As a parent or guardian, you probably love to watch and hear your child playing.
From the endless laughter to the way they use their imagination to create entire new worlds, playtime is essential for a child’s cognitive development and emotional wellbeing – especially between birth and eight years old. During these formative years, children learn and adapt at an accelerated pace, cementing the foundations of important skills – like critical thinking, social interactions, and problem-solving – that will be useful throughout their life.
Let’s take a look at some of the specific ways in which education and entertainment come together to help a child’s development process as they become a more well-rounded and successful individual.
The benefits of “learning through play”
The great thing about “learning through play” is that it takes many shapes and forms. There is no one correct way to do it, which means the concept can be applied to different situations and scenarios.
And although children aren’t actively aware that they’re learning something new as they embark on a playtime adventure, there’s no doubt about the benefits of playing as a powerful learning tool.
In its essence, different types of play can help children learn about essential skills like…
- Critical thinking: getting creative with blocks, solving puzzles and brain teasers, finding real solutions to pretend problems, playing with riddles.
- Planning & following directions: painting a portrait, building a structure, hide & seek, “Simon says…”
- Refined motor skills: bead threading, pasta necklaces, sorting pebbles, finger painting.
- Social interaction & teamwork: relay races, tower-building, charades, scavenger hunts.
The examples outlined above are great real-world experiences that you and your child – or your child and their friends – can enjoy together as a means to learn and practice certain skills.
However, they’re not the only ones….
When education meets entertainment
In today’s environment, young children are a lot more connected with technology and digital platforms than most of us ever were. And as more of them get online to consume content designed for children, it’s no surprise that “learning through play” has evolved just the same.
With Club Mundo Kids, we try to make “learning through play” a virtual- and global – experience.
We’re constantly encouraging kids to send us questions for our special experts to answer on screen. We also try out different experiments and outdoor activities we suggest our audience try at home. And most importantly, we hope our audience is inspired to create their own Club to learn and play in at home!
We’re always looking for new ways to bridge the gap between entertainment and education to show children how fun and exciting it can be to learn something new in a variety of formats.
What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of ”learning through play”? Let’s talk about the process in the comments 🥎