Expanding Play with Materials

Skytown is a play-based, emergent curriculum school, which means we are always watching for ways to help children expand their play. Play is, after all, how we believe children learn at this age. At Skytown, that’s what our children spend their time doing, and we believe that through play, children learn to problem-solve, act out sociodramatic scenes that make them feel powerful in their world, and explore the environment we offer them.

As adults, we are responsible for observation and, based on that observation, identifying ways to help children deepen and expand this play. This can happen in two ways: (1) supporting children’s play skills through social collaboration (which we will be discussing at February’s Parent Education), and (2) providing meaningful materials in their environment to help them expand their projects and work.

This week, I had the opportunity to observe a car wash get started in the preschool area, with sand being poured over vehicles, then brushed aside along the sandbox step. Based on this observation of play, and wanting to support them to play bigger, I decided to help expand their car wash: I opened up the blue sensory bin, got dish soap from the office, and made some bubbles. One student called it the “bubble trouble bathtub.”

Students brought vehicles over, getting scrub brushes and working on cleaning them one at a time. Then, they put the vehicles in the sun to dry off. The student said they were “getting the trucks ready for the day ahead.”

It’s not always easy to pick materials to help children expand their play, but Thursday was a fun day with bubble trouble. I wonder what other ways we can find to help students expand some of their play, such as potion making (mint, water, grass, paint pots), water pipe stations (PVC pipes), etc. Help me watch for ways to support students in finding the right materials to expand their imaginative play.