How The Adults Can Encourage Exploration And Investigation Through Play?

Adults can encourage exploration and investigation for children through activities that include play dates or outings in a new place so the child can explore the new location. In addition, a simple game you could encourage is a 'hide and seek' type activity, where the toddler has to find an object in a room which will allow them to explore and investigate.

Moreover, in order to help a child develop in terms of expressing themselves, imaginary games should be encouraged. For example, they can play house or pretend to be a teacher or shop keeper and so on. As a parent or carer you should play along with the child and help them develop their own story. In addition, encouraging children to read books or communicate with other children is a helpful way of expressing themselves.

It is important that as a parent or authoritative figure, you should allow the child to discover their abilities independently. Of course, a child will always enlist the comfort and support of a parent or teacher, however, you should set boundaries that will help them grow up independently but will still want to come to you for guidance and reassurance.

You should also keep in mind that every child is different and while you should try and encourage them to take part in certain activities and games to help develop, you should not push them. Depending on the personality of the child, they should find their own ways of learning and expressing themselves so don't force them into playing a game that they don't want to. Try and adapt the activities to the specific child.

The adult can encourage the children to play but also be learning about exploration and investigation through many different ways in different settings. The adults can encourage the child to do it at home, nursery and loads of other settings. The adults will have to help the child but make sure they involve them as well. Adults can read stories or show them plays what involve exploration and investigated and let the child act out the book or play giving them different pros and it will also make them understand more.

Allow kids to get dirty and/or hurt. Teach them gently how to pay attention to potential threats and to help themselves heal. (It is not that you wish hurt on the child, but that you give them permission to go places and do things that could result in hurt.)

I believe one of the biggest mistakes adults make is to prevent certain explorations "because you'll hurt yourself." If the hurt isn't maiming or life-threatening, it can be educational. The world is messy. If you want kids to learn about the world, you have to let them get in it and get messy. Of course, this requires the adult have a good sense of what is hurtful and what is not (and what is just their own reaction to their upbringing), and know how to explain the difference in an unemotional way.

All too often, the admonition "you'll hurt yourself" is a very effective curse put on the child by the parent.

See also Last Child in the Woods.
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Some of the techniques found here can be very useful to those who want to get over their own emotional trauma associated with exploring the world, or to heal from the sometimes undesired results of their own exploration or that of the kids they know.

The adults can provide the children with different resources such as natural materials like; sand, water, clay, paper, plants, animals, sea life and pond life. The children could be taken on trips out to the beach, woods or maybe an aquarium where they can investigate different animals and habitats.

Adults can encourage children to explore and investigate through play in many ways. For example if a teacher was doing a creative activity with a group of children, the teacher can encourage the children saying why let’s explore the materials we got on the table this way children would learn by play and will be encouraged to make something out of it or create something. This activity would plan by the teachers before the day so that they know how the children would react to the activity that was given. There are many ways in which a
CCEW (Childc Care Education Worker) can support children’s play and activities for example, supporting children’s play, keeping play safe, helping children to resolve arguments and when clearing away.

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