Classroom Implications for Literacy
- Don't cut games out!!
- Allow for free play to expand creative thinking
- Encourage opportunities to pretend and explore
Games with Rules
Group activity that requires agreement on rules and outcome
- Builds emotional maturity, teamwork skills, and cooperation for a common goal
Play-dough Activity!!
Play Theory
Dramatic Play
1. Functional Play
2. Constructive Play
3. Dramatic (pretend) Play
4. Games with Rules
Uses imagination to
"make-believe"
- Develops curiosity
- Builds empathetic thinking, moral reasoning
- Relies on remembrance of past events & character details
Story acting, event reenactment, simulated journals
Functional Play
Physical characteristics
of objects
- Develops imagination and builds learning motivation
Raking sand, pegboards,
floating objects
Constructive Play
Smilansky's Background
Building items using
other materials
- Expands abstract thinking, process-oriented learning
Block towers, sand castles, homemade birthday cards
- Very little information available
- Born in Jerusalem, Israel- 1922
- Child psychologist and researcher
- Studied children in United States & Israel
Body of Work
- Twins and their development: The roles of family and
school- 1992
Children of divorce: The roles of family and school- 1992
- Facilitating play: A medium for promoting cognitive, socio-emotional and academic development- 1990
- Clay in the classroom: Helping children develop cognitive and affective skills for learning-1988
- On death: Helping children understand and cope- 1987
- The effects of socio-dramatic play on disadvantaged preschool children- 1968
Meet the Theorist-
Sara Smilansky