On learning through playing...

I remember kindergarten, back in 1992. It was incredible. I remember meeting my best friend Cassie, at a short table covered in books near the front of the room; we were both really shy. I remember stations, reading books, making things all the time, and being very aware that Mrs. Kranz loved patterns. I remember Mrs. Kranz’s perfect handwriting, and deciding that ‘e’ was the most cheerful-looking letter in the alphabet. I remember one time marching around the room in a single-file line to the record player, and trying to improvise movements that went with the music. I remember feeling really awkward about it.

We had a class stuffed animal dog named Sunshine, which happened to be the exact same stuffed animal as my beloved Bitsy at home. Every day we sang, “You are my sunshine—my only sunshine. You make me happy—when skies are grey. You’ll never know dear—how much I love you. So please don’t take—my sunshine away.” Throughout the year, every kid in the class got to take Sunshine home for a weekend. He came with a journal. It was a collection of all the adventures he had with the students of our class. Each child (with the help of a parent) would write about what they had done over the weekend together. Every Monday we all got the latest update of the journal through this shared reading experience. We were creating our own current events, and keeping up with them through literacy—which allows all children to learn and participate.

If you had asked me when I was six, if I thought of these daily experiences as “learning,” I would probably have laughed. We were just having fun! Looking back, I see the many opportunities for growth in each of these activities. In her book Playing Their Way into Literacies: Reading, Writing, and Belonging in the Early Childhood Classroom, Dr. Wohlwend describes a kindergarten class where children “continually select from a range of choices to map out a unique learning path for themselves each day.” Kindergarten is a crucial, transitional year for young children—a year that can be described as an apprenticeship to becoming a student.

Children learn and discover through play practices when they make decisions, use what they know, work with others, communicate, and approximate different tasks, like reading, writing, and even teaching. As teachers and parents, it is important that we recognize the significance of play-based learning and encourage children’s enthusiasm to do so. Through playing, students can independently transform an idea into action, a story into a performance, and fifteen minutes into a wonderland of learning opportunities.