Play Training With the Tools of Children

Here we go again, another school year is in play. Play is one of the key words to our success as early childhood educators. At Kodo, we’ve been delivering play training to programs that serve infants through pre-kindergarteners. Our focus is on increasing teacher’s capacities to engage children, be more intentional with environment, and increase the quality of interactions with young children. In these trainings we spend some time at play. We are finding that most of the participants are rarely (or never) given time to play with the very materials they use daily to support their teaching. I’m not sure how a great chef could ever create something uniquely wonderful if no time were spent playing with the combinations of ingredients, temperature, time, quantities, seasonings and so on. Yet we, in the teaching profession spend virtually no time to experience, experiment and play with the materials we have in our classrooms. When we play, we learn just as our children do. When we engage in high quality play, we learn even more, just as our children do. Play gives us opportunity to practice observation, documentation and facilitation skills. So, I politely suggest that we all set aside a little time to play during our classroom set-ups or inservice days. The experience will benefit everyone’s practice- especially our children’s. To learn more about our training offerings, click here!