Children and Their Imgainary Play - 2148 Words

Introduction Children show their highest level of intelligence through their play. It opens new possibilities in thinking and develops emotional intelligence making their feelings manageable. Play also helps build a sense of self and relationships with others. One type of play that has an important role on a child’s development is imaginative play. In this essay I will focus on what imaginative play is, the types of imaginary play, skills and attributes imaginary play develops and the roles practitioners play in helping a child develop their imaginative flow. Children and Their Imaginary Play Play is the basic activity of early years childhood. Children are able to absorb and display and understanding of the world around them while simultaneously expressing their personality, sense of self, intellect, social capacity and physicality. Fromberg and Bergen (2007) describes Paget’s four stages of play that get more complex as the child develops. The stages being, imaginative play, constructive plays, functional play and ‘games with rules’. Consequently, it can be argued that imaginative play, being the first stage, builds on skills learned through imaginative play, preparing children for circumstances involving rules. Briggs and Hanse (2012) explain Bodrova disagreement that rules are top priority in imaginary play. The rules therefore are determined by the imaginary roles the children take on. Imaginary play is incorporated into other forms of play and involves a more