Let’s Play Store: Learning Through Play

By Beverley Hartman, Head Teacher

John Dewey, the founding father of the developmental movement in education wrote in The School and Society, “There is the instinct of making—the constructive impulse. The child’s impulse to do finds expression first in play, in movement, gesture, and make believe, becomes more definite, and seeks outlet in shaping materials into tangible forms and permanent embodiment.”

Play provides the foundation of the curriculum at Bing Nursery School, offering children opportunities to collaborate, explore ideas and develop critical thinking skills. Bing’s child-centered approach taps into the child’s intrinsic motivation to play. They learn as they play.

Theorists and researchers support play’s importance as an essential means of development for young children. At Bing, play themes often emerge from the children’s interests. The teachers recognize the themes and guide the group in a more in-depth study of the topics. For example, consider the East AM children at work on a baking project that is a math, science, fine-motor and social experience. When the baking activity is partnered with the book Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells, we start a long-term project. A bakery is created in an outside playhouse and evolves into the broader topic of “Let’s Play Store.”

All of this play takes place in a laboratory setting that enables research and child study. Members of the Stanford psychology department are fundamental to the laboratory school and inform our practice. Professor John Flavell, PhD, writes in Cognitive Development: “Life is eventful. People and objects in a young child’s world do things; children observe these events and enter into them, thus joining the flow of the world around them. They mentally represent these events (event knowledge). Some of these event representations are generalized and abstract (scripts). This event knowledge, including scripts, of everyday life may be the young child’s most powerful mental tool for understanding the world.”

We strive to select projects with universal themes because they because they lend themselves to dramatic play, are part of children’s experience or interest and can be explored in depth. The project’s topic should appeal to children at various experience levels in a mixed-age grouping. The subject should also lend itself to developing the play scripts that Flavell describes as a means for further understanding.

Rich with possibilities, the theme of “Let’s Play Store” sets the scene for sociodramatic play. Children develop skills as they take on roles such as storekeeper and customer. They learn the complex structure of owning a business. Through play, concepts of supply and demand, delegation of jobs and creating a market for their goods emerge.

Imaginary play is essential to children as they strive to gain a better understanding of the world around them. The original “owners” (Kai, Diego, and Christian) first assemble the supplies to form a bakery. Their classmates are drawn into the play by the excitement and interest. As in the real world, the business evolves over time.

The bakery theme attracts children to join and incorporate their ideas. This leads to expansions such as adding a store in front of the bakery and another oven. Children contribute in various ways: some create signs for the baked goods and others gather more supplies such as dishes and baskets. The children’s play helps form a community as they invest in the business and take pride in their work.

Socially, the nursery school is a place for children to be creative and to interact with peers. A store that children co-construct becomes a platform for developing social skills. Children are able to recall their own experiences from past shopping trips to build an environment in which to develop their ideas.

Early childhood educators Elizabeth Jones and Gretchen Reynolds describe the role of play in this excerpt from their book The Play’s the Thing: “Imaginative play is the medium that, according to Vygostsky (1978), frees young children’s embedded knowing. It is the arena where children are no longer bound by the immediate perception of things and come to rely instead on the expression of symbolic meanings. Imaginative play is “the zone of proximal development” where children can perform “a head taller” than they are capable of under normal circumstances because the context is appropriate to childhood forms of knowing.”

The predictable script and the familiar experience of shopping for food provide an emotional framework that allows children to be comfortable in a group setting. Confidence in understanding how to participate enables children to gain self-esteem and join the play scenarios. Children learn to rely on their own ideas and to consider others’ thoughts about the play. Trust in this process can translate into trust in themselves and the mastery of dramatic play.

As children move through the classroom environment, they manipulate objects to gain a better understanding of how their bodies work in relationship to materials. In the “Let’s Play Store” experience, children build shelves to display products and collect supplies to sustain the business. This level of activity fosters opportunities to develop muscles, stamina, agility and coordination. Multiple tasks can be complex. Children achieve a high level of physical competence when they actually help design the environment. Through practice and repeated experience, they gain mastery over physical skills.

Play is also a platform for emerging literacy. The bakery scenario gives children opportunities to use language to communicate their needs and ideas. The business opens with, “Who wants some bread?” Peers reply by bargaining for goods, asking, “How much?” As children collaborate through play, they continually use and respond to language. They explain, describe and negotiate, thereby developing a vocabulary through which they communicate meaning—an important step in becoming readers and writers. By including literacy props and writing materials near the play area, we encourage children to read and write as they make shopping lists, menus, signs and more.

The quality of the play is enhanced by the group dynamic of the children. Mixed-age grouping allows less-experienced children to observe more-advanced players. Seasoned players perform complex play and serve as role models, allowing new players to act at a higher level. Predictable sequences of interaction become evident and children learn how to conduct their role in the business exchange. Experienced children also benefit by demonstrating their deeper level of understanding of the play topic.

We embrace play as the base of our curriculum and understand that it prepares children to be ready for everything, including the next levels of education. The science of child development enables educators of young children to facilitate age-appropriate learning experiences. Educator Vivian Gussin Paley explains the value of play in A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play, “From the earliest ‘pretend I’m the mama and you’re the baby,’ play is the model for the lifelong practice of trying out new ideas. Pretending is the most open-ended of all activities, providing the opportunity to escape the limitations of established rituals. Pretending enables us to ask ‘What if?’” The example of “Let’s Play Store” as a sociodramatic theme reveals the framework for learning through play. Likewise, the joy and power of play sparks the desire in young children to be lifelong learners.