3 Promoting learning and development through physical play

You may recall from Week 3 that fundamental movement skills provide the building blocks of children’s physical literacy, but young children do not develop these skills in isolation.

In the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (Early Education, 2012), physical development, personal, social and emotional development, and communication and language are known as the ‘prime areas’ because these aspects are interconnected and together lay the foundations of all areas of learning. Play is a vehicle through which children learn and develop these prime areas.

In Weeks 1–3 you read about children’s physical development in great detail. In this section you will briefly explore how physical play promotes communication and language, and social and emotional development.