Unstructured and Child-Directed

Learning Through Play

Kids love to be messy, to explore, to experiment, and to create. But when do they have time for that with soccer practice, music lessons, dance recitals, and adults generally telling them what to do? Put aside the worksheets, and push in the chairs. Give your kids some time off from scheduled activities, and let them be in charge for a while. Let the kids make up the game, make up its rules, and play on their own terms. Your kids will have fun, all while exercising their creativity, improving their problem-solving skills, and boosting their self-confidence. Read more about child-directed learning through play via the resources below.

• “French Kids Know How to Play: American Parents’ Obsession with Structured Playtime is Stifling Our Kids”
  May 2016

  This Salon article examines the experience of a preschooler in a French-American family, highlighting the importance of unstructured playtime.

• “The Decline of Play in Preschoolers — And the Rise in Sensory Issues”
  September 2015

  In this article for The Washington Post, pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom looks at the epidemic of social and sensory developmental disorders in preschool children, likely exacerbated by preschools shifting their focus to academic readiness rather than child-directed play.

• “The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland”
  October 2015

  Tim Walker of The Atlantic contrasts the lack of playtime in Common Core curriculums in the United States with Finnish kindergartens where play-based learning is the guiding principle.

• “Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm: Research Reveals Negative Effects of Academic Preschools and Kindergartens”
  May 2015

  Writing for Psychology Today, Peter Gray, Ph.D., highlights three research studies that compare academic-based early education classrooms to play-based ones. He concludes that academic gains from formal instruction are short-lived and the time spent on these pursuits actually can cause long-term harm in children’s social and emotional development.

• “The Importance of Free Play for Kids”
  May 2016

  Katie Arnold offers six ways for parents to help their children “cut loose” in her post for Outside magazine’s Raising Rippers blog.

• “Simplifying Childhood May Protect Against Mental Health Issues”
  March 2016

  In this Huffington Post blog post, Tracy Gillett examines the culture of excess and overscheduling that pervades the lives of our children. She urges parents to protect childhood by simplifying their schedules and spaces so there is time to relax and play.

• “The New Preschool Is Crushing Kids”
  January 2016

  Erika Christakis writes in The Atlantic about “seat work” – an unfortunate trend in preschool education – and how it is harming our children. It’s not just kindergarten that’s becoming the new first grade; preschool is, too, and kids are not developmentally ready.

• “New AAP Report Stresses Play for Healthy Development”
  October 2006

  This article summarizes findings from “The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds,” a recent report by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

• “The Building Blocks of a Good Pre-K”
  October 2014

  This New York Times op-ed article by Shael Polakow-Suransky and Nancy Nager considers our children’s first formal educational experiences.  The authors note the recent trend of increasing teacher-directed instruction at the expense of playtime.  They contend that we do not have to choose between the two; through “purposeful play,” children receive the benefits of free play (self-confidence, exploration, creativity, exercise, and more) while becoming better prepared for academic achievement.

• “10 Things Every Parent Should Know about Play”

  Laurel Bongiorno with the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) offers a basic list of what parents need to know about play.

• “Five Essentials to Meaningful Play”

  Marcia L. Nell and Walter F. Drew, writing for the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), discuss the elements of meaningful play.

• “The Politics of Playgrounds, a History”
  March 2012

  Citylab writer Amanda Erickson looks at the history of playgrounds in the US and how the competing interests of safety and freedom have driven design.

• “The Movement to Bring Back ‘Risky’ Play for Children“
  August 2016

  This article in The Globe and Mail looks at the movement in Canada to bring back “risky” play, with cities installing adventure playgrounds with loose parts and organizations encouraging unstructured play.

• “Why Free Play is the Best Summer School”
  June 2014

  Jessica Lahey writes for The Atlantic about the value of unscheduled, unsupervised playtime as an educational opportunity and how more time spent in fee play leads to more highly developed executive function.

• “How ‘Twisted’ Early Childhood Education Has Become — From a Child Development Expert”
  November 2015

  This Washington Post article is the republication of a speech by Nancy Carlsson-Paige in which she discusses the state of early childhood education today and how it led her to work with other educators to found the nonprofit Defending the Early Years.

• “Our Misguided Effort to Close the Achievement Gap is Creating a New Inequality: The ‘Play’ Gap”
  August 2016

  In this article in The Washington Post, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, founder of Defending the Early Years, looks at social, racial, and economic injustices in early childhood education – particularly “play inequality”.

• “The Overprotected Kid”
  April 2014

  Writing for The Atlantic, Hanna Rosin looks at changing societal attitudes about children and risk and explores The Land, an “adventure playground” in Wales.

• “I Don’t Want My Son To Read In Kindergarten”
  August 2016

  Mother and educator Jessica Smock, writing for The Huffington Post, discusses unfortunate changes to early elementary education, including the near elimination of playtime. These changes have been driven by Common Core standards, which unfortunately were written without the input of experts or teachers familiar with early childhood development.

• “This Playground Encourages Kids to Use Tools, Get Dirty, and Let Their Imaginations Run Wild”
  August 2016

  Ben Adler writes for Grist about an adventure playground full of loose parts like tires and wood scraps in New York City’s Governors Island. He describes the movement to create and let kids play in “adventure” or “wild” playgrounds that has risen in response to a societal obsession with overprotectiveness.

• “Delayed Kindergarten Enrollment Dramatically Reduces ADHD in Children, Study Shows”
  October 2015

  George Zapo, writing for Inquisitr, highlights results from “The Gift of Time? School Starting Age and Mental Health”, a study co-authored by Stanford’s Thomas Dee and Hans Henrik Sievertsen of the Danish National Center for Social Research. The study found that children who start kindergarten a year later have better self-regulation and lower levels of inattention and hyperactivity at ages 7 and 11. These results align with other research that has found a link between prolonged play in childhood and improved mental health development.

• “Towards A Pedagogy of Play”
  July 2016

  This paper, published by Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero, considers the definitions of play and playfulness, looks at the long-recognized benefits of play, and discusses the tension surrounding play in the traditional school setting.

• “Playful Participatory Research: An Emerging Methodology for Developing a Pedagogy of Play”
  July 2016

  Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero looks at ways to facilitate learning through play in the classroom, noting that what constitutes play is different for different children; what is play to some is not play to others.

• “On Governors Island, Mountains of Junk Where Children Find Adventure”
  May 2016

  Annie Correal writes for The New York Times about New York City’s new Play:Ground and offers a brief history of “adventure playgrounds”.

• “Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School”
  March 2009

  Edward Miller and Joan Almon with The Alliance for Childhood present the case for restoring child-initiated play to kindergarten.

• “Let Preschoolers Play”
  April 2011

  Joyce C. Tang, writing for The Daily Beast, discusses the new body of research and the “growing wisdom” that play is better for young children than formal, didactic academic instruction.

• “The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds”
  January 2007

  This report by the American Academy of Pediatrics looks at the decreasing time children spend playing, why it’s happening, and why it matters. They discuss solutions and offer guidelines for pediatricians to help parents address this problem.

• “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?”
  January 2016

  This University of Virginia EdPolicy Works study compares kindergarten classrooms and academic expectations for kindergarten students between 1998 and 2010, noting that more time is now spent on teacher-led academic instruction with less time spent on art, music, science, and child-led play.

• “Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose”
  January 2015

  In this paper, The Alliance for Childhood and Defending the Early Years brings attention to the downsides of pushing children to read before they are developmentally ready.

• “PlayReport: International Summary of Research Results”
  April 2010

  This report by Research Now, Family Kids and Youth, and IKEA presents results of an online survey of parents and children in 25 countries, providing an overview of cultural attitudes about the importance of play.

• “Preschool Program Improves Cognitive Control”
  November 2007

  This study published in Science by Adele Diamond, W. Steven Barnett, and others compares the executive function of preschoolers who were enrolled in The Tools of the Mind curriculum to those enrolled in a district’s standard curriculum. The Tools curriculum is based on psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s theories of executive function and includes the use of dramatic play, private speech, and memory aids. At the end of the study, students in the Tools classrooms performed better when tested for inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. The authors note that many preschools are now limiting playtime, yet mature, dramatic play is a key component in the Tools curriculum.

• The Alliance for Childhood

  This Maryland-based non-profit promotes the healthy development of children, the love of learning, and the joy of life.  The site links to several articles on play-based learning.

• The National Institute for Play

  This non-profit studies the science behind play and seeks to bring the benefits of play into public life.

• Defending the Early Years

  DEY is an advocacy group that supports developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms and works to eliminate inappropriate standards and assessments.

• Play England

  This organization out of England “campaigns for all children and young people to have freedom and space to play throughout childhood.” They offer resources on “Street Play” and managing risks, among many other topics.

• Blog: Let The Children Play

  This blog offers ideas for play-based activities from an educator and mom in Australia.

• Blog: Teacher Tom: Teaching and Learning from Preschoolers

  A preschool teacher blogs about his students’ play-based learning, among other things.

• Book: Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children

  Pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom presents the case that outdoor play and unstructured movement are crucial to childhood development.