8 Summary of Week 5
This week you have looked at play and its role in children’s physical and holistic development. Different types of play involve different types of movement and providing a range of play opportunities enhances children’s overall development.
You also considered how the prime areas of development (physical development, personal, social and emotional development and communication and language) are all interlinked and how physical play promotes all these areas of learning.
Exploring how some risky play and rough and tumble are necessary for children’s learning and development, you should reflect on your own anxieties around these. Taking a sensible approach, you can help children to assess and manage risk and relationships.
Finally, you looked at some of the ways in which different environments, materials and resources can provide opportunities for physical play that can enhance children’s development.
Top tips
- Provide children with a broad range of play opportunities and environments that enable you to promote physical development through play, rather than teaching movement skills.
- Be a physically active role model – children value physical activity if they see you enjoying it.
- Reflect upon your own attitudes to risk and where appropriate, help children to assess and manage risk themselves, rather than stopping the play.
- Make use of resources in your own environment and what you already have to hand – both inside and outside.
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