What is Mature Play?

Defining mature play is probably the best way to start this study so we know what we are striving for.  For months I have been reading about how to encourage mature play, what to have in the class to encourage mature play and why mature play is important.  The info that follows is a compilation of readings, things I learnt in my class or my own thoughts.  I will provide a reading list at the end. 

 

There is a list in my text (Play at the Center of the Curriculum) that has six points that make up mature play. 

·      Using Make-Believe Roles

It’s important that children can take on a role and stay in character.

The girls are both "Anne" from the Magic Tree House.  They are spinning in the tree house. 
"It's Santa! Santa's in the tree house."

I think this is the easiest one to identify in the classroom.  I think most teachers hear it all the time.  One of my goals is to have students plan their play so that they see a variety of roles within their play stories.

·       Using Make-Believe Props

It’s important for students to be able to use an object to become another – a wooden block becomes a car or phone or dinosaur.  They also need to pretend that the block/car drives and honks the horn.

These leaves are "Fish", caught in the great pond by the playground.

I think I’m lucky to have a class without many commercial toys.  The students have to pretend with the items we have in the class.  We have a shelf in the kitchen that contains a stack of food that the students created with paper and markers.

·       Using Make-Believe Episodes

It’s important for children to create a story within their play. 

This is the point that I’m not so patiently waiting for in my class.  Several weeks ago my class facilitator showed us a documentation of a class that started playing hospital.  Their hospital play lasted several weeks with most of the class joining in at some point.  They took on roles from doctor, patient, and x-ray tech to hospital administrator. 

I’m now listening for ideas that might grow into something bigger but as of yet nothing has panned out.

·       Persistence

It’s important that children are able to play in character role over a period of time.  The text states that preschool & Kindergarten can do 5 minutes, early primary can do 20 minutes and continue for more than one day.  I think that time might be a little short for K.  I have a few kids in the class who played Magic Tree House on the swings for several days.  Each play period was about 10 minutes.

This is why I changed construction a few weeks ago, I was hoping that kids would have the opportunity to build one day and then go back and build/play for several days.  This hasn’t happed yet, but there is still a lot of time in the year.

·       Social Interaction

It’s important that two or more children participate in the play.

By having children play together they have the opportunity for language development and time to build social skills.

 

 

·       Verbal Communication

It’s important for children to have opportunities for language development as they play, plan play and create play stories.

As they play through complex stories they are able to use language in a way quite different then when working with adults.

 Leong & Bodrova have another list in their article on Make-Believe play.  They have six items to consider in their five stages of mature play

1.    Plan

No planning to extensive planning that may take longer than the play

2.    Roles

No roles to being able to create more than one role at a time

3.    Props

Using a toy to creating symbolic props to not needed a prop

4.    Extended time frame

Can last a few minutes up to all day over several days

5.    Language

Use little language to uses language throughout the play including book language

6.    Scenario

No scenario to complex scenarios that can change in response to previous play or the wants of the players.

 In their Chopsticks and Counting Chips article, Bodrova & Leong give three ways to help students plan their play.

• Role - Who is the child going to be? 
• Theme - What are they going to play?
• Plot(my word) - What is going to happen?

These will have to be taught.  I'm working on this.  My difficulty is that I don't have children pick centers they are allowed to go anywhere.  So their play may not have any focus at the beginning.  I'm going to have to find away around this.  Maybe start at the end and work backwards.
"What were you today?" instead of "What do you plan to be today?"

 Reading Recommendations

Bodrova, Elena & Deborah J Leong. Chopsticks and Counting Chips: Do Play and Foundational Skills Need to Compete for the Teacher's Attention in an Early Childhood Classroom? Beyond the Journal, Young Children on the Web. May 2003   I found it at http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200305/Chopsticks_Bodrova.pdf

Bodrova, Elena & Deborah J Leong. Assessing and Scaffolding Make-Believe Play. Young Children January 2012.  I found it at

http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/201201/Leong_Make_Believe_Play_Jan2012.pdf


This book is available on Amazon.  It's pricey but very good.
Van Hoorn, Judith. et all., Play at the Center of the Curriculum. Pearson. 2011