section 6
1 year
Play!
38 meeting
Let’s review:
Once the meeting starts, welcome everyone and ask the participants: • Who can help us remember what we talked about in our last meeting? • Who was able to do the activity at home that we asked you to do at the end of the meeting? How did it go? • Does anyone have questions or concerns after doing the activity?
What are we going to learn?
The value of playing for the development of young children. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT! We are going to look at some pictures, so we can talk about what we all know about this topic.
What games do one-year-olds play?
What games do you play with your child to help him or her learn something? What are the best games to play with young children? Why?
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Activity:
“Learning with games” We are going to learn games that you can play with one-year-olds to support their integral development.
What we’ll need: • • • •
Index cards Large container Plastic cups Household items and clothes to play “mother and father”
WHAT WE’LL DO: • Before the meeting write the instructions for the games on the index cards. Cut the cards into two pieces, each part should have a different part of the instructions on it. Place all the cards into a large container. • When the participants arrive ask each one to take a piece of index card and look for the person that has the other half of their instructions so that when you join together you can read all the instructions. • Each pair should explain the game to the rest of the group and invite the participants with one year-old children to have their child practice playing the game. • At the end, discuss as a group, ideas about the importance of playing for children and as facilitator share some new insights (see below). Also discuss why as adults it is hard to play with kids and what we can do to improve in this area.
Instructions for the Games: • Bumping feet: Sit on the ground with bare feet and place the child’s foot touching heel of the adult’s foot. Count and say out loud… one, two, three, bump feet! Lift your feet into the air and bump them against the heel of the child’s foot. • This little piggy: Hold the babies, start with his/her pinky finger to narrate the following little story touching each finger in order and tickling the child as you say the last line: This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed at home. This little piggy had roast beef, This little piggy had none. And this little piggy cried “Wee! Wee! Wee!” all the way home • Mother and father: Provide baby, cooking supplies, plastic cups and plates, babies clothes, brooms and buckets. Invite them to play imitating mother and father. • Cat and Mouse: Tell the baby that you are a cat and meow like a cat, tell them that they are a mouse. Play tag being a cat and a mouse. When the child understands the game switch
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roles and have them play the cat and you be the mouse. To make the game into a learning experience meow like a cat and squeak like a mouse and ask the child to repeat the sounds. • My Friend Freddy. With an empty carton make a puppet. Cut a small circle for a finger to go through to simulate a nose. Draw on eyes and a mouth. Make up stories with the puppet. (See CD with Toys for puppet ideas)
THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY: • Play is the way that children communicate their desires, fantasies and fears. • Through play children show how they view themselves and other people. • Preparation for the future. • Stimulates all the senses, creativity and imagination. • They learn to share. • Helps to use all the boundless energy of a child.
Summing up:
What did we learn today? Now, we’ll review what we discussed today. • How do you feel after this meeting? Why? • What are the two most important things you’ve learned today? • What will you do differently based on what you learned during the meeting? • What did you like the most? Are there things you didn’t like? • Do you have any remaining concerns or questions about what we talked about? To finish: what would you recommend to improve today’s meeting when we do it again with another group. (Explain that replying this question will help the meeting be even better in the future for parents with small children.)
To do at home:
• Tell parents to observe one-year-old children while they play in order to learn more. • Tell parents to take time to do at least one of the games they learned in the meeting with their child each day.
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Basic information for the facilitator: Learning more about play: Playing is an important element in a child’s development. It helps them learn the skills of “practicing and repeating”, which they will use in daily life. Playing recreates the information that children capture from their surroundings and makes it part of their learning structure - a practice which allows them to build their capabilities. Many authors talk about the importance of teaching children optimism and the happiness of life from an early age, especially at an age when they are keenly aware of their surroundings and copy what they observe. If they observe aggression, pessimism and anger they will repeat these actions in their play. Because of this it is fundamentally important that the environment that they observe is loving, pleasant and respectable, with clear limits, in order to construct a healthy emotional stability.
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Playing alone: Playing alone is very important for the development of a child, children often take this play very seriously as it is their way of learning and reflecting. It is suggested that you don’t interrupt or take away their games as this can be interpreted as being invasive and disrespectful. For the child the object they are playing with is very important, even if to us it appears to be of little value, because of this we should respect the child and the object. It is still very important to keep a watchful eye on the child to make sure they don’t hurt themselves while playing.
2- Playing with the family: The relationship between a mother and a child is a fundamental
factor that heavily influences the development of a child in the future. The relationship is the strongest during the first year. The mother and father should take advantage of times of play with their child in order to create a space for a relationship that is affective, integrated, one with open communication, and care with the baby.
3- Consequences of the absence of play: The absence of a mother, little support for their
basic needs and play, may cause set backs in the development and intellectual growth, expression, and social and emotional behavior. It has been observed that the absence of playtime provokes aggression, insecurity and constant fear in children.
Facilitator’s Manual