What is play? - Carson Street School

4. In the intellectual domain, play enables children to acquire skills that are related
to thinking. These skills enable the child to explore, deepen, extend and improve
their understanding of their environment and experiences. For example, play can
foster the development of:
• Increases in attention span
(e.g. puzzles)
•Creativity and imagination (e.g. kitchen, oven,
table, dolls, plates, cups, knives, forks etc.)
•Problem-solving skills
(e.g. chess)
• Cause and effect
(e.g. put bigger blocks
at the bottom for support)
4 In the affective domain, play can serve as the platform to build the child’s
willingness to learn, ability to persist, motivation to seek and use new
knowledge. For example, play can build the child’s:
• Self-esteem (e.g. proud of what we did)
• Self-confidence (e.g. keep trying to build
a complex building)
• Self-motivation (e.g. doing it together)
• Developing independence