The Important Role of Play in Education

Recognizing multiple benefits of play for children.

Children play as a natural tendency. Children, especially young children, explore their world through play. Maybe it is because play is (or used to be) so common for children, that many people have overlooked the critical role that play has in their education and development.  

Over the past few decades, American children have been given fewer and fewer opportunities for play, especially opportunities for free unstructured play. This has come with a host of negative physical, mental health, social-emotional, academic and developmental consequence for kids. The negative consequences of this shift away from play have highlighted how important play actually is for children.  

At Upper Valley Waldorf School, we recognize the important role that play has in the healthy development of children. That is why we incorporate play for all children into our school day and throughout our curriculum. 

The Physical Health Benefits of Play 

Children have more energy than endurance athletes. That is a head turning finding from a recent study, especially when you consider that our current education system is increasingly demanding that children sit still and do academic work earlier and earlier, with fewer and fewer opportunities for movement and outdoor play.   

One of the problems with this change is that outdoor play is actually very important for children’s physical development, as they develop their sensory and fine motor skills. This is especially true in preschool, where the work children do in developing fine motor skills through play has strong cognitive benefits later on.  

The shift away from play-based to academic-based preschool and kindergarten programs has also led to a rapid rise in the need for occupational therapy within schools. Another sign of this shift is the increase in children with core strength and balance issues, as compared to previous generations of children.  

Physical activity is also very important in preventing obesity, heart disease, and other related health issues. That is why movement and outdoor play is so important throughout our curriculum at the Upper Valley Waldorf School, especially in Early Childhood, Kindergarten and the early grades. Building in free unstructured play time outside in nature into the curriculum allows children to run and jump and climb and use their bodies and expend some of that energy, and grow and develop physically in a healthy way.   

A further benefit of outdoor play is that it helps children develop healthy sleep patterns and fall asleep more easily at night. All of these physical benefits of play allow children to develop into strong, balanced young people, who are more agile, confident and comfortable in their own bodies.  

The Mental Health Benefits of Play  

A core mental health benefit of play is that it reduces stress, and builds resilience. That is true of both indoor and outdoor play, however, there are even more mental health benefits for children in spending time outdoors in nature.  

This is especially important right now, as there has been a shocking rise in anxiety and depression amongst children and adolescents since the 1950’s. A major contributing factor, according to psychology professor Peter Gray, is the parallel decline in children’s access to free play.  A key reason for that, Professor Gray argues, is that free play is “the means by which children learn to solve their own problems, control their own lives, develop their own interests, and become competent in pursuit of their own interests.”  

If children don’t feel like they have any ability to solve their own problems, or have control of themselves, or any control over their own lives, that can lead to increased stress and anxiety. When children are able to engage in free play, they learn to solve problems, navigate their world, and navigate social situations with their peers. These experiences empower children, helping them feel confident in their own abilities, and more in control of themselves and their lives, which protects against feelings of helplessness, anxiety and depression.  

Play and Social-Emotional Development  

Social-emotional development is a key part of growing up, and a very important set of skills for children to develop, as they will need these skills to be happy and successful academically, socially, and in the workplace. Play, particularly outdoor play with other children, is a place where children develop and practice these important skills.  

These unstructured play times are critically important for students to figure out for themselves, and with each other, how to cooperate, how to share, how to deal with conflict, and how their behavior and the behavior of others impacts the group. Through the games they play together, they learn to create and follow rules, which helps them learn self-regulation. They are able to learn about their own strengths and challenges. They also learn how to manage their emotions and behaviors to achieve personal or group goals, as self-directed play gives them opportunities to work through and overcome feelings of fear or anger.  

Through play, they learn to make friends, to share their ideas, and express their feelings. They learn to listen to each other, see things from another child’s perspective, compromise, understand social cues, and empathize with other children’s feelings. Play even restructures our brains towards pro-social behavior.   

Imaginative play is especially important for allowing children to take on different characters and roles, and be able to imagine what it is like to be another person, and how that person might experience the world, developing important empathy skills along the way. Play is such an important part of socialization and mental and emotional well-being that the U.K government is recommending that schools prioritize play when students return to school. They recommend schools do this specifically to help children re-socialize and process the stress and mental health challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Play, Imagination and Creativity 

Play is very important for nurturing children’s creativity. It allows them to use and strengthen their imagination by inventing rules for a game, or taking an object like a rock or a stick and pretending that it is something completely different.  

Play, especially outdoor play, provides lots of opportunities for children to use their imaginations, and develop their problem solving skills. “How can I make this stump into a fairy house? What is the best place to hide when playing hide and go seek? What would it be like to be a pirate? What materials can we use to build a fort?” These are the kinds of questions children at play might think about, developing their imagination, creative thinking, and empathy.   

There are also ways that schools (and parents!) can ensure that playtime benefits the imagination and creativity of the child. One way that we do that at Waldorf Schools in early childhood and kindergarten is in the way we set up the play environments and choose the toys available to children.  

Waldorf toys and play materials are designed to be simple and open ended, so that children can use them in multiple ways, using their imagination to self-direct their own play. Dolls in our kindergarten, for example, purposely don’t have very detailed facial features, because we want to encourage the children to use their own imaginations. We also focus on providing toys and play spaces using natural materials. Research on the benefits of play show sharply higher benefits from non-digital toys and play materials.  

We also prioritize outdoor play. Our early childhood and kindergarten students spend much of their day outside, and our grade school students have two outdoor recess periods during their academic day. The fields and the gardens of our 4 acre campus and the 10 acres of adjacent forest provide playgrounds for children that have an abundance of opportunities for discovery, creative use of natural materials, and imaginative play.  

Scientists have recently dug deeper into why time spent out in nature has been shown to increase creativity. One reason is that it allows us to rest important parts of our brains, which are often overtaxed, leading to distractedness and cognitive fatigue. Resting this part of the brain by spending time in nature allows us to refocus, think deeply, and come up with innovative ideas.   

This interplay of time in nature and time in the classroom gives children a balance of mental exertion and rest, and helps their creativity and focus. This helps keep school a low stress, low anxiety experience for children, allowing them to enjoy school and develop a lifelong love of learning.

The Role of Play in Executive Function and Confidence Building 

Executive Function is the part of the brain that allow us to “plan, prioritize, troubleshoot and negotiate,” as well as “focus our attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully.” These are skills that are really important for children to develop, as they are critical to future success in the classroom, workplace, and beyond.  

Outdoor free play is an important way for children to develop these executive function skills by enhancing cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control and working memory. One of the key reasons that play is so important for developing these skills is that it gives kids lots and lots of opportunities to practice them.  

Self-directed play in nature promotes cognitive flexibility by exposing children to a variety of different natural objects (plants, minerals, animals) and settings that they can explore, and that engage their curiosity.  

Self-directed play builds cognitive flexibility precisely because it is so varied! Children learn to be adaptable and creative by engaging in many different kinds of play, and involving the many objects and settings that the natural world provides. In that way, free play more realistically mirrors life after school, preparing children to navigate varied and unpredictable situations.  

Another key benefit of free outdoor play is that children learn to take healthy risks, and develop their self-confidence. Although it is tempting as parents and teachers to shield children from risks of all kinds, it’s actually critically important to their development that they be allowed to take some risks, especially the basic minor risks (running, jumping, climbing) that are part of playing outdoors.  

This is how children “learn to manage, control, and even overcome their fears.” Those risks are part of how they learn to manage their emotions, and learn to overcome fear and self-doubt, by (gently) testing their physical boundaries. Interestingly, letting kids take risks in free outdoor play actually makes them safer and more resilient in the long term, by sharpening their senses, strengthening their bodies, and helping them understanding their limits.  

Outdoor play gives kids a safe environment to make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes, helping them develop determination and confidence in their own abilities. The end result is that kids with access to regular self-directed outdoor play are more confident, more entrepreneurial, and more in control of themselves, their bodies, and their emotions.  

The Academic Benefits of Play 

Play is a critical part of a child’s education, especially in the early years. Our play-based approach to early childhood and kindergarten is a recognition that through play, children are doing incredibly important work, learning about being in their bodies, and cooperating with other children.  

Additionally, so many of the executive function, social and emotional skills, and self-regulation that children need to develop to even be able to start to successfully do academic work as they get older are best learned through play in the early years. As students grow older, play continues to be valuable, as a way for them to refresh, rest important parts of their brain, reset, and be able to renew their focus when they return to the classroom.  

There is also a direct link between physical activity and children’s academic performance, with a recent study showing students who were physically active were much more likely to show gains in reading and math than peers who moved less. This study reinforces that children, especially younger children, need to move to be able to learn! A curriculum that incorporates play and outdoor time helps students of all ages have a joyful and balanced experience of school, which helps nurture their natural curiosity and kindle their love of learning.  

A thoughtful and developmental approach to the inclusion of play throughout the curriculum and school day can help children avoid many of the physical, and behavioral and mental health issues that too many children are experiencing these days. It gives them skills that will serve them well into the future.  

Regular access to free play from early childhood through 8th grade is also critically important for children to learn the adaptability, creative thinking, problem solving, empathy, collaborative skills that are very much in demand in the workplace.  These skills are important both now, and in the future as the nature of work changes in response to automation and artificial intelligence.  

Our approach to free play and its incorporation into our curriculum help students grow into adults that are independent, happy, creative, kind, confident, resilient, and determined. With those qualities, we know that our graduates will succeed at anything they decide to take on.