PLAY AND PLAY MATERIALS
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 Play is universal for all children. It is work for them
and way of their living.
 It is pleasurable and enjoyable aspect of child’s life and
essential to promote growth and development.
 Play is the activity that has no serious motive and from
which there is no material gain.
 The distinction between work and play however lies in
the mental attitude.
 Football can be play for children or can be work and
means of earnings for the professional footballer.
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IMPORTANCE OF PLAY
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PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
 Physical development enhanced during play.
 Muscular and sensory abilities development act the time of
running, climbing, riding cycle and in other active play.
 These
activities help to strengthen muscle and to learn
coordinate movement and skill.
 The young children learn to differentiate the sensations by
visual, auditory and tactile stimulations through the use of
play materials.
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INTELLECTUAL AND EDUCATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
 Promotes
during play, children learn color, size, shape,
number, distance, height, speed, name of the object, etc. While
playing with various toys and play things.
 Creative
activity,
problem
solving,
abstract
thinking,
imagination, communication and speech development occur
during play.
 Children improve their attention span and concentration by
playing.
 They can make difference of reality and fantasy through play.
It help them to experience thrill of achievement.
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EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
 Play improve emotional development.
 Children express their fear, anxiety, anger, joy etc during
play.
 It reduce stress and strain and remove irritability and
destructiveness, thus enhance the coping abilities.
 It help to communicate with other and outside world.
 Play acts as outlet of negative feeling and considered as
safety valve to release emotional tension and reduce
emotional trauma.
 It is recreation and diversion for the children.
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 Play help in socialization.
 Children become a social being through play.
 They
learn interaction with playmate by sharing,
understanding other and communicating.
 Play improves social relationship and working capacity
with other people. It help to learn rule of social living
and cultural activities.
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MORAL DEVELOPMENT
 Play is the means of moral development.
 Children learn morality from parents, teacher and other adults.
 During play with peers, child’s behavior will reflect the right and
wrong things, honesty, sportsmanship, and value system.
 Children show awareness about the needs and wishes of others
and give importance to the friendship and co-operation.
 They learn norms of moral behaviour and responsibility.
 They become creative and independent through play. They learn
sex-role behaviour in play.
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TYPES OF PLAY
 Play is natural and spontaneous.
 It
depends upon age, sex, interest, personality,
ability, cultural pattern and socio-economic status of
the child’s family.
 Play, playtime, and playmate decrease as the age
increase.
 Play is a social behaviour which differs in various
age groups and depends upon the level of
development.
 It is an individualized behavior:-
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1. INFANTS
2. PRESCHOOL CHILDREN
3. SCHOOL CHILDREN
4. ADOLESCENTS AND OLDER SCHOOL AGE
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INFANTS
Usually engage in social affective play, sense
pleasure play and skill play.
In social affective play infants response by smiling,
cooing to the interacting adult.
In sense pleasure play, they learn and explore
environment through various sensory experience.
They develop skill through imitation, young children
also engage in sense pleasure play and skill play.
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PRESCHOOL CHILDREN
 Enjoy
dramatic play through which they identify
themselves with adult and dramatize adults behaviour.
 Structured formal play begins to be played during later
preschool years.
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SCHOOL CHILDREN
School children enjoy competitive sports, games and
they develop hobbies for recreation and diversion.
School age children imitate and dramatize more complex
activities even acting out stories in books.
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ADOLESCENTS AND OLDER SCHOOL AGE
 Adolescents and older school age children engage in a
more sophisticated type of fantasy activity called day
dreaming.
 They
spent their leisure time in competitive sports,
operating computers, watching television, listening to
the radio, hobbies, reading etc.
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According to PARTEN and NEWHALL-1943,
play behaviour can be described as:
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TYPES
UNOCCUPIED PLAY
SOLITARY PLAY
ONLOOKER PLAY
PARALLEL PLAY
ASSOCIATIVE PLAY
CO-OPERATIVE PLAY
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UNOCCUPIED PLAY
In unoccupied play behaviour, the child is not involved
in play activity but may
 Move around randomly
 Crawl under the table
 Climb on and off a chair
 Follow another person
 Just stand alone with least social involvement.
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SOLITARY PLAY
Solitary play indicates when the child plays alone
independently. Toddlers and preschoolers engage in this
type of concentrating play with less interaction with
others.
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ONLOOKER PLAY
Onlooker play behavior found when the child
watches others play but does not become engaged in
their play. The child may sit nearby or hear or see what
others are doing or talking as she/ he feels interest.
Young children usually do not exhibits this form.
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PARALLEL PLAY
Parallel play is an independent play activity
when the child plays alongside other children but
not with them. They play similar or identical
play as other children play nearby. Toddlers
typically play in this manner.
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ASSOCIATIVE PLAY
In associative play social interaction occur
between children. This is common in preschool
age group. They play with same thing and do
similar activity. Conversation and association
with peers are main interest.
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CO-OPERATIVE PLAY
Co-operative play behaviour is found in
preschool and school children. They engage in
formal game in group like football or dramatic
play of life situation.
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SELECTION AND CARE OF
PLAYMATERIALS
Selection of play materials and toys depends upon
 Age
 Abilities
 Interests
 Likes
 Dislikes
 Culture
 Experience
 Personality
 Level of intelligence of the child
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The play materials should have the following characteristics
 Safe, washable, light weight, simple, durable, easy to handle and
non-breakable.
 Realistic,
attractive, construction and offer problem-solving
opportunities.
 No sharp edges and no small removable parts which may be
swallowed or inhaled.
 Not over stimulating and frustrating.
 No toxic paints, not costly, not inflammable and not excessive
noisy.
 Play things with electrical plugs should be avoided, only children
over 8 years of age should be permitted to use them.
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Parents should
avoid impulse of buying toys
because of advertisement in the mass media.
Toys can be purchased on the basis of the above
mentioned criteria and safety measures to be
followed.
Supervision during play is important to prevent
accidental injury.
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Children must taught the followings;
 Correct use of toys. Parents should explain the directions for use
and the caution labels.
 Safe storing of toys in a space with easy reach and away from
busy areas.
 Keeping the play things in good condition. Parents should repair
or discard damaged and broken toys.
 Keeping the play materials of older brothers and sisters away
younger children. The wrong toys for the wrong ages can be
injurious to children
 Electronic toys and games can also be shared by the adults in the
children play time. Parents may interact and initiate the use with
precaution.
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PLAY MATERIALS ACCORDING TO AGE
INFANTS:
Infants learns motor skill, bodily control and coordination by various means. They need stimulation
with tots for Visual
 Auditory
 Tactile sensations.
The play materials suitable for them can be as follows
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4 weeks to 4 months
Bright and moving objects
Hanging cradle toys
Musical toys
Balloons
Rattles, etc
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4 months to 6 months
Soft squeeze toys
Rattles
Toy animal
Balloons.
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7 months to 9 months
Squeeze and sound toys
Blocks
Cubes
Plastic ring
Rattles.
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10 months to 12 months
 Motion toys
 Water play
 Blocks
 Doll
 Ball
 Musical toys
 Picture books or stiff cards
 Rocking horse walker
 Transporting objects
 Pull and push toys.
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Toddlers
 Like informal free spontaneous
 Constructive and parallel play
 Fitting toys
 Pull-push toys
 Pyramid toys
 Blocks
 Vehicles
 Ball
 Doll
 Pots
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Pans
Household articles
Mud or clay
Crayons
Picture books or cards
Play telephone
Doll’s house etc
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Preschool children
Like
co-operative,
imitative,
creative
and
imaginative play.
Suitable playthings for this group are puppets,
animals, dolls, dolls house, carpentry tools, large
blocks, paints materials, colored picture books,
doctor set toys, hospital equipments(like plastic
syringe, blunt scissors), housekeeping toys,
paper-modelling
tricycles.
clay,
cooking
materials,
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School age children
 Competitive formal organized and co-operative play.
 Like imitation and self direction.
 Like games rather than toys.
 Children of this group enjoy game of: Muscular activity
 Running
 Climbing
 Swinging
 They like carpentry tools
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 Painting materials
 Chess
 Chinese-checkers
 Cards
 Balls
 Crafts
 Music
 Puzzles
 Aquarium
 Maps
 Animals to make zoo or farm or pets
 Gardening
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