Global School Play Day
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Read below to learn more!
With gratitude,
Erin Kay
What is "Global School Play Day?"
Play has significant psychological and cognitive impact on children.
Positively, play...
- develops physical fitness,
- refines physical (gross motor and fine motor) skills,
- provides practice for social and emotion development (requires cooperation, problem-solving, work in close proximity, requires emotional regulation, etc...)
- at times requires high levels of strategic thinking,
- and assists in developing skills to navigate risk and fear.
In other words, play can be considered the "work" of children.
Current research bears out significant negative impact on a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development when play, especially unstructured play, is absent from children.
Research findings illustrate that a decline in play is closely correlated to
- a decrease in empathy,
- increase in anxiety and depression,
- a decline in creativity,
- and deficits in socialization skills.
Simply put, Global School Play Day started in 2015 with the intent to set aside one day (or portion of the day) for students to engage in unstructured play. It is an opportunity to introduce and inspire us to consider the necessary benefits of play.
Union Elementary will participate in Global School Play Day on February 1, 2023, alongside thousands of schools across the world. This day will provide us the opportunity to:
- observe and interact with students as they engage in authentic social exchanges,
- use this time to witness how your children navigate peer relationships,
- expand our understanding of your child as a person that has academic, social, and emotional aspects of their well-being,
- witness how they interact, show empathy, assist one another, problem-solve, and create
- glean more insight and information in order to provide more feedback to you (parents/guardians) that we are often unable to provide from our typical school day programming.
Our staff was inspired to consider participation when we viewed a TedTalk by Dr. Peter Gray. In this TedTalk, Dr. Gray shares his research on the impact of decreased play. I have provided a link to the TedTalk below. He definitely provides some interesting food for thought.
Union Teacher Suggested Ideas for the Day
- Some of our activities can be a "grade level" combined activity.
- Have students bring in toys, games, crafts, etc. from home that they could play with on their own and that can fit in their backpack. We may give students time in the morning and afternoon to play with what they brought. This might look something like indoor recess.
- Encourage students to engage in parallel play.
- Have students create challenges with the materials that they have (ie- create a monster, something used for transportation, etc.)
- Have students create their own puzzle or game using a variety of materials (paper, cardboard, etc.).
- Give students time for extra brain breaks or movement activities
- Read about the differences and similarities between toys in the past and present
- Ways to include play in instruction: Pictionary, bingo, math games, class story, comics, Kahoot, Breakout Box, Readers Theater, Make puppets from craft materials to retell a story
- Have crafts available-drawing, coloring, watercolors, building, designing.
Student's individual pattern blocks/dice/base ten blocks to be used as game pieces.
"Play is…
- where we afford children the opportunity to practice how to control their own lives.
- where they learn to solve their own problems and learn that the world is not so scary
- where they experience joy and they learn the world is not so depressing after all
- where they learn to get along with peers and see from other points of view and practice empathy and then get over narcissism.
- Play by definition is creative and innovative. Of course if you take play away, these things will decline."
- Dr. Peter Gray