At Muffy‘s, we take playtime seriously. Our indoor and outdoor playgrounds provide a perfect supervised learning environment for our students to practice naturally what they are learning in the classroom. Some of the benefits of play include:
Social Development
Children who engage in play with their peers learn valuable early life lessons about sharing, empathizing, patience, cooperation and politeness. They are given the opportunity through fun interactions with others to really comprehend the positive and negative effect their behaviours have in social settings.
Language and Vocabulary Development
Playtime provides children with an unstructured, enjoyable environment to communicate with one another and adults. The games and role-play activities that children naturally create during playtime interactions provide a meaningful setting to practice new vocabulary, while engraining earlier language lessons.
Imagination and Creativity
Play provides one of the first opportunities for children to develop imagination skills. A well-developed imagination is the foundation of problem solving skills and artistic development. By using their imaginations to express themselves in various playtime games, children also develop the ability to see beyond their immediate feelings practice social skills such as bonding, negotiating, sharing, and contributing to a group.
Problem Solving and Math
Children’s games are also an intuitive way to help them understand basic math concepts in real-life settings. Playtime often involves practicing foundational logic and math tools, such as adding and subtracting simple numbers, counting, or arranging and ordering objects by their relationships to one another (i.e. big/small, short/tall).
Sensory and Motor Skills
Because play is physical, children build the big muscles that give them coordination, as well as the small muscles that help them write and develop hand/eye coordination. Multi-sensory activities teach children to gain knowledge through touch, sight and sound.
Physical Health
The physical aspect of playing also builds positive associations around exercise and lays the foundation for a lifetime of healthy activity. Parents who involve themselves in their children’s play also benefit from being active, while setting a great example for their children.
