Learning through play

By observing a child during play we can access a child's knowledge and skills to determine how a child learns best so we can give them the needs they acquire to progress.
Dramatic play helps the child play with their language and make stories through role play relating to real life situations.
By leaving a box of costumes in the dramatic area, the children  can get into a character costume and start building on their imagination while also exploring different outcomes and realities of real life situations.
They also develop their communication through cooperation with other children and build their confidence at the same time.
By acting out different scenarios the are understanding and learning what things are, such as certain names for different furniture or names of different occupations.
For example, in a restaurant scene, they can practice taking orders which develops self esteem and communication skills, they deal with money handling and quantity of items they might order. They learn to respect others, express personality and help to tidy up at the end of a session.
Role play is not the only play children learn from. Children learn through their senses which brings me on to sand play and water play. Children love to touch things simply because they like to feel the different textures. I think sand and water in schools is a brilliant way to learn because there is so much you can do with them. It is like a science lesson through play. It lets the children see smooth sand change to a damp sand castle by adding water. They can learn measurements of water or the weight of sand before and after it has been added to water and its hands on messy fun.

Vygotsky is a theorist that believed in learning through play. He believed children could construct their own knowledge and understanding by socialising and interacting with other learners in a fun and interesting environment. Society is the main reason for learning  through play because tools have been created and introduced in schools such as maps, letters, symbols, numbers, tables and models.
'The child's knowledge is co-constructed through social interaction' so their 'word bank' is progressively built on through play by using words such as "more", "stop", "again".
The more they use these words, especially in role play, the will develop their imagination and communication and start to use this intrinsically. This will develop independently. Thy realise and understand what they have experienced with others and make a mental map. I agree with Vygotsky's theory because without anything from society to process and map in their mind, how are they to think of these things and know what to do with the information. By learning through play they are practicing what they have learnt applying it to other sociological situations.

"The child is a collaborative learner, not a lone scientist", quote from Lev Vygotsky.