EPISODE 4: LEARNING THROUGH PLAY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
Mags Meyburgh and William Bester
At Michael Mount Waldorf School, Early Childhood spans from 4 months to 6 years, encompassing Baby Care, Play Group, and Nursery School. The children are held in an environment that ignites their imagination and curiosity. With structured activities embedded in meaning, they embrace a harmonious rhythm with nature. It is a haven for fostering imagination, creativity, kindness, and friendship all within a secure and nurturing embrace.
The importance of play in the Waldorf setting
To understand the true value of play is to understand the first developmental stage of the child. From birth to the age of 7, creative play is an innate part of the healthy child that refreshes and enlivens their inner being. In fact, one cannot separate play from learning, for the child’s playful spirit permeates all activity. Children carry a strong impulse to play, explore, and discover the world around them. This is the formative period of childhood, where the focus is on physical growth – to imagine this little baby, and how different it looks to a child ready to go into Primary School. It’s the time of the development of the bodily senses. Subsequently, young children learn through doing and experiencing with their entire physical being, they are a sense organ, just taking everything in – primarily through free play. A child at play is a child at peace.
Our society continues to place an ever-earlier focus on formal academic preparations and technology use. How does Waldorf approach this?
Yes, very young children are exposed to structured academic schedules and activities, videos, apps on tablets, and other forms of enrichment designed to prepare our children for their futures. While organised activities and structures play a notable role in the preparation of our children, initiating formal learning prematurely is detrimental to the child as the many benefits of creative free play and discovery are lost.
Creative play is inextricably linked to physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development in young children and contributes to their overall well-being and grounding in the world. On a physical level, they develop coordination, balance, strength, and many other fine and gross motor skills. It is also through play that children develop a relationship with the natural world.
Through play, children get in touch with their imaginations – an essential part of adaptive intelligence. They have the opportunity to think inventively and creatively, transform the world around them, and develop a strong sense of initiative. Play offers the child a unique opportunity for liberal self-expression, which strengthens their confidence and self-esteem. Children gradually learn to regulate their emotions, that’s the EQ we talk about, and they weave life’s experiences into their play to make sense of things. This allows for the development of innate problem-solving and decision-making skills, as well as resilience in the face of adversity.
Playing with their peers, children develop their social skills – learning to work with others, and practising conflict resolution, negotiation, and cooperation. It is in these interactions that children develop empathy towards others, which they carry with them into adulthood.
How can we then ensure that children play in a way that will be of the most benefit to them?
The full benefits of play can only be nurtured if the type of play is authentic. It has to be free, and it has to be child-directed. If it is presented in a structured manner with an academic agenda, this value is lost. As adults, we often feel compelled to teach our young children in a formal manner, when in actuality, leading by example is of the most value, as the children imitate the adults around them through their play. It is therefore most important that as teachers, we strive to be worthy of imitation, and are mindful of how we carry about our day-to-day tasks.
So how do we encourage this type of play at Michael Mount?
We honour each child’s innate capacity to learn and drive to discover through explorative play with other children, allowing for self-motivated learning through active feeling, touching, exploring, and imitating. This is because it is vital for young children to explore their senses when engaging with the world around them. For this reason, the toys they incorporate into their play in a Waldorf school are sensory, open-ended toys, made of natural, textured materials that enhance the child’s connection to the natural world, awaken their senses, and inspire imagination.
And so, while the rhythm of the school day does of course include time for carefully considered activities and gatherings, the emphasis of our day is on the time to play freely. We gently intervene only when needed or when called upon and support the children to engage with the world around them safely and respectfully. In this way, learning is not compartmentalised but integrated into the healthy, organic development of the child.
Please note that this is not a verbatim transcript and has been re-organised for a pleasant reading experience
