SPARKING CURIOSITY

PLAY BASED LEARNING & CHILD LED LEARNING

“Play based learning” often get confusing because the wording insinuates what many of us grew up hearing in traditional school as “free play” time. To clarify, “free play” in a traditional school setting is time often set aside to reward students for completing desk work/paper work and/or behaving well in class, whereas play based learning is a child initiated learning experience carefully guided by the teachers to expand on their curiosity. 

At Hugs & Bugs Club, we believe it is a child’s right to play and through play our children learn and expand on their curiosities. There are many studies showing the great benefits of play based learning and how social and emotional development is key to success in life. These studies also show that teaching material that is not age and developmentally appropriate is counterproductive, it actually hinders learning, therefore our teachers observe and listen to our children in order to support their learning and encourage their curiosities. 

With our play based learning approach, our children are eager to learn and feel supported in their learning experience. We engage in many activities which branch off into more activities, reinforcing number recognition, literacy, math skills, and sensory play experiences with our students' curiosity being the impetus for our teachers to keep building on their learning experiences. Furthermore, these activities continue to support their emotional and social development. 

All of these thoughtful activities in a play based school environment improves play skills, narrative language ability and grammar acquisition, positive self thinking, and encourages our students to think critically and solve problems. Furthermore, research shows that play based learning programs can provide a strong basis for later success at school. They support the development of socially competent learners, able to self regulate as well as face challenges and create solutions with a growth mindset. 

At Hugs & Bugs Club, we are focusing on the whole child learning in an organic way so they approach learning from a place of freedom and fun rather than a chore to complete and then get to play. Learning should be fun and engaging. It should spark their curiosity to learn more. It is here where they begin their learning experience in a positive and loving way. 

As you can tell, we are passionate about children enjoying childhood, all children being respected and honored as capable and curious beings that we can all learn from and the play based approach to education, when taught with the individual child in mind, rather than a statistic. I’m going to end here quoting Sir Ken Robinson, “The role of a teacher is to facilitate learning” which I hope you all see the teachers beautifully accomplishing each day with your children. Also, a “principle that drives human life flourishing is curiosity. If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child, they will learn without further assistance, very often. Children are natural learners.” Yes they are! 

If you’re interested in watching the TED talk from which these quotes were taken, please do check it out. He has a few and each one is incredibly eye opening. 

Also, here are two articles with linked studies that are quite interesting to read: 

Kate Stringer, A New Push for Play-Based Learning: Why Districts Say It’s Leading to More Engaged Students, Collaborative Classmates … and Better Grades

Peter Gray, PhD, Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm