What Does Playing Pretend Have to do with academic learning?

Madi loads up her shopping cart with dress-up clothes, toy cars, and an alphabet puzzle.

Briar at the cash register says, “It’s four dollars.” Briar opens the register, pulls out two small glass rocks and hands them to Madi. “Bye-bye!” says Briar.

“Bye!” responds Madi, wheeling off her cart of goods.

This play is fun for kids—and adorable for adults watching. But developmental theorists say it’s also the single most important learning activity preschoolers can engage in. As children plan, negotiate, and act out these scenes with their friends, they are building skills in many areas at once. Here are a few:

Early Literacy

The squiggles on this page are symbols representing sounds. When put together, they make words, which convey ideas and information. As a reader, you take all that for granted. For children, one-thing-standing-for-another is a big cognitive leap.

They begin to make this cognitive leap as they play. Making a glass gem a “dollar” paves the way for understanding other symbol systems, like letters and numbers. 

As children negotiate (who will be customer and who will be shopkeeper?), tell each other where to set the groceries, and try out customer/cashier dialog, they build language skills. They learn to create and understand storylines. Language and comprehension skills are the foundation for strong reading skills.

Pretend play is rich with writing opportunities, too. Briar wrote me a “receipt” and Avery wrote a note—perhaps a shopping list—on a post-it. There are also signs, price tags, and play money to make! This is how children refine their understanding of writing.

Math Foundations

We can’t have commerce without counting, can we?

As children load their carts, set items on the counter, pay, and then get change back, natural math opportunities abound!

They count, compare quantities (which is more and which is less?), and practice simple addition and subtraction.

Sorting objects into categories is also a foundational math skill. Math involves comparing, ordering, and performing operations on sets of things. So we must first learn to decide what belongs in a set.

As they decide what kinds of items to shop for and what materials count as “pretend money,” they practice sorting. And there’s more sorting at clean-up time: What goes back in which basket?

Emotional and Social Skills

As children take on the role of cashier-with-a-long-line-of-customers or mom-shopping-with-twin-babies, they must practice perspective taking, imagining what it would feel like to be someone else. They walk a mile with someone else’s shopping cart!

What might it feel like to have the power that comes from standing behind that register, ushering customers through and taking their payments? What if you were shopping and both babies started crying at once?

And the social interactions aren’t all role-playing. They are also connecting in the real world.

“Does anyone want to come to my store?”

“I’m the store owner, you have to be the customer.”

“I want to play store, but he has the cash register.”

They are deciding on roles, initiating and responding to dialog, and resolving conflicts with peers—all critical social skills.

All that and more at the pretend-store! It’s amazing how much growth can happen when kids play.

Why We Circle

Circle time is a staple in many preschool classrooms, but the reasons teachers embrace this practice can be as varied as the children themselves. Some teachers see it as a chance to impart early literacy skills, while others use it for social-emotional development or classroom management. One thing most teachers agree on is that circle time is hard. It’s hard getting 16 wiggly preschoolers to come, sit, stop touching each other, and participate. And it’s hard for good reason! Preschoolers are biologically wired to move, explore, and learn through active engagement, not through sitting and listening to adults talk. (Darn!) For these reasons, some schools have done away with circle time all together, arguing that it’s not developmentally appropriate for young children.

However, I believe in the value of circle time as a special opportunity for our children to come together and have experiences as a community.

Children should have the opportunity to participate in group rituals that are important to them, to discuss important topics, and to hear the diverse perspectives of their classmates. Here are some ways children have chosen to use circle time once the skills and shared value has been established:

• Discussing a problem that affects the whole group, such as rules for the loft.

• A daily “Talk About it” (their term, not mine!) where I ask a question and each person gets a chance to share their answer.

• Playing games that are more fun with a larger group, such as duck-duck-goose or charades

• Taking turns sharing their All About Me books with the group and taking time to ask each other questions.

But the ability to participate in these activities requires a lot of skills! And building these skills takes time.

At this point in the school year, circle time is short and engaging, filled with songs and playful activities. As the year progresses, we gradually introduce more structured elements, like taking turns speaking, responding to one another, and playing group games. We are so fortunate to have a multi-year classroom where more experienced students can model skills for the newer students, and where a wide range of skill sets can be practiced during a single experience.

Children are learning so much during this time together. They are developing longer attention spans and learning to communicate and listen. Most importantly, it is a time when all of our individual children get to be a WE. They learn that community time is special, and that everyone has something to unique to contribute. These skills will serve them well this school year, in kindergarten, and beyond!

Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.