Play is …
Play is en essential part during childhood. It allows children to experiment with norms in our society and what they experience in everyday life. Through play they make sense of the world around them. And since our world has a physical but also digital environment, it is also important for children to have for digital play.
Play can help …
Play can help children explore the world around them. While, on the surface, it might look like play is a light-heated activity that mainly offers fun, it really is an experience that fosters learning and development.
Play can look like this:
Play can be instructed. You can provide your child with a concrete task, setting, material to play with. Example: Look, this is a new lego set. Wanna build a tower with it in your room? Or: Hey, there is this new audio book I found. Wanna listen to it on the smart speaker in the living room?
Play can be free. More to come…
Play can be risky. Because play allows children to explore, it is only natural that they must take risk at times to discover something new. Example: Uh, what will happen if I climb one level higher on this climbing tree? Will I fall? Or: I’m curious, what will happen when I ask this question to the smart speaker?
Realize how the narrative of examples naturally shift from the perspective of parents to the perspective of the child? :)