Play helps children to engage and interact with the world around them. We present you with a well-researched presentation explaining the role of play in early childhood.

1. Children and Play: Role of Play
in Early Childhood

2. Play in Early Childhood
● Play for a child is a natural,
entertaining and a rewarding
activity.
● Play contributes to the cognitive,
physical and social well-being of
children.
● Children learn important life skills
through play.

3. Types of Play and
their role in Child
Development

4. Large-Motor Play
● In this play child uses it’s big
muscles while playing slide, swing
or engage in every type of
movement possible.
● Large-Motor play develops
coordination, balance and sense of
one’s body in the space around it.

5. Fine-Motor Play
● Children play with small toys.
● Children indulge in activities like
playing with puzzles and sorting
objects etc.
● This type of play develops
dexterity.

6. Mastery Play
● Children repeat an action in
play and continue until they
master it.
● Example: Making a paper boat.
● This play helps in the
development of executive
functioning skills.

7. Rules-based Play
● Children play with others
conforming to a structure of
preset rules.
● They enjoy the challenge of
making their own rules and
negotiating involved in adapting
the rules for each play situation.

8. Constructive Play
● Children learn to use different
materials, put things together
and use strategies for reaching
their goal.
● Example: Playing with blocks or
lego pieces.
● This play requires skill and
imagination.

9. Pretend Play
● This play incorporates many
other play types.
● Pretend play is rich with language,
problem-solving and imagination.
● Children take on a role, pretend to
be someone else and use real or
objects to play out a role around it.

10. Symbolic Play
● Children take an object at
hand and convert it into toy
they need through fluid process.
● Symbolic play requires fantasy
and imagination.

11. ● Children develop mastery by playing
with words, rhymes and songs.
● They tell stories and dramatize them.
● They are fascinated by foreign
languages, especially when they are
presented playfully in story, verse, or
song.
Language Play

12. Arts & Play
● Children integrate all forms
of art into their play.
● They use materials at hand to
draw, model, create music and
perform puppet show and so on.
● They explore art forms to express
their feelings and ideas.

13. Sensory Play
● Children enjoy playing with
dirt, sand, mud, water and
other materials with different
textures.
● Sensory play develops their senses.

14. ● This involves physically vigorous
behaviour, such as wrestling, falling
and chasing.
● This allows a child understand the
limits of their own strength.
● Parents should look at ways of
making this type of play safe and
socially acceptable, rather than
dissuading it completely.
Rough and Tumble Play

15. Risk-taking Play
● Children extend their abilities
through risky play.
● They know how far they can go
without hurting themselves.
● Parents need to allow their children
for some risk-taking play as it has an
important role in child development.

16. To Play is
To Learn

17. What role does Play have in Child Development?
● Play is important to a child’s healthy
brain development.
● Play allows children to express, and
learn about feelings.
● Parents can improve their relationships
with their children by learning how to
play with them in a specific way using
selected toys.
● Independence and emotional resilience
of a child can improve through play.

18. Consequences of Play deprivation on Children
● Increased depression
● Diminished impulse control
● Self-regulation
● Increased addictive tendency
● Fragility
● Shallowness of enduring
interpersonal relationships

19. Note to Parents
● Parents should remember that play for children are activities that are
freely chosen and directed by children.
● This kind of play is critical for children’s overall development and is
most endangered by current early childhood education
methodologies.
● Free play is not directed or controlled by parents. But sometimes,
parents need to intervene to redirect them from a destructive play.
● A wise parent should step back as soon as they sense that the children
can carry the play on their own.

20. “It is a happy talent
to know how to play.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

21. Thank You!
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Also, read more about role of play in
early childhood here.