The power of play-based learning - Child's Play Music

http://childsplaymusic.com.au/ &   / childsplaymusicperth   This video shows clearly how much children learn through play-based learning. It's entirely unscripted, and apart from a very brief demonstration of how some of the instruments can be played the children have had no direct instruction; everything in the video is children learning for themselves through free hands-on play. None of the children have seen or played my homemade instruments before today. Child's Play Music - where learning about music and instruments is child's play!

To enhance the learning through play I set only three rules: share the instruments; walk with the drumsticks; my whistle means "stop, look and listen". The fewer rules you have (and the less direct instruction you give) the more children learn because free play is the natural way that young children learn about everything. One good definition of play is "play is everything that children do when adults aren't telling them what to do". Young children learn through exploration, and play is the way children explore.

Play can be joyous and chaotic, but it can also be about intense focus and concentration. You will see children with manic grins pounding huge drums as hard as they can, but you will also see children intently observing and evaluating their own play. These seem like polar opposites but they aren't: they are facets of the same thing, play. Almost always children's play starts as chaos, but it quickly mutates into much more focused and thoughtful exploration. That's the power of play-based learning working.

Which is not to say that I don't also use intentional teaching in my programs - I do, but only after the children have had ample opportunity to explore through free play. And the intentional teaching isn't dry and didactic - it builds naturally on the free play by following the children's interests and using guided play, and the children enjoy it immensely. But that's a going to be the subject of another video - this one is just about how children learn through free play, and how much fun learning can be.

"I hear: I forget. I see: I remember. I do: I understand."

For more information visit   / childsplaymusicperth  

Alec Duncan (B. Soc. Sci Children Studies)