO you know THAT....

A child's education begins when a foetus starts to develop in a mother's womb? Various studies have shown that prenatal stimulation through music and speech bring benefits to the child where emotional and intellectual development occurs.

For example: THE FOETUS HEARS FROM THE MOTHER speaking and singing to it, creating a bonding between the mother and child. Likewise, early childhood education provides education and care to children from birth to age 6 according to their individual needs.

Hence, I BELIEVE that......

Early childhood education plays an important role throughout children's development stages because it helps children to develop appropriately by nurturing and guiding them during their first 6 years of early childhood.

This is a time when their brain begins to develop rapidly and allowing them to learn various skills from different perspective such as development in physical, intellectual, language, emotion, and social.

Studies show that, "from infancy through about age 10, brain cells not only form most of the connections they will maintain through life but during this time they retain their greatest malleability" (Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, 1996, pg 7, as cited in A position statement of the NAEYC, 1996, pg2).

REALISING the importance of early childhood education, it makes me understand how important it is to shape and nurture these children from all areas as they develop into adulthood, so that they may be able start out their lives meaningfully as young children, leaving a valuable childhood experience to be remember. In the mean time, giving me a desire of wanting to make a change in the life of these little ones as an early childhood edcuator.