beyond the playroom
what is purposeful play?
We all know about the importance of play in the life a child, but what exactly is purposeful play? Isn’t all play purposeful and good? Is my child playing wrong?!?!
Well, the answer is NO-your child is not playing wrong and YES most play is good and serves some kind of purpose. Let’s take a closer look.
Say for example, you peeked into your child’s play space and they were throwing magnetic letters across the room. Let’s be honest-we have all seen this happen at some point!
Now, does that kind of play have purpose?
One could argue that yes, it is serving a purpose. Your child is strengthening their gross motor skills and probably getting out a fair amount of energy from chucking letters across the room.
But is it ideal? No…definitely not.
So, how could we turn this type of play into something more purposeful? Something that teaches developmentally appropriate learning objectives? How could this be turned into Purposeful Play?
Well, what if we grabbed a big bucket or a large pot from the kitchen. We could then ask our child to throw the letters into the bucket. The catch is they would first need to say the name of the letter and the sound it makes before they could throw it.
If your child is older and already knows letter and sound names-you could extend the activity by making it more challenging. You could challenge your child to spell out words. For example you could ask them to spell out “house”. They would need to throw each letter in the correct order into the bucket. Once they got all the correct letters into the bucket they could retrieve the letters and try a new word.
Now their play has a great deal of purpose. Their play went from questionably purposeful and definitely destructive to absolutely purposeful. Not only is your child getting to strengthen their throwing and aiming skills, but they are also working on letter, sound and word recognition all while getting out loads of energy!
That is the difference between play and purposeful play. Purposeful play is focused play that actively seeks to strengthen a child’s developmental growth.
As parents we play a large part in guiding our children into purposeful play. There are many things we can do to encourage this type of in-depth play. Below I will cover four things you can do to promote purposeful play at home.
- Provide an organized play space with purposeful play materials
- Be in tune with your child
- Look for teachable moments
- Extend your child's learning
purposeful play
How to engage your child in purposeful play
Provide a Purposeful Play Space
Creating an organized play space for your child is a key component to purposeful play. A designated, organized space to play allows for your child to feel grounded and secure and allows them to become fully immersed in their play.
A play space does not need to be big or fancy. It just needs to be a designated space in your home where your child’s play materials are kept in an organized way.
Check out my Step by Step Guide to Creating an Organized Play Space.
Be in Tune With Your Child
An important component to providing purposeful play opportunities, is to be engaged and in tune with your child. Take notice of their interests, what delights them, and what causes them frustration. Think about where they are developmentally. What have they learned already. What are they ready to learn?
It's important to know where your child is in order to know where you want to guide them.
