Six Ways to Translate Play-Based Learning for Our Families

10/25/2022

Six Ways to Translate Play-Based Learning for Our Families

Children everywhere, when they are free to do so and have plenty of playmates, spend enormous amounts of time playing. They play to have fun, not deliberately to educate themselves, but education is the side effect for which the strong drive to play evolved.
Peter Gray, Psychologist

“The onus falls onto the teacher to translate the play that is occurring on a daily basis into the learning concepts for which families are searching. Making learning visible to parents and families is a vital component in ensuring the articulation of play as learning,” writes Holly Delgado in the article at the root of the Out of the Box training “Translating Play-Based Learning for Families.”

Delgado offers these six strategies for helping families see the valuable learning that occurs through play:

Ensure documentation is high-quality.
Take a strengths-based perspective
Make a direct connection to learning
Engage in ongoing data sharing
Reuse assessment documentation in other ways
Provide extension activities

As an example of extension activities, Delgado suggests, “Provide ideas for developmentally appropriate, low- or no-cost activities that are easy to implement within the context of a family’s daily routine. For example, alphabetic knowledge can be built into trips to the grocery store or on a walk through the neighborhood as children and families search out environmental print.”

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