Children Learn Through Play

​Let’s talk more about play today. Play is my favorite topic, so I hope I don’t bore you all with it. With the coronavirus shutting down schools all across the country, I feel like this is a great time to remind parents that children learn best through play. This is the time to look at what your child is interested in and build on that! A child who wants to learn something will work tirelessly to figure it out. Need some examples?

• A mobile infant who is ready to walk? Do you have to do walking worksheets and have walking lessons? NO!! That child will work on it for hours on end until they take that first step.

That’s a baby, you say? It’s different for older children.

• Okay, let’s consider a 4 or 5 year old who is ready to learn to tie their shoes. What do they spend their time doing? Tying and untying their shoes. Tying and untying everything, for that matter.

When our oldest daughter wanted to learn how to braid hair, my husband made her a board with three strands of rope so she could practice. She would work on that for hours until she mastered braiding. Incidentally, she eventually figured out how to French braid too, something her mother never mastered lol.
Now, think about your own learning. When you want to learn about something new, what do you do? You read about it, you study it, you practice doing it. Find out what your child is interested in and let them study and examine that topic! If they are interested in the topic, it won’t be a chore, it will be fun and it will get done. When I was interested in learning more about play, I read and researched and tried all kinds of different things.
Lastly, I know this situation is stressful and hard on all of us, especially children. They feel our stress (the strongest emotion rules the room!) and they feed off of it. Spend the time making some good memories with them so that they look back at this time in their life in a positive way. School may be out, but learning is always available-through play!