Free Play & Guided Play

Hi 👋! Lydia, founder of Bonny Day RVA, here. 

Throughout my career in advocating to get young children outdoors, I’ve encountered some big questions from parents, practitioners, and policy-makers. As schools pop up in farms, forests and backyards around the country, people in more traditional learning environments may ask: What does it look like? Are children just running around? Who is with the children?  How is it different from recess? What about math and literacy? How is it different from regular school? 

These are really valid questions as adults navigate the world of early childhood education and understand how to map/justify/label the learning that happens through play. When we have a classroom where the teachers are not “standing and lecturing”, it might not be immediately obvious what the teacher is doing when she is crouched next to the children looking at bugs, standing to the side when children are at the mud kitchen, or chatting while working on process art.

In a playful learning environment, there are often long periods of both free play and guided play, spontaneous learning and planned learning, or natural learning and intentional learning, which we will unpack below. 

Free Play: 

There are many benefits to quiet, active, and/or imaginative activities that occur during free play. In a world of distractions, it is incredibly valuable to allow children to focus for long periods of time. Long periods of free play show children that we trust their decision making and creativity, and it allows them to seek the things that they need. The active children can pursue big body, gross motor play, while other children can see quiet, sensory materials. Often, this type of exploration builds with time. For example, a child might return to Bonny Day with a specific goal to work at the mud kitchen, because they want to master pouring and scooping. As they repeat this action, they may explore with different materials (mud, water, flowers, herbs) or tools (spoons, cups, bowls, pots) that all alter their experience or challenge them in new ways.  When there is a trusted adult nearby, these learning moments might naturally lead into guided play, where educators can extend their learning through questions, inquiry, and modeling. 

Guided Play: 

Whether planned or spontaneous, guided play differs from didactic, traditional learning methods in that guided play is a way of building thinking skills and extending children’s learning. Guided play might be a series of vocabulary words that a teacher might call attention to during an activity, a short lesson modeling how to use a new tool, or social-emotional learning opportunity using preferred materials. For example, during a recent gardening activity at Bonny Day, one of our teachers used it as a chance to pause and first look, smell, and then taste the vegetables. This teacher invited us to slow down and make observations about our food and ask questions about our harvest, and the teacher was able to point out different aspects of the vegetables (skin, seeds, crunch, color, ripeness). In another moment, the guided play was more spontaneous. Children had demonstrated a desire to play with water and sponges so we followed their lead. While playing, teachers asked “I wonder how much water is in each sponge?”, and we started to repeat the new vocabulary word “squeeze” while exploring with the sponges. Through this simple activity and teacher presence, we explored volume/math (how much), language (squeeze), and fine motor skills (squeezing with fingers, as well as hand-eye coordination). We will certainly need these skills in different contexts, and the spontaneous learning moment with sensory materials helped us to call attention to these skills. 

We love being able to explore outdoors at Bonny Day, and we reflect everyday on the ways we can find the balance between free play and guided play. Here are some examples of our “end of day” reflective comments/ questions below: 

"Were the children particularly interested in anything today? Did they notice something that we didn’t?"

"Wow, they were obsessed with eating tomatoes today–could we slow down and spend more time there next time?"

"I noticed that she was really interested in the mud kitchen–could we be intentional with using some measurement language there?"

"Did you see them looking up at the birds? Should we do a little song about birds next week? Maybe we can read our book about birds? Should we get some binoculars?" 

We hope this inspires you to learn more about playful pedagogy, and let us know what other topics you’d be interested in learning about! Happy playing!