1. Play: Pre-k-5th Grade
Ideas to consider as you support and integrate PLAY into each and every day
Each slides contains questions to consider at the classroom, grade or school level
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2. Types of Play
Active play: running, jumping, climbing, riding, and other use of large muscles. 
Quiet play: reading, stringing, coloring, etc. 
Cooperative or social play: games and activities that involve more than one.
Solitary play: drawing, dreaming, or any activity that involves only one.
Manipulative play: putting together puzzles, building with blocks, cutting and pasting
Creative play: painting, molding, solving problems, making music, telling stories, or any activity that involves a child’s imagination. 
Dramatic play: dress-up, make-believe, or any play that involves pretending. 
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Brainstorm with your grade level to identify areas where children can increase access to PLAY in all of these areas. Consider all parts of your day and the curriculum and consider where PLAY could be emphasized
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3. Promote Play Create safe play environments indoors and out.
Focus on the learning that happens through play; use play as the means to teach and foster development.
Provide a wide variety of play experiences and materials through which young kids can try new things, experiment, ask questions, talk, read, sing, dance, get messy at times, explore, and listen. 
Fuel creativity, curiosity, and the desire to know more. 
Allow time for play during which children are choosing and directing play, balanced with structured play.
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Consider how your indoor and outdoor environments support all types of PLAY. Supplement areas through new materials and ensure that environments provide opportunities for experimentation, exploration and activities that stimulate all sensory areas.. Think about the PLAY that is already available to children and focus on the learning that happens through play. Consider your role in enhancing play.
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4. What is High Level Play? Play experiences through which children…
Construct knowledge of their world
Imagine
Try different roles and perspectives
Make choices
Negotiate
Develop language and vocabulary
As you consider children’s opportunity for PLAY, the types of PLAY and your work to promote PLAY, ensure that all these aspects of high level PLAY are addressed

5. Teacher role in high level play
Play needs to be teacher facilitated and supported.
Purposeful:
Goal oriented
Responsive to standards
Focused on whole child development
Intentional
Engaging and changing environments
Responsive to children’s interests
This is your opportunity to consider how you meet goals and standards by enriching children’s experiences through PLAY. This necessitates a real belief that you believe in the research that says that PLAY is essential for children’s optimal development and in fact supprts learning and brain development more than more didactic, prescribed approaches.

6. PLAY IN PreK/TK/K
Dramatic Play – periodically changes to incorporate new environments
Puzzles
Blocks
Easy Board Games (Chutes & Ladders, Candyland, Bingo, Concentration)
Easy Card Games (Fish, Old Maid, War)
Movement Games (Mother May I, Red Light/Green Light, Duck Duck Goose, Freeze Dance)
Guessing Games
Check you classroom and schedule for these materials and opportunities. Work to increase opportunities for children to engage in these activities
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7. PLAY IN Grades 1-5 Take advantage of Fun Fridays & Recess:
More complex Board Games (Checkers, Chess, Scrabble, Jeopardy Jr, Concentration)
Fine motor games (Pick-Up-Sticks, Jacks, Jenga)
Playground games (4 Square, Hopscotch, Juggling, Hacky Sack, Beanbag Toss, Hoola Hoop, Jump Rope)
All kinds of puzzles (math, word, crossword, picture)
Units on dance
Legos & robotics
Check you classroom and schedule for these materials and opportunities. Work to increase opportunities for children to engage in these activities
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8. Read to Children about Play
 On My Way to Buy Eggs by Chih-Yuan Chen
 A child takes a playful journey through the neighborhood, imitating a cat walking on a roof, turning the world into an ocean with the help of a colored marble, and more. She finds chances to play and learn wherever she goes. After reading this book together, take a walk with a child and see how many ways to play that you both can find along the way.
 Billy’s Bucket by Kes Gray and Garry Parsons
 Billy shows that play is in the eye of the beholder and that everyday objects make great playthings. An unadorned bucket is the gateway for Billy’s imagination to blossom
These are great books to read to children to help them recognize the richness and possibility of PLAY
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