Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/the-rainbow-play-approach/5024769/
*Additional graphics can be found in the pdf version of this article.
This framework has been co-created by Caroline Gartland and Priyanka Handa Ram from Learn To Play, Botswana.
Gartland is a play, well-being and mental health practitioner who supports Learn to Play through curriculum development and training. She applies her expertise to ensure that the framework is trauma informed and is meeting goals of positive mental well-being through pedagogical approaches.
“The ingredients of play are precisely the ones that fuel learning: in addition to promoting a state of low anxiety, play provides opportunities for novel experiences, active engagement and learning from peers and adults.” (Pyle, 2018)
Scaffolding young children’s development through play is not a novel concept. In fact, it has been deliberated by theorists and researchers as early as Plato, Froebel and Gesell; to educational theorists such as Bruner, Erikson, Piaget and Vygotsky; and more recent researchers such as Bodrova and Leong, DeVries, Fein, and Singer and Singer.
However, what is unique is creating educational settings where play is not just a tool in the classroom, or a fun activity during recess, but instead, where “play is a state of mind, rather than an activity” ...