The Beginning

                This blog has been started by five kindergarten teachers after we were awarded a grant to study mature play.  It’s not often that we have the opportunity to get free money for doing research about a topic we are already interested in.

The goal of our study is …

Play-based learning is essential to early learners, particularly in kindergarten.  Playing allows students to become independent learners through play-based activities.  Unfortunately many students are not able to play in a mature way; that is they are not able to create scenarios using substitution, often end up repeating the same actions over and over again and/or resort to aggressive actions during their play.  Children must develop a mature way of playing and interacting with objects if they are going to develop cognitive tools which allow them to develop higher levels of thinking. 

Our goal is to enable students to develop mature play so they can fully benefit from play-based learning.  The districts strategic plan aims for students to be engaged in their learning.  Kindergarten students will have an easier time being engaged when they are able to progress in their learning as they play.  If children are playing in a mature way they are able to plan their own activities, develop language skills, solve problems and become self-motivated learners.

This grant would enable us to develop strategies to help kindergarten children become mature learners.  These strategies could be used by other teachers to help their students as well. 

As we are doing research in our classrooms we will post things here to keep an account of what we are learning.  Three of us are taking a graduate diploma (Learning in the Early Years) in advanced professional studies through Simon Fraser University and our district.  

 http://www.educ.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/education/gs/fieldprograms/grad-diplopma/Program-Information/LTE%20Coq%20bro.pdf