Tina Bruce's 12 Features of Play and My Experiences through Placement

Throughout this blog I will be discussing Tina Bruce’s theory of Play and will link it to the experience I had during my placement. Tina Bruce is known famously for her theory of Free Flow Play, where she discusses 12 features of play that she feels is key to ensuring that a setting is being free flow for the children. She said that ‘walowing in ideas, feelings and relationships plus application of developed competence, mastery and control equals Free-flow play’ (Hutchin, 2012) I believe that her 12 features of play help a setting to provide this opportunity for the children, as I began to see in my placement. Tina Bruce’s 12 features of play can be seen below:

1)      Children use first hand experiences from life;

From what I have learnt and seen throughout this past year I found that a lot of theories link in one way or another. A great example of how this approach would link to another theory about play could be forest schools. Children are taught a lot of their lesson within a forest. This enables the children to get stuck in and explore ‘first hand’ with the environment and the world that we are living within.

My placement was not a forest school; however we did have a fantastic amount of outdoor area ranging from grass area, to concrete ground to an astro turf and even a plant area. I found that despite not using this area so much to teach the school provided many different first hand experiences for the children through the activities that they would set up. I personally carried out many activities where I believe this was evident, for example my Cornflour and Water activity in addition to the Easter Egg Hunt I carried out with the children.

2)      Children make up rules as they play in order to keep control.

Control is something that I found children really enjoyed and felt pride in having. Several children would show this by directing others throughout their games, some would play games where they would be the controller, for example teachers and students, and some would just make up their own rules in a game and ensure that everyone follows them.

I noticed this taking place a lot throughout my placement, however whether it was due to keep control or to feel in control is something that I would argue against this approach. I found that a lot of the children were telling the other children what to do and if they did not listen to them they would get angry. Now from my past experience doing it to keep control would not result in the child getting upset, especially if everyone was playing it safely, therefore this suggests to me that the children were doing it in order to feel superior to the other children and to almost in one sense be the leader of the group.

3)      Children symbolically represent as they play, making and adapting play props.

This feature is something that I have seen evidence of throughout all the placements I have been on. The majority of children will find something that they think could represent an object in real life and use it during their play. A common example of this is bits of Lego or construction materials, the children will come up with all kinds of things that not even us as adults can see.

4)      Children choose to play - they cannot be made to play.

Tina Bruce is right in some way of what she is saying here, however if a teacher was to ask a child to participate in a game the child unless deeply against it would take part. The goal of the teacher would then be to interest the child and get them playing activity, therefore I would have to partially question this feature and argue that is it possible to make a child play and what would it take for that child to strongly argue about not playing?, Because I believe that everyone is some way can be made to do something, however the way in which they do it would vary.

5)      Children rehearse their future in their role play.

This is another feature that I have to question. Despite seeing role play a lot throughout the children's normal day at school, I believe that they are acting out what they are witnessing and being told by others. Children are explorers and as Albert Bandura (1977) states ‘behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning’ we can see that he too believed in children socially learning and acting out what they see. Children act out being cops and robbers, teachers and mothers, now some of this may well be true in the future which is where I do agree with her feature, however not all children will grow up to be teachers and not all be will be cops, therefore this despite being partially true is also partially wrong in my opinion.

Now I believe that the 6^th and 9^th feature can be linked

6)      Children sometimes play alone  & 9) Children have a personal play agenda, which may or may not be shared.

The reason I believe these can be linked is that if the child would like to play with three activities in a certain order and is determined then he may be left alone to do so. Now from my experience this does not seem to affect the child so long as they are able to complete their activities, in my opinion I believe that there is nothing wrong with a child doing so a long as they have fun and it is not consistent as socialization is something that is needed a lot.

7)      Children pretend when they play.

      This feature is something that you will see a lot of while child play. They will pretend to be hurt, pretend to be someone else or even just pretend through their acting. I believe that enabling a child to do this by providing costumes and different sorts of resources so their play can be more realistic will help a child build their confidence. I found that a child in my placement was shy to talk to me, however when she was pretending to be her mummy while cooking in the home corner she was able to talk to me and really show her personality a lot better, therefore I believe that supporting this feature would benefit the children. 

8)      Children play with adults and other children cooperatively in pairs or groups.

This is something I saw a lot of throughout my placement. A lot of the children would play in groups and the majority of the class would approach me at some point of the day asking to play or carry out a certain activity. One thing I did find is that this approach does not apply to all the children. Some of the children preferred to play solitarily and only played in groups when asked to, however as the feature says they would do so cooperatively.

10)   Children are deeply involved and difficult to distract from their deep learning as they wallow in their play and learning.

 One of the children in my placement was carrying out an activity where they were making a giant teddy collage. The young boy stayed at the activity for half of the day and did not move even when he was asked to join others on another activity. This is a prime example of what Tina Bruce meant by this feature and it is something that I totally agree with.

11)   Children try out their most recently acquired skills and competences, as if celebrating what they know.

     If a child has picked up a new skill and is confident about it they will show everyone with confidence and will ensure that everyone is aware of their skill. This is something that I believe is good for the children and is something that I saw several times. A young boy did an observational drawing which the teacher was really pleased with. The boy then went and showed all his friends and asked them if they would like him to show them how he did it. I believe this is fantastic in building the children's confidence and self-esteem.

12)   Children coordinate ideas and feelings and make sense of relationships with their families, friends and cultures

     I have to question this feature as it comes down to the way a person interprets it. I one sense I agree that children try to make sense of the difference between their culture, family and friend, however whether they coordinate their ideas in order to do so or if it is just something that they come to terms with and slowly understand is something that I would question as I have never actually seen a child coordinate their ideas and feelings.

Overall I believe that if the children are provided with the right resources, support and enthusiasm from the setting, in addition to support of these 12 features I believe that the children will turn out positive and confident in addition to showing good progress in meeting the different scale points according to the EYFS Documents.

Cornflour and Water Activity

As part of my work placement I was required to do an activity that was fun activity for the children at my placement. I chose to do a cornflour and water activity. When combining the two makes a weird and gooey texture, as seen as the picture above. The product goes from a hard solid to a soft liquid goo if just left in your hand or not fiddled with. 

This meant that the children were able to see and feel all the different textures as it went from solid to liquid and also went from hard to soft. I was able to get a lot of vocab out of the children and was able to also start getting different reactions out of different children and even got some of the child who do not like to get messy at all to get involved. 

It was a really good experience not only for me but all the staff and children and due to this, the activity was kept out for another day and played with quite well for a second day.

To make it more interesting I added bits and piece to make it set in a Arctic Scene, such as I added Polar Bears, Penguins, White Lego Pieces and little arts and crafts bits and bobs to just include different materials and things for the children to explore with.

 I believe I met all my lesson objectives that I wanted to and all the children really enjoyed it. This is by far one of the best and fun activities that I have seen and done in a long time.

 I would recommend this to anyone and any aged children as everyone loved it, even the other adults. A tip for making it more interesting for the child would be add food colouring and make it more colourful and eye catching! :)

The video link below shows you some of the fun you can have with this activity and some more details about the mixture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY7jSsnEEDA

  

Expressive Arts and Design Play Activities for Children

Art and Design is a key area of the EYFS and something that i have a great amount of enthusiasm for. I'm not the best artist in the world, however I have come to realize that it is a great way for children to interact with one another, in addition to expressing how they feel.

Every culture/religion has something unique regarding what they class as art. In Islam they have patterns which make beautiful and colourful designs. Some of the different examples can be seen below: 

     

My activity that i would plan would try to get the child to see the different kinds of cultures and kinds of drawings people do and to try to get the children to be able to express what they would like. 

I would set up a table with about 5 chairs and get Rainbow Colour scratch paper (as seen below) and allow the children to scratch out different patterns of pictures as they please. not only does this enable them to socialize by having a few chairs at the table, however that are able to share ideas and draw in a more fun way as the paper changes colour while scratching and not by getting a pen and drawing. In order to encourage some of the children to get started with their picture I would do one myself before the lesson and show the children what I was able to do and how. From this point I would put my example up on the board for them to get an idea of what they can do and then go around once in a while and see how everyone is getting on.

In order to make the children more confident about their artist skills and their ability to create pictures I would then have a class discussion about the different pictures drawn after and what they mean to the children. After getting the feedback I think that making a display of this would not only look good in the classroom, however also show parents and the children about the skills and different ideas each child has.

If it was a successful activity and I saw that the children thoroughly enjoyed it, I would then go on to using this paper throughout the year, to make different things, for example nice banners, pictures based on a certain topic, possible masks and so on. Examples of these can be seen below:

"Playing Out" During Childhood

While growing up one thing that I deeply enjoyed was to play outside my house with the other children on the road. We would play all kinds of games such as Stuck in the mud, Hide and seek and Grandma's footsteps. Not only did I find that it helped me social with the others, however me being the oldest was left with a lot of responsibility, especially when it came to ensure the others safety. This gave me a sense of leadership which I was extremely proud of and hoped to gain more.

Most memorable time of my childhood.

While playing the different games with the children gained knowledge of what it meant to take turns and to also take into account how others would feel. I was able to sympathize with the children when they would get hurt or upset and would try to help them.

The main thing I was able to do while playing out, as we used to say, was to develop physically, socially and emotionally. I was able to gain the independence and freedom I needed in addition to being able to rely on the adults when I needed the help. Due to this I believe I am who I am today and for that I am grateful.

Another memory that I have is playing with my older brothers and sisters. I remember thinking that I would be the fastest in the family as I used to be pretty fast in my class, little did I know that that wasn't entirely right. After loosing to my elders I remember getting really upset, and throwing a tantrum as my family says, and not participating in the games anymore. They were then able to encourage me to play a different game which they allowed me to win without me knowing, in order to make me feel better and continue playing the game. From this I feel that I learnt that you are not always the best at everything, however this is okay.