Why should your preschooler play?

As parents you often hear about the emphasis on play for preschoolers. You might wonder how playing with each other will affect academic success which your child needs to succeed later on in life. So have you wondered why it is important for your child to play?

Playing lays down the foundation for all kinds of learning for children, giving your child some toys and the time to play can provide your child with a variety of valuable learning opportunities. Children learn about their world and process information about their world through play. The way children play opens their creativity and imagination, it develops their reading, problem solving and thinking skills. It also further develops their motor skills. Playing provides the base foundation for learning of different kinds.

You might wonder why is playing so important and what do children learn while they play? Try these activities with things you have around the house and you may get useful insight into how playing simple games helps children.

Developing the language and vocabulary of your child-- when children play with other children or with adults their language skills are strengthened. Your child hears other words and learns them without even realising. Children learn the use of new words, their meaning and their grammatical structure while playing with others.

While playing with toy cars and animals children learn the name of many new objects. Children learn the names of each object they play with. When playing with toy animals they learn the names of the animals, what they do and what they eat. If adults are playing with children they can create additional scenarios that will further strengthen their vocabulary and language skills.

While playing with dolls and dollhouse children have a chance of learning and reacting to real, life situations. She has the opportunity of using and understanding the words and phrases she hears in real life situations. You may find your child repeating words you use, as she tries to recreate real life situation in her dollhouse.

You can also enhance the imagination and creativity of your child by playing creative games with your child. In the present fast paced world children don’t have much opportunity of developing their creativity. Children who are not given much opportunity to play may not be able to entertain themselves much as they don’t know what to do unless they are instructed. By giving your child opportunities for open ended play your child will have her creative juices flowing.

You can provide props which would get your child to imagine and create situations. You can also give your child some craft supplies like markers, glue, fabric paper and some empty boxes and watch your child create new things out of them. This will help your child’s creativity flow.

To develop the math skills of your child use puzzles and blocks. They are excellent for developing some problem solving skills of your child. Playing with blocks provides with many problem solving situations. This will develop the problem solving skills of your child. Playing with puzzles develops important math and problem solving skills in your child.