Why free play is so, so important & how children learn

[FlamingoBingo]

DD2 (nearly 5) and DD3 (nearly 3) have got bored and have randomly decided to play a new game. DD2 and DD1 (6) have been watching 1940s house with us, after expressing an interest in the war. DD3 has been in bed so not seen any of it. But DD2 is consolidating her learning in a very concrete way by playing air raid shelters. They've decked out the underneath of our coffee table with loads of stuff and keep saying 'there's an air raid, get in the air raid shelter' and then making 'bomb' sounds. They've even been counting before the booms sometimes, as they were doing when the doodlebugs came down on the DVD.

This is certainly DD2's biggest way of learning - she watches things on tv, films etc., and then acts them out over and over and over again. So different to DD1 who occassionally joins in with the games, but prefers to have loads and loads of very short but profound conversations about things.

Just thought I'd share as to me, it's one of the real pros to home education, being able to really let children learn in the way that works best for them.

Wow! That sounds great

My DD2 will spend literally hours on a project - painting, or making a book or something, whereas DD1 is a complete butterfly - flits from one thing to another. Neither would learn particularly efficiently in a normal school environment - DD2 would have to stop things before she wanted to, and DD1 would have to do things longer than she wanted to. Both methods work really well for each child. Sounds like their learning styles would be really respected and facilitated in that school though - your DS is lucky

thanks for posting this, flamingo

my older two also seem to learn quite differently, but still, mainly through play

it is SO importnat