Ross Thompson, teaching specialist at the Shirley G. Moore Lab School at the Institute of Child Development, talks about the importance of high-quality play in helping children grow their abilities and skills across several areas of development in an interview in the fall issue of Play, Policy, & Practice Connections. PPPConnections is published by the Play, Policy, & Practice Interest Forum of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC).

High-quality play in the preschool classroom is a valuable tool in helping children develop emotional, social, physical, and creative skills. Once a child begins to develop these skills, they have a base to develop cognitive skills, Thompson says. Thompson gives several examples of the expansive nature of high-quality play in the classroom. In one instance, a dramatic story that started with two children as seals expanded to include most of the class in many roles. As Thompson puts it, “The exuberance of this new play-theme intrigued many of the other children, and by the following week, nearly the entire class became part of the seal play. Seals later turned in to penguins, which then turned into zoos, which ended up fueling our dramatic play stories for most of our fall session.” Thompson is helping children build skills for the long run, and, as he puts it: “A goal of my preschool classroom is to help every child leave with skills that will help them interact with, question, discover, and be excited about the world that surrounds them! Play is the best vehicle to help children do exactly that!”

You may read the entire interview in Play, Policy, & Practice Connections.

Thompson’s interview also appears in the summer 2015/16 issue of The Space Magazine, a quarterly newsletter of The Childspace Institute in Wellington, New Zealand.  Childspace  is an educational organization committed to improving Early Childhood Education provision and practices through early childhood education courses, workshops & conferences.