For a child, playing is living! Playing is a child’s main activity. It allows them to develop, get to know themselves and discover others. Games also allow children to understand the world around them.
Games mean that children have huge freedom in their actions; the presence of an adult is, therefore, vital. Adults guarantee the children’s physical safety. Adults also nurture independence whilst ensuring certain rules are respected: in a securely designed space, the equipment provided for the children is adapted to them and they are encouraged to use it with positive expressions.
Children play for pleasure, but it is also a way for them to express themselves and explore the world around them. In imaginative roleplay games, children experience social roles (mum, dad, doctor), in order to understand them better. During a fun activity that they have chosen, children also experience the physical rules of the world around them.
It’s often the element of chance in games that helps children to realise their abilities. Children at first hold a pencil as if it were a piece of wood, before managing to draw shapes with it and finding these shapes pretty.
Thanks to games, children develop their motor skills; they go further, quicker, higher. Each game is a chance to learn how to persevere and to accept failures.
As soon as possible, children go outside to play where other fun activities await them. With young children, the possibilities are almost infinite as they have everything to learn, lots of energy and a huge desire for knowledge.