The Magic of Play: Types of Play That Support Early Childhood Development

I think it was Aristotle who said, “Give me a playground until age five, and I will give you the adult.” 

Or maybe that was just something my uncle made up after his third cup of coffee. Either way, there's a profound truth in it.

BCI Burke recently released an updated early childhood catalog with innovative designs and new products specifically created for our youngest explorers. Let's dive into why different types of play matter so much in those formative early years.

The Wonder of Early Childhood Play

Play is how children make sense of their world. The Harvard Center on the Developing Child notes that play in early childhood effectively supports brain development through complex interactions that help children build resilience. Those giggles and games are actually building neural pathways!

Three Essential Types of Early Childhood Play

1. Physical/Functional Play

This foundational type of play begins in infancy. The National Institute for Play explains that babies start playing very early, discovering how their body movements work and establishing the basis for all future playfulness.

Burke's graduated climbing elements provide the perfect opportunity for little ones to build coordination, strength, and body awareness at their own pace.

2. Symbolic/Pretend Play

Have you watched a child turn an ordinary object into something magical? That's cognitive development happening before your eyes. According to research on Jean Piaget's developmental stages, symbolic play begins around 18 months and is considered the most sophisticated play activity during preschool years, fostering social skills and academic development. 

 

3. Constructive Play

When children manipulate objects to create something new, they're engaging in valuable constructive play. This play type promotes development across physical, cognitive, emotional, and social domains simultaneously. 

Burke's NaturePlay collection offers nature-inspired elements that encourage hands-on learning and problem-solving while fostering a connection to the natural world.

Early Childhood Play Environments

Quality early play experiences help children refine motor skills, develop social interactions, and build language abilities—all crucial components of cognitive development. 

Burke's early childhood playground equipment was specifically designed with these developmental milestones in mind. Each component works together to create a cohesive play journey where children can freely explore different developmental experiences.

Let's embrace the world of early childhood play. It's where the magic of childhood and the science of development come together beautifully.

 

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Want to explore how Burke's new early childhood equipment can enhance your play space? Check out the Early Childhood Catalog here or contact us today to learn more.

About the Whole Flower, Bee, Playground, Child, Community Analogy

“A flower is simply a weed with a good marketing budget.” – Rory Sutherland

A weed gets no love, but a colorful flower gets bees.  More bees, more pollination, more flowers.  The landscape is enriched with beautiful weeds; eh … flowers. 

But it’s not just flowers.  These bees will pollinate and fertilize other plants that produce seeds, and the entire habitat continues to grow and thrive, supporting other animals.  Life proliferates harmoniously.    

Without these flowers, there would be no bee activity, and no pollination or fertilization of more than 70 crop species out of 100 that feed around 90% of the world’s population.  No honey either. Our world and lives would become much harsher, bland, and devoid of many things.

Because of these well-marketed weeds, the bees get excited and that communicates joy and excitement to other bees that also visit the flowers and that’s how all of this works.  Everything is positively affected exponentially.

To paraphrase Mr. Sutherland, a playground is a park with a good marketing budget.  It makes the landscape more attractive, just like a flower to the weed.  It’s not that much of a stretch, but the point is that a playground brings more kids, which excites other kids to visit and play. 

This spreads joy, health, social skills, happiness, positivity, fitness, friendships, learned cooperation, risk taking, resiliency, and stress relief.  Yes, children experience and hold more stress than we’d like to admit.

They get better sleep, it strengthens their immune system, and their brains are more prepared for learning.  Beyond the children, there’s the community.  A park with a playground increases property values, which means more property tax and therefore more funding for better maintenance, beautification, and growth and the ecosystem proliferates positively. 

And it’s not just playgrounds in this respect: Shade structures, shelters, site furnishings, outdoor fitness equipment and so on, are like planting flowers, whereas they add something beautiful and useful to the landscape that attracts more “bees”.  More “bees”, more “honey”, more growth and so on.

Let’s plant some flowers. 

When a Playground is the Content and the Context, We All Win

“Picture a flower.  Then … picture a flower in a field or completely by itself.  Or a flower on a gravestone, and then picture that same flower in the barrel of a gun.  The context changes the content and the background of a picture changes the subject.” – Rick Rubin

To continue with Rick Ruben’s thought, when we see a picture of a flower sticking out of the barrel of a gun, some of us will see a message of peace, while others will see the destruction of peace.  In either case, the gun is not the main subject.  It’s about the flower.  But if we see peace, we see that the flower is affecting the gun.  If we see the destruction of peace, we see the gun affecting the flower and what it represents. 

As Henry David Thoreau said, “It’s not so much what we look at that matters.  It’s what we see.”

While context and background can affect the perception of the content, how we see it and interpret it, depends on us.  What kind of mood are we in?   Our outlook, philosophy, beliefs, positivity or negativity, optimism or pessimism, political leaning, personal experiences, religion, education, and a thousand other things in real time, considering the infinite number of variables, circumstances, and dynamics of reality.

As adults, we’re experts at convoluting what is.  Children are better at just being.  A playground changes the landscape.  It can be the content as well as the context, but it remains the subject.  When we look at it, children and adults both tend to see the same thing; play. 

Play is liberating and invigorating.  It un-convolutes our brain chatter and let’s us relax and be in the moment.  It’s healthy and rejuvenating.  It allows us to decompress, relax our shoulders, and let joy and positivity in. 

Children are under so much pressure to achieve, level-up, and be better.  All well and good when managed correctly, but if not, that pressure can build and cause distress.  When a playground or just play in general is the background, the subject is elevated.  Let’s help our children elevate themselves.  And we adults should remember to play as well. 

We’re part of the context.

Photo by Andrew Small on Unsplash