Reflection Paper for Play in the Classroom Essay

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teacher, understanding the importance of supporting and encouraging constructive children's play, both indoors and outdoors was key. Through hands on experience, I got the chance to get involve with children's play with first graders. What caught my attention the most, was the role indoor played in the children's cognitive development. For example, when I took a closer look at children's play, I was able to see that it did more than just stimulate physical, social-emotional, and creative growth. I also discovered that Play is the primary way by which children are able to discover the world, investigate its properties, and construct an accepting in regards to how the world functions. One example was when I witnessed a small group of children that were playing in the block part, constructing with plastic unit blocks.

They start by endeavoring to put various shapes and sizes of unit blocks on top of each other. The children used a rug as a surface, then they were able to randomly place larger blocks on top of the ones that are much smaller blocks. Then they put the rectangular blocks right on top of the triangular shaped blocks, and then put them blocks unevenly, so that the tower rapidly drops.

I watch as one of the children comes up with an idea! "Perhaps, if we put on construction hats on our heads and look like we are some real construction workers, then maybe the tower might just stand up way better after all!" After this was said, they quickly came together as a team and agreed to try and make it occur. These children, put those hats on their little heads hats, and started to build all over again. However, it did not work. The building came crashing down just after only a few blocks were placed on top of it. Lastly, a little girl notices that the bottom block is "not straight" on the carpet and they move the blocks to the firmer exterior of the floor. When this happened, the children were being able to construct a little higher than how it was from the start. When they gave it a few more tries they notice that smaller blocks seem to stay on top of bigger blocks more securely than the other way around. After that, the kids start to grab the sizes of the blocks more cautiously, assigning the bigger blocks at the bottom. I then noticed that the children's building started to get taller and taller. They are so happy about their achievement that they call the teacher over to observe what they had just accomplished.

I was also able to observe how play meets learning objectives. I discovered that through this particular play, these first graders were able to actively present problems, search for solutions, and then develop some kind of understandings of real world ideas of purpose and form. By relating and differing information achieved from each new experience to what they beforehand know, they are aggressively building their knowledge of the way the world functions.

At the same time, these first graders in the block area have already started a program that speaks to the objectives and goals in the parts of Scientific Information and Scientific Abilities and Techniques (Grieshaber, 2008) By means of their artless building indoors play, the children have been discovering the goods of materials (the carpet, the firm ground, and the dissimilar sizes and shapes of blocks.) I was able to observe that they have investigated cause and effect and illustrated conclusions in regards to important actions (putting on their little construction hats is not that important; which size of blocks they select is very important).

I was able to pick up the fact that the children were capable of noticing the change and seen patterns (hard surfaces are easier to build on; large blocks work better when they are at the bottom), and in doing this, they have started to produce their own ideas about how to build a tower that is tall. As the first graders started to involve in this kind of block play over a lengthy time frame, even short of adult involvement, they will carry on with gaining information in regards to the properties of the blocks, produce new thoughts and questions in regards to what works and what is not able to work, and progressively improve their theory of how to build some kind of tower.

With this observation, I was able to figure out that the teacher is able to take full gain of the children's high awareness and commitment in the block play by preparing an entire curriculum unit that goes around the theme of "Buildings" and including her standards-based objectives and goals for children's knowledge into well-planned building play involvements.

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I believe it is necessary for the teacher set up the environment in order to encourage building play by posting pictures of dissimilar kinds of buildings both aware and unaware to the children; putting up children's illustrations and teacher's pictures of their own buildings; and providing a diversity fiction and non-fiction manuscripts on the theme of building. I noticed that these will did serve to get at children's interest in building and incite debates about diverse methods (amounts, forms, features, building materials) and purposes of buildings. I noticed that by generating an environment that encourages children to build, the teacher will likewise get more children participated in the indoor building play, and will be able to customize for children's necessities and comforts inside the setting of a group subject.

In this project, I noticed that the teacher did bring in a variety of building materials for children to explore as well as diverse sizes, forms, weights, and qualities of blocks. I observed that she was careful when it came to including wooden blocks that came in different shapes and also sizes, which were soft foam blocks, plastic blocks, joining blocks, and other kinds of different shaped types of blocks. However, the greater the diversity of materials that were accessible, the broader the array of children's building experiences will be, and the more material they will have on which to center their generalizations and philosophies regarding building.

Some theoretical perspectives regarding children play was arousal modulation. This theory defines how play just allows the individual children to discover sources of inspiration in order to portray definite information to learn about the world that is around them (Rogoff, 2003). Berlyne (1969), a scholar in this area, guessed that there is a necessity in youngsters' central nervous system that keep arousal at the finest level. The research shows that too much stimulation (seeing an object that is strange) rises arousal to alarmingly high levels, directing children to partake in activities that decrease motivation (for instance, observing an object that is familiar). Lack of motivation decreases stimulation to levels that low. During the observation there was not much of that seen.

However, I did notice and observed more of a met-communicative approach. Children's play is creating when children interrelate among each other in order to create a make-believe type of behavior (Siraj-Blatchford, 2004). I noticed that some of the children were playing make believe. The research shows that when playing make-believe, children are emulating real-life actions. As a result, children learn about (a) the make-believe play with objects, every so habitually forcing reality to obey to their own position. make-believe play and non-playful play actions (Grieshaber, 2008). Play is the metacommunicative (linking the thought events of two individuals and using language to describe the events) perspective of what individuals consider their cultural and personal reality, meaning that play and pretend are important for children's intelligent development.

I also noticed that short periods of time set-aside throughout the day for children to come together are often constructed into the kindergarten program. In a play-based program some of this time will be looked-for individual children and small groups in order to share with the rest of the class what constructing play they have been involved in, to share achievements and tests, and to offer ideas from one another for handling building delays. I noticed in my observation that this was a good time for the teachers to start sharing pictures, drawings, or even real materials. I observed that this was done in order for the children to have some sort of visual props for telling their experiences. Also to demonstrate features of the building play they are talking about verbally.

In conclusion, I believe that it can be understood that play is a lively, child-initiated procedure that aids children's learning during the course of the areas of physical, resourceful, mathematics, linguistic, and reading. I believe that by taking advantage of the extremely likeable nature of children's self-sustained play, and utilizing this as a starting point for a profounder examination of the science ideas involved. Also, teachers are able to generate curriculum units that both assimilate child-centered play and make the most of children's learning during the course of these areas.….....

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