What is Play?

Play is an important occupation in a child’s development and there are various play styles to support children! Play is a rich, complex, and ever-evolving concept. It’s seen as a universal experience, and children are often viewed as having a natural urge and an ability to engage in play. Play is an engaging activity where kids are fully involved and motivated from within. It’s imaginative and creative, often initiated by the child, and free from strict rules while being active and flexible (The Education Hub, 2019).

Styles of Play

There are 5 recognized styles of play that all children practice throughout development:

Symbolic
Rough-and-tumble
Socio-dramatic
Locomotor
Exploratory

Symbolic play

Play that offers control, encourages gradual exploration, and fosters skills to use actions, items, or concepts to symbolize or stand in for other actions, items, or concepts. Symbolic play allows children to develop actions that support their development of more complex thinking skills. The development of these skills offers a stepping stone towards learning literacy and numeracy. When children engage in symbolic play, skills in cognition, social engagement, self-esteem, language, and motor functioning increase (Lewis, 2020).

Rough-and-tumble play

Rough-and-tumble play is play that offers social interaction and social-emotional development through fun and physical risk-taking activities. Activities such as wrestling, chasing, tumbling, kicking, and grappling are examples of rough-and-tumble play. Rough-and-tumble play promotes physical development, social-emotional development, cognitive development, social engagement, self-confidence, and resilience.

Activities of rough-and-tumble play are to encourage social active games such as variations of tag, red rover, tickling, ring around the rosie, piggyback rides, imaginary ‘pirate’ sword fights, and exploring outside through climbing, chasing, jumping, and swinging (Brightwheel, 2024).

Socio-dramatic play

Play that supports children’s imaginations by creating and acting out stories by becoming different characters in their stories that are shared with others. Socio-dramatic play supports children’s ability to explore the world around them and create new ones. This includes children developing their own stories and roles, interacting with others during play, and taking turns which can help improve language and literacy skills, play, and self-regulation skills.

Activities to promote socio-dramatic play include encouraging social participation with parents, siblings, and friends by creating stories and role-playing characters in the made-up story, sharing materials, and negotiating how they will continue with play (Vic, n.d.).

Locomotor play

Play includes large body movements and activities that support children’s physical training, endurance, and overall skill. Locomotor play supports children’s neural and muscular development through coordination, sequencing tasks, and social interaction (Smith, 2023).

Activities promoting locomotor play can be done by encouraging children to engage in various physical activities such as playing chase, hopscotch, climbing trees, and running games such as tag or pretending to be a horse by galloping (Denomme, 2024).

Exploratory play

Play that allows children to explore the world around them with the use of all their senses. Children can use their hands to explore by touching objects, listen to the sounds around them to add to their play and use their sense of sight to identify ways to play while in their environment (NHSGGC, n.d.).