In my 53 years, being a child, teenager, adult, sister, teacher coach, play has been central to everything I enjoy. I have had my most inspiring moments of learning when I have been involved in play or leading through play. Whether this has been inventing games with my friends on the street, growing up next to the Vetch Field along Swansea Bay or adult led experiences through teaching and coaching.
Psychiatrist and founder of the National Institute for Play, Stuart Brown, defines play as “a state of mind that one has when absorbed in an activity that provides enjoyment and a suspension of sense of time. The joy of being lost in a moment of catharsis and being self-motivated, so you want to do it repeatedly.” In Brown’s view, “play is an essential ingredient for our overall well-being and growth as human beings.”
The focus for today is to discuss how can we use the four types of play to help structure and develop positive and meaningful relationships with our players, as they enter the world of wonder of physical literacy and social interaction, in our sessions.
The four types of play are: physical, social, imaginative and object. So how can we bring these to life when delivering sessions? How can we use them to enrich and develop different attributes amongst our children as they continue their growth and access to games, activities, and sports? We know through play children can:
- learn more effectively combining earlier learning
- expand their use of language and communication with others
- gain confidence in their body and what it is capable of doing
- be capable of imaginative thoughts and ideas
So, how can we use our wizarding ways to bring our sessions to life and encourage our children to return and play the games repeatedly.
Physical Play
This involves encouraging children to run, jump, twist, turn, balance, hop, skip, roll, stop, start, change direction and combinations of all these things to ensure they experience a wide range of movement challenges.
This is where your motivation and enthusiasm are key. It is also a great opportunity to develop the children’s listening and thinking skills as they copy your movements. For example, using your role as Captain and shouting… ‘Captain says… run, Captain says hop, Captain says run in the area whilst balancing a dome cone on your head’, can help and also be great fun for all! As you begin to develop their physical literacy and ability to stop and start without colliding it may then be an opportunity to have the children take ownership for leading some of the physical play actions. Examples could be jumping through a hoop with a partner following you, games of tag where they must invade a zone without being tagged by the tagger causing them to twist, dodge/feint, stop or start as they travel from one area to another. You could even bring in imaginative play here as to who they are, who they are chasing and why they are balancing on one leg or jumping into a zone. Examples could be a rabbit jumping into a warren or a deep-sea diver recovering treasure or travelling to the other side of a wood/forest with the possibility of being chased. As you develop an understanding of your group you can start to bring in a degree of competition but always remember to give some positive reinforcement to the players who didn’t finish first with comments like “I also loved the way you moved with the (puppy) ball you were really careful to keep it close and not let it run away”.
Social Play
This involves encouraging children to work together, encourage, help, collaborate to achieve a shared goal, discuss, question, and share ideas and thoughts.
This is a vital aspect for any session. You can develop your children’s social skills through the way you structure your activities. In a simple game of tag for example you could have a team of two who work together to tag everyone in a given time. To do this they must collaborate, communicate and share ideas. Its important to always let them have a second go at things after they have shared what they think worked or could be better, so they have time to put their new ideas into practice. A game of tag teaches emotional resilience, critical thinking and social skills and helps kids build physical skills like coordination, gross motor skills and balance. Tag is also a good way for kids to learn self-control and how to communicate effectively with a team-mate, especially when they are in small zones e.g. two parallel games with a 4 v 2 in each. If your focus is more around communication, you could also design the game so it’s more directional with taggers in the central zone stopping players from rescuing their partners from their captivity. Here players could evade the taggers and tag their partners by touching their shoulder and shouting ‘my friend is free!’. Social play can also be developed through mirroring and copying games especially when facing each other. One of my favourites is SCOOP where they face each other and have to respond to commands of hop, jump, balance and on scoop they have to snatch the cone from the floor before their partner. This can be led by the adult or a third player to rotate around.
Imaginative Play
This involves encouraging children to: generate ideas, try them out, mimic others, enter new and exciting worlds, suspend their disbelief, use their imagination as only children can.
When I was thrown into the deep end to run a session with reception children, I very quickly realised imaginative play is how you encourage the love of movement and healthy relationships for every child. What turned out to be the session I felt most vulnerable to deliver became my highlight of every week. It truly is a wonderful moment when you see the four-to-six-year-olds and fellow coaches eyes light up as I conjured a new setting every week to explore and investigate new adventures through the themes the children would love. One week we would be aliens jumping into hoops or the next we would be exploring the rainforest as we jumped on spots to avoid falling into streams. You could also be penguins going on a journey through a Penguin Valley to take your egg to safety, avoiding seals, icebergs, lost polar bears…the fun never ends!
Object Play
This involves encouraging children to: throw, catch, manipulate, touch, feel, balance and bounce as their fine and gross motor skills are challenged in different ways using different objects.
Using lots of other objects and equipment is a great way to introduce this form of play. This does not mean you have to find a huge budget to source different equipment it is when you have to let your imagination take control. A dome cone can be a great thing for developing object play especially when you have to twist it over changing it from a volcano to an upside-down cone crater. Asking children to work in an area where they race against half of the group to turn as many over as possible is a great way to develop their control. These cones can also be used to try to catch bibs being thrown at a target. You can tie them in a knot with a tail which will also allow the players to develop their traction to achieve a successful throw and catch. Again, another great thing can be to try and roll a football to a partner through a gate with different types of actions: pushing with palms of hand, bowling like a ten-pin bowling bowl, with different parts of their foot, sole instep, toes, etc.
Just as a cook will mix and match ingredients to serve up the best fuel to feed the appetites of those hungry, a Captain of Play can mix, match, intertwine the ingredients of play. They can unearth an environment where all children can experience the freedom of creativity, love of movement, friendship and fun whilst simultaneously developing the attribute’s and characteristic’s that will help them with physical activities, movement and developing relationships. It also allows them to be creative, skilful and able to have the confidence to try different ways of doing things.
Do you have any further ideas or examples of any of the types of play? If so please share with the community below.
Further resources to support:
https://learn.englandfootball.com/courses/football/play-phase
https://thegeniusofplay.org/genius/play-ideas-tips/play-ideas/emotional-animals.aspx
https://learn.englandfootball.com/courses/PHYSICAL-EDUCATION/disney-inspired-shooting-stars