Learning through Play
A baby swipes the air with a fisted hand, gurgling to the fairies. A little girl giggles at her own shadow. A little boy laughs with an old friend that only he can see. Welcome to a child’s world.
Our children’s imagination is boundless. Children play in their heads from infancy to toddlerhood. It would seem that there is a little drama going on in there which they are play acting out. Observe your toddler or pre-schooler at play. They would often pretend to be someone else or something else. It is normal to hear them having conversations or being engaged in dramatic dialogue with an invisible actor.
Dramatic Play—what is it?
Dramatic play is a kind of play that young children—toddlers to primary-schoolers—engage in where they are given a role and act it out. A child could play the part of a pirate or a dragon. Boys would tend to be inclined towards superheroes and girls towards princesses. But you can encourage them to switch roles so that children learn to appreciate experiences and roles without conforming to gender stereotypes. Role-playing helps the child to break down the barriers between what is real and what is not. At that age, children are still learning about this tenuous line demarcating the real world from the imagined one. They are at the stage when they still dare to dip their toes into the wonderful world of magic, mysticism, and lore.
When a child enters school, dramatic play forms part of their learning journeys. Dramatic play is a pedagogical approach that all pre-schools, elementary or primary schools use to teach soft skills, language skills, and physical skills, like gross and fine motor skills.
Dramatic Play—what are some examples?
• A little girl puts on a pair of shimmery red shoes and drapes herself with her mother’s silk scarf. She is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. She is going to find Tin Man’s heart.
• A little boy takes out his tool kit. There is a house that needs building. He puts some cardboard together he knocks some nails in. He is Bob the Builder and is constructing his first house.
• A child is setting the table. She is Mrs. Wobbles, the Waitress. But instead of wobbling like the character in this Janet and Allan Ahlberg story, the child decides to solve the problem of the wobbling jelly.
The examples above are how children engage in dramatic play. They may not be play-acting the specific characters mentioned in the examples. But for many children, these are familiar people they would have come to know through various media: movies, TV, and books.
While play-acting, children are developing their cognitive skills. When they are make-believing, children translate into action their lived experiences which they see as a sequence of mental pictures. This helps in developing abstract thinking skills.
Dramatic Play—what does a child learn?
A child learns all the necessary soft skills when they engage in dramatic play. These include communication skills, relational skills, and interpersonal skills. Children do not always play alone. When they go on playdates, they will play with their friends, which often involves dramatic play. Observe your child during a play session with their friends. Do you see that:
• they are communicating—negotiating who will play what role and what the role entails;
• they are relating—they may take turns to play one role and swapping that role over with their friend; or
• they may make up a dialogue—this encourages the development of expressive language.
Dramatic Play—what to do at home?
Your home is the safest place to nurture your child’s natural curiosity and ability to play-act and their innate propensity to make-believe. Here are three things you could do:
• Set the stage: find a corner in your living room or one in your child’s room to put all their stage items away. This could include old clothes, sarongs, costumes, feathered boas, hats, and scarves. You could add an umbrella, a walking stick, or some tools and cooking utensils.
• Set the environment: make your home the stage. Give your children permission to build a dam with cushions, make a tent under the dining table or scale a mountain using the sofa.
• Set the script: encourage them by giving them a role to play: Today, you’re a princess—what would a princess do? Today, you’re a monkey—what would a monkey say? Today, you’re a pirate—what treasures will you find?
Dramatic Play—what you can do to build empathy?
Encourage your child to invite a friend or two home. Help them build a theatre at home by assigning each friend a role.
You could thematize your child’s playdate: children love pirate and dragon-themed parties or playdates.
Help them pretend or try to be someone or something else.
By pretending or trying out a role, children learn to use their imaginations to step into the shoes of someone else. That is how empathy can be developed. Not only will they walk in someone else’s shoes but they will learn to relate to that person’s feelings.
Dramatic play is an important play. As art mirrors life, theatre mirrors reality. This is the child’s world, and it is also the real world. As children engage in dramatic play, they are not only learning about their inner worlds; they are simultaneously learning about the wider world around them. Dramatic play helps our children understand the real world while it also helps them develop their skills, paving the way for them to be successful citizens of the world.