Adapted from: Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network, Playbook.
Defining Playful Learning
Children learn and develop skills from all kinds of play, but they learn best when learning goals are intentionally integrated into play from the start, and when they are guided by an adult, or the environment itself, toward a particular learning goal.
This is called playful learning. Everyday places and spaces can be transformed into moments of playful learning by making simple design tweaks. For example, a climing pole on a playground can become playful learning by adding hatch marks that prompt children to talk about how high they climbed, how much higher they climbed than their friends, and so on. Adding a simple measurement tool makes the climbing pole all about math.
The 5 Principles of How Kids Learn
Learning should be joyful, stimulating, and fun. Children are naturally curious and love to learn through play! In playful learning, children are in charge and learning is crafted into the environment through the 5 principles of how kids learn. We call this “The Daisy.”
Actively Engaging: Children must be “minds on” -acting, not passively observing. The activity should spark a learning goal.
Meaningful: Children learn best when learning has a purpose and is connected to something they value. The activity should spark Content, like math, science, or literacy, or build Critical Thinking or Creativity.
Socially Interactive: Working together drives learning. Children learn more when they cooperate, discuss, and mingle with others than when they fly solo. When families do things together, children thrive.
Iterative: Children enjoy activities that afford new perspectives rather than repetitious sameness. Activities should be open to change.
Joyful: Joy heightens children’s interest and motivation for learning. Playful Learning activities should offer something new every time kids play.
Building the Skills for Future Success
To flourish in this future, children will need to master a suite of skills that complement and evolve with each other. We call them the 6 Cs:
Collaboration: working in teams or one-on-one with others, as well as demonstrating socially appropriate behaviors, building off others’ ideas, recognizing people’s unique set of experiences and knowledge, and building community
Communication: skills like speaking and writing as well as listening and understanding other people’s perspectives
Content: traditional learning areas like math, vocabulary, science, and history, but also includes the cognitive skills humans need to learn that content, like problem solving, memory, attention, and flexible thinking
Critical Thinking: strategies for problem solving, building evidence to derive a position, and making connections between different areas of knowledge
Creative Innovation: finding new solutions, changing traditional patterns or rules, and discovering novel paths through a problem space
Confidence: learning from failure and adopting a stance that with effort you can do better, which allows you to push limits and take reasonable risk
Community Engagement
Enriching public and private spaces with playful Learning opportunities works best when the community guides or leads a project. A crucial factor for these initiatives, community engagement creates a more equitable and socially sustainable outcome.
Cities across the nation and globally are infused with playful learning opportunities by transforming everyday spaces and optimizing early education. See the map or case studies for more information.
6Cs Framework: Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek (2016)