ElizabethMurguia

TinaChavez
ExpositoryReadingandWriting
December2015

PlayBasedLearning:CrucialforEarlyChildhoodDevelopment

INTRODUCTION
Brightly painted walls, light calming music, and a large positive environment where children of
younger ages could let loose their imagination. This was the experience I can recall frommychildhood
when I went to the San Diego Childrens Discovery Museum at its previouslocationattheCenterfor
the Arts. As a child I had always been adventurous. I loved going outside to discover new plants and
insects that I had never seen before. Aside from being adventurous, I as a child I had always loved
making a mess, not in the sense that IwasdestructivebutthatIlovedbeinghandsonandbeingableto
create, disassemble, or investigate things on my own or with my peers. Thus I concluded that I had
always thrived off of a more handsonandinteractivelearningenvironment.Myfirstmemoryofbeingin
this ideal environment was at the childrens museumandIbelievethatitisbecauseoffriendlyandopen
environments such as the museumthatIwasabletodevelopintothepersonthatIamtoday.Eversince
my experience at the museum, I then began contemplating as to how we could change our current
curriculum at the elementary school level to incorporate more hands on and play oriented learning for
childrenlikemyself.

Our generation has arrived with many innovations, new discoveries, andmoderndevelopments
introduced in todays means of life. However, regardless of our current advancements, one traditional
practice has been debated as to whether or not change is beneficial to insinuate. Early childhood
education has been forged, articulated, and modeled over the course of time and has been
reconstructed to create the most efficient means of implementing core subjects into the classroom and
into the minds of future generations. Currently there has been much debate over the effectiveness of
traditional textbook learning versus play oriented learning, and how we should be implementingsuchin
our school systems. This then lead to my essential question (how is play based learning beneficial to
earlychildhooddevelopment)andtomyinternshipattheSanDiegoChildrensDiscoveryMuseum.

BACKGROUND
Play based learning is characterized in many different ways such as learning via handson
activities and learning by using cognitive skills and using the fullextentoftheirperceptions.Forchildren
ofveryyoungagestobeabletosaveandretaininformationonemustfindawaytomakethefacts,read
from a textbook or spoken from a teacher, stick in the childrens minds. One such way is through
experiencing the differences (Heath, chpt. 5) . Since children of young ages are essentially blank
canvases in terms of the amount of information they have yet to learn, by exposing themtounlockand
explore their senses in detail will create a lasting effect and a lasting memory. One simple example of
using their perceptions, would be through the process of learning the differencesbetweenanappleand
anorange.
Any teacher couldvoicethedifferentfactsorproposethequestionWhatisthedifferencetoa
young group of students. However when using this method, it limits the childrens ability to think

critically by not enabling them to use most parts of their brain. When such a right or wrong questionis
asked, the child answering might simply guess based off of the teachers reactions, to other proposed
answers, or their peers. This makes children learn through prediction to see if what they couldthinkof
would satisfy the teacher and unless the child went through some sort of unfortunate or fortunate
revelation, the child will most likely gain the skills ofguessandcheckingratherthanlearningthecontent
giventothem.Howeverthisisnottheoutcomeofplaybasedlearning.
An example of play based learning in thecontextofapplesandorangeswouldbethehandson
approach: give the students an apple andanorangetoobserve.Byallowingchildrentoseethephysical
fruit in person rather than in a diagram, this exposes them to a broader learning scope. They are now
able to feel the differences, smell the differences, look up close and examine the differences, and from
those experiences come to their own conclusions. By giving students the ability to think based off of
what they are cognitively experiencing allows them to generate ideas and opinions on their own and
remember the facts because of their own personal experiences with the items given to them. Here we
arent seeing any force fed facts or recollections of information that theyrememberfromolderandless
explicit experienceswiththeitems,butinstead,thechildrenforgeneworiginalthoughtsandperspectives
basedoffofthesimplephysicalobjectsgiventothemforobservance.
As I began my research I started to find many similar themes as to the context of playbased
learning and the distinctions between play and learning. Traditionally play in preschool is consideredto
be an activity that children induce and create on their own rather than an integrated part oflearning.In
certain parts of the world, playisseenasextremelyimportantandkeytoaqualitypreschooleducation.
Yet inoursocietiesandcommunities,playisseenasanactionforrecesswhiletheclassroomisstrictlya
place of learning. Fortunately this public opinion is beginning to change due to further research being

conducted. Some conclusions researchers such as Bert Van Oers of the University of Amsterdam are
findingisthatwhilelearningmath,reading,andwritingcanbeimportantfordevelopment,theyshouldbe
seen as partial indicators of development and that we should be teaching these subjects as
accomplishments so that we do not have them integrated in our curriculum for the sole purpose of
knowing the subjects asstudyinformationfortesting.VanOerscontinuestostatethatitshouldalsobe
evident that increased self confidence, new interests, a raise in involvement in shared activities, and
social abilities should also be seen as valuable gains of effective education, even when these were not
anticipated. (Van Oers 12) Ultimately what is the key to an effective education is to help and guide
children to create meaning and understanding of the world around thembyexperiencingtheirlearning
and to encourage their curiosity in a way that can help them develop socially and culturally rather than
only teaching children subjects as a benchmark of knowledge.Andthisisbecauseofthefactthatwhile
learning everything there is to know about specific core subjects, it iscrucialforchildrentolearnsocial
and intellectual skills such as critical thinking and communication skills, at a young age.Itisherewhere
playbasedlearningplaysavitalroleinearlychildhooddevelopment.

METHODS

Toconductanoriginalexperimenttoprovideevidenceastohoweffectiveplaybasedlearningisin

a completely play oriented environment, I brought my attention to my internship at the San Diego
Childrens Discovery Museum. The San Diego Childrens Discovery Museum is an educational
organization geared to motivate children to learn about environmental science, technology, engineering,
art, mathematics, and world cultures through hands on exhibits categorizedbyexploration,imagination,
and experimentation. Amanda Martin, myinternshipmentorandtheeducationcoordinatoratSDCDM,

has worked with the museum to create and coordinate many school, public,andcommunityprograms.
For this reason and to relate to my essential question, I decided to attend and observe theworkshops
and programs that she taughttoseethechildrensoverallparticipation(whetherornottheywerewilling
to speak or ask/answer questions) during the lesson before the activity and after the activity duringthe
recap of the lesson. The information that I was able to collect produces raw data regardingtheimpact
of hands onplayorientedprogramswithpreschoolersandtoseedifferencebetweenthepreschoolers
and older children in grades 35 in terms of how they act in a playoriented workshop. All data was
collected in the Childrens Museum classroom and at the outdoor studio with varying age groupsfrom
kindergarten to fifth grade. I collected my data by interacting with the children, asking them questions,
and standing in the back of the classroom to observe who was actively participating and who stayed
quiet.
The data was collected via notes on a small notepad that I keptwithmetoenablemetomove
about the classroom and to observe the children without being distracting and in turn drawing the
attention awayfromthelessonortheactivity.OnmynotepadIwrotedownthetotalnumberofchildren
in the workshop, tallied every child who raised their hand or spoke at all during the lesson and during
the recap of the lesson after the activity, and counted and noted the amount of children who had not
spokenorparticipatedduringthelessons.ThefirstworkshopthatIhadrecordedtheseobservationsfor
was during a Five Senses workshop with the preschoolers from Saint Marys Catholic Schoolandthe
second workshop was for an Owl Pellet/BirdsofPreyworkshopwithstudentsfromgrades35froma
local elementary school. Both of these workshops had started with an interactivelesson,followedbya
playoriented activity, and ended with a recap of the lesson, activity, and all the information that they
hadlearned.


ANALYSIS
From the raw data collected, came some interesting results. The first workshop with the
preschool students showed that after the interactive and hands on activity the whole classs overall
participation rose by 31%. Thismeaningthatatthebeginningofthelessonnotverymanystudentswere
open to or simply did not want to participate during the beginning of the lesson. However, after the
interactiveactivitythatinvolvedthemtowalkintoagardenandobservetheplantsandinsectsusingtheir
five senses, the students were more enthusiastic and more willing to speak and participate during the
wrap up of the lesson and the activity. This has proved that more students showed eagerness and
liveliness which in turn made them more inclinedtoparticipateafterhavingafterusingtheirownintuition
and curiosity to be their teacherduringtheactivity.Thechildrenwereencouragedtoobserve,discover,
and experiment while relying on their own personal experiences.Whiletheylistenedtothelessonatthe
beginning, they had little to no prior experience with such a phenomena such as their senses.However
afterthelessontheywereabletoimmersethemselvesintheactoflearning,allowingthemtocreatetheir
ownmeaningsandcometotheirownconclusionsastothesubjectpresentedtothem.Whatoccurredin
this workshop was that the teacher guided the children with the material they needed to know priorto
the activity and gave them ideas as to what to look for, and in turn encouraged and supportedthemin
the development oftheirownspeculations(SamuelssonandJohansson54).Amandawasabletocreate
a new link between thechildrenandtheworldsurroundingthem,contributetothechildrenslearningby
interacting with the children, challenged their ideas, andgavethemtheresourcestoimmersethemselves
in the subject to get a first hand experience and was then able to confirm their findings and individual
revelations.

This here was a perfect example of playbased learning and how teachers are able to give
students workshops and activities that allow them to adventure and create meaning from their own
experiences, teaching by supporting them in their own development rather than simply giving them the
information. And from this workshop, it is clear that because of their involvement in such an activity,
they were more likely tofeelcurious,usetheirowninstinctstosatisfytheircuriosity,andinturnbecome
eager to share with their peers and the teacher what they had learned from the experience. However
while this worked extremely well with the preschoolers, a different result surfaced from the workshop
consistingoftheolderstudents.
While observing the second workshop consisting of studentsfromthirdgradetofifthgrade,the
data showed that the amount of children participating during the lesson , asking and answering
questions, and voicing their opinions, showed no change after the activity. During the lesson Amanda
had taught the class about raptors and birdsofpreyandpromptedthemwithmultitudesofquestionsas
to what they already knewaboutbirdsofprey.Shethenbegantofocusonowlsandgearedtheactivity
towards the owls diet. For this particular activity the students weregivenscientifictoolsandasterilized
owl pellet and told to use the toolstofindandobservethatthebirdofpreyhadeatenandidentifywhat
the bones were and from which animal they came from using a visual reference chart. Then after the
activity the students would talk in a class discussion as to whattheyfound,whattheyexperienced,and
overall what they had learned from the lesson. Unlike the preschoolers, the data showedthatthesame
amount of students that had participated during the lesson had also participated after theactivity.After
thoroughly analyzing the data, the information gathered concludes that the reason for these results is
because of the ages of the students and the circumstances of theirlearning.Whilethepreschoolershad
little to no prior experience with the subject at hand, these older students had already been taught

traditionally about birds and owls, and also had several years more of experience with the subject
compared to the preschoolers. Also since they had been accustomedtolearningsolely(assumingsince
they all had been attending public school) by a traditional teaching method, they were easily able to
respond and interact with the teacher when she asked questions and challenged their inquiries. Since
most of their inquiries had been previously taughttothem,theteacherhadmainlyconfirmedandguided
the conversation, in contrast to the preschoolers where she was able to challenge a majority of their
thinkingsincetheyhadlimitedtonopreviousknowledgeofwhattheirworkshopwasabout.
Since the data collected shows that playbased learning proved more effective with
preschoolers rather than older children, this data also goes on to prove why it is crucial for childrento
become exposed to project based learningatanearlyage.Thereisanabundanceofessentialskillsand
benefits that come from a more playoriented learning that cannotbeignored.Playbasedlearninginan
essence is a way tocombinephysicalexperiencesandactivitiesthatgivechildrenthefreedomtodecide
for themselves what to think. The qualities of playthattheygainfromthisaretraitssuchastheabilityto
imagine and create meaning from information learned (Samuelsson and Johansson 52) without the
curriculum holding them back. The issue that wasoftenreoccurringisthefactthatplayandlearningina
classroom setting has long since been separated, but currently in today's curriculum, the line between
play and in class learning has been slowly mixing (Samuelsson and Johansson 48). Play integrated
classroom activities have proventoshowheightenedskillsanddevelopmentsinthegrowthofpreschool
students. Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson and Eva Johansson, both graduates at Gteborg University of
Sweden, stated intheirarticlePlayandLearninginseparabledimensionsinpreschoolpracticethat
play and joyful learning stimulate several abilities, such as fantasy, empathy, communication, symbolic
thinking as well as collaboration andproblemsolving,(SamuelssonandJohanna49).Notonlydothey

gain such traits but authors Samuelsson and Johansson also state in their article that Since children
interact on equal conditions while the situations and participants often change, thereisnoabsoluteright
or wrong in childrens play worlds. Instead rules must constantly bedefinedandredefined.Thismakes
play a perfect arena for children, in which they developcommunicativeability,anabilityThisshows
how play in general is fundamental for childrens learning and creativity and how children gain
communication skills by being in a play environment with other children. Astowhatteacherscandoto
integratelearningandplayintheclassroomisbothsimpleandcomplex
To truly have effective play based learning, teachers, parents, and other educators need to
involve their students in learning experiences that allow them to learn using their instincts and expose
them to concepts of the world around them, and use their thoughts and curiosity tobethedriveandto
guide their learning. This generally means to use the childrens play to support thelearningprocess.As
children grow and develop, the way that they interact in the world both socially, culturally, and
intellectually, depends on the way that they learn, think, and experience at a young age. What children
learn and experience in preschoolandatthestartofelementaryschoolbecomesthefoundationfortheir
learning, making it all the more crucial to interact and teach in a way that allows the child to imagine,
explore, experiment, and discover. And furthermore, the best and most effective way to do such is
throughplaybasedlearning.

ACTIONPLAN
The data that I collected and the conclusions and information that I had gained from my
research genuinely mean everything tomeandthisfieldofresearch.AsachildwhothrivedoffofwhatI
now know to be playbased learning, and as a young adult going into such a field as a career, Ifinally

truly understand what it means to create an effective learning environment that promotes curiosity,
ambition, and imagination in children. To find a way to createaneffective,supportive,andencouraging
classroom is something that every teacher would, and should, strive for and after beinginanextremely
playbased establishment for severalweeks,andresearchingplaybasedlearningfurthersimultaneously,
absolutelyopenedmyeyesastowhatisimmenselyimportanttoearlychildhooddevelopment.
Questions that I continue to have from after this learning experience, are not necessarily
questions about the knowledge I gained that I dont understand, but rather what we as a society have
done to take action and promote such an effective method of learning in ourelementaryandpreschool
curriculum. Places liketheSanDiegoChildrensDiscoveryMuseumareperfectplacesthatharnessand
advocate the true value of play based learning, and are very admirable to be doing such. However in
Sweden, where I received most of my research from, already has playoriented learning ingrained in
their Early Childhood Development curriculum. My remaining questions would have to be why our
public schools have not utilized playbased learning as other european countries have, and how could
we implement playbased learning in ourschoolsystems?Furtherresearchregardingtheschooldistrict,
andtheeducationsystemwouldhavetobeconductedinordertoanswerthesequestions.
My conclusions that I have gained frommyresearchshowthatobviouslyplayorientedlearning
is vital to early childhood development. A recommendation that I would give to my internship site or
other institutions like the San Diego Childrens Discovery Museum would be to educate.Educationon
such a topic is essential to the spread of advocating for playbased learning and several ways thatone
could go about this could be by posting information about thebenefitsofplaybasedlearning,andhow
any parent, teacher, or educator, could utilize playbased learning with their students/children on their
websites.

WorksCited

Samuelsson,IngridPramling,andEvaJohansson."ChildDevelopmentandCare."
PlayandLearning
InseparableDimensionsinPreschoolPractice
176.1(2006):4765.Web.Oct.2015.

Oers,BertVan."EuropeanEarlyChildhoodEducationResearchJournal."
LearningResourcesinthe
ContextofPlay.PromotingEffectiveLearninginEarlyChildhood
11.1(2003):723.
Web.Oct.2015.

Murguia,Elizabeth.WorkshopObservations.Dec.2015.Rawdata.SanDiegoChildren'sDiscovery
Museum,Escondido.Notestakenwhilstobservingseveralworkshopsconductedby
AmandaMartin,educationcoordinatorofSDCDM

APPENDIX

Workshop1.jpg
Workshop1Notes:

PreschoolstudentsfromSaintMarysCatholicschool

16childrenintotal

Duringthelessonbeforetheactivityonly7ofthe16childrenhadspokenandactivelyparticipated

After the activity and during the end recap of the activity 12 of the 16 children had spoken and
activelyparticipatedinthediscussion

The data concluded that there was a 31% increase in participation with the children before the
activityandaftertheactivity.

What I really noticed from this workshopwasthatthechildrentendedtobeveryshyatfirst.Maybe

this is because they havenotyetgainedtrustintheenvironmenttheyareinorhavenotyetfeltcomfortablein

their situation, but nonetheless they did not feel ready yet to participate. Since the workshop involved the
children to get up, move around, and enter the garden, it was obvious how their facial expressions and
overall enthusiasm changed when they were given the opportunity to explore rather than simply be taught
information.


Workshop2.jpg

Workshop2Notes:

Elementaryschoolstudentsfromgrades35fromanEscondidopublicschool

25childrenintotal

Duringthelessonbeforetheactivity16ofthe25childrenhadspokenandactivelyparticipated

After the activity and during the end recap of the activity 16 of the25childrenalsohadspokenand
activelyparticipatedinthediscussion

The data concluded that there was a no change in participation with the children before the activity
andaftertheactivity.

All throughout the lesson, children were very easily participating. The conversation and discussion
was overall very fluidandverypositive.Afterwalkingaroundandaskingsomeofthestudentswhattheyhad
found during the activity a lot of them were able torespondveryeasilyastowhattheyhadbeenfindingand
experiencing. They seemed a lot more at ease when prompted questions before and after the activity andit
overallseemedprettyaverageandveryroutineforthem.