Hello Educators,

This series of morning tips will explore the benefits of incorporating ‘free play’ within your in-home childcare, especially during busy mornings. As we navigate the hustle of welcoming each child, we’ll see how free play can significantly benefit their learning and development. This guide will show you how to create a nurturing environment that fosters creativity and growth while efficiently managing the morning’s demands.

Childcare providers, your morning routines span many hours of the day. We work hard to prepare breakfast, clean up afterward – including washing the dishes, and gather the children for morning activities – circle time, art, storytelling, music and movements, and outdoor play. We need to make healthy lunches for them, potty the ones dependent on us for that, and then set up the cots for naps. There are many transitions and movements from one adult to five or eight children.   

Therefore, setting up your day for success from receiving that first child in the early morning is important. You work by yourself; I know it can be overwhelming at times. There are many start-stop points, including loving that crying baby or the child with social anxieties. This series will help you feel less stressed as your day begins. 

You may have heard the term ‘free play’ when describing children’s self-directed play. This type of play is spontaneous, with rules generated by the children—it is not adult-led or adult-structured. If you are considering switching to a play-based curriculum, this article will also help you. 

The Role of Free Play in a Home Childcare Setting

Play is the primary way children explore the world. Albert Einstein said it is the highest form of research. How can free play assist a home childcare provider during the bustling morning routine? While you are settling in five to eight different children with varying needs, allowing children to play freely can set up your day for success. Free play, being child-directed, empowers children to invent, explore, and make creations based on their imagination, interests, available items in the environment, the amount of space they have, and the playmates they involve in their activities.

By allowing ‘free play,’ you encourage children to have agency in their environment. They play without specific goals and freely create with materials available to them. You will see their learning come alive when you add loose parts materials for them to use innovatively. 

I know you are good at multitasking; it is one of our many gifts as a home daycare provider – all the while observing the children. I use my phone or a sticky pad to briefly document their play before our formal gathering. My daycare starts at 7:30am, and we have breakfast at 9:00am – ninety minutes of child-led play before we gather as a group. Let’s look at some of the benefits of ‘free play.’ Again, if you operate a play-based setting, it’s ‘play.’

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Benefits of Free Play

Play has countless benefits, but I re-emphasize the importance of’ free play’ for the childcare community that doesn’t operate a play-based curriculum. Free play profoundly impacts a child’s development, enhancing their creativity, social skills, motor abilities, problem-solving capabilities, and mathematical understanding, and it also helps their emotional competency and well-being.

During free play, children learn to negotiate, take turns, and resolve conflicts with others, demonstrating critical social-emotional learning at a young age. Observing children as they embody their favorite superheroes, one can see how they contort their bodies, balance, and glide using various muscles, engaging in a complex physical exercise that also stimulates their imagination and physical development.

Their imaginative potential runs high during free play. Too often, adults intervene to correct children’s imaginative quest—reminding them, for instance, that dogs don’t fly. Let’s look at some areas we can allow ‘free play.’ Remember, this is without adult direction, but we are there for support or to scaffold a situation, especially if we hear unkind words. 

Dramatic Play

Dramatic play, also known as pretend play or role-playing, offers numerous benefits for children’s cognitive skills and social-emotional growth development. 

1. Children practice and expand their vocabulary as they adopt different roles, communicate with peers, and narrate their actions and stories. 
2. Children learn important social skills such as taking turns, sharing, negotiating, and understanding different perspectives. It fosters empathy and cooperation as children step into someone else’s shoes.
3.  Dramatic play allows children to use their creativity and imagination to invent scenarios, solve problems creatively, and think abstractly. It encourages them to dream new worlds, roles, and situations, stimulating mental growth and innovation.
4.  Children express and manage their feelings through dramatic play. It provides a safe space to explore and understand a wide range of emotions, helping them to deal with complex feelings such as fear, frustration, anger, and empathy towards others.
5. Children develop fine and gross motor skills by using props, dressing up, and moving around their play space. 
6. Children read and write within play scenarios, such as making shopping lists, reading menus, or creating signs (building early literacy skills like reading pictures).
7. Children gain independence and self-confidence by making choices and directing their play scenarios. They learn to lead as well as follow, developing a sense of agency and self-efficacy.
8. Dramatic play allows children to act out real-life roles and situations, helping them to understand the world around them. The children in my group especially love to play mommy, daddy, and baby. For some reason, the babies are always crying. Just this week, we had them playing campfire. One child asked for a fire, and I cut some felt in strips, which became the fire.

Block Play 

Children hone their engineering skills in construction or block play and delve into mathematical concepts. This kind of play is not only about the physical construction of objects but also about building the foundational life skills –  critical thinking and problem-solving skills. I recommend adding  -The Block Book by Elisabeth Hirsch, to your library. Hirsch explores how playing with blocks can enhance children’s spatial reasoning, creativity, and problem-solving skills. She details various types of blocks and play strategies that can support different areas of learning and development, including mathematics, science, language, and social skills. Here are some skills children learn with blocks:-

1.  Stacking and balancing blocks require precise movements, improving fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
2. Children learn about geometry, balance, shapes, and sizes as they figure out how to construct their creations, which enhances their spatial awareness and cognitive abilities.
3. Block play is open-ended, which allows children to build and create freely, encouraging innovative thinking.
4. As children plan and construct their block structures, they encounter challenges that require problem-solving and critical thinking, such as making a structure stable or achieving a specific design.
5.  Block play introduces children to basic math concepts like counting, comparison (bigger/smaller), and measurement, laying a foundation for mathematical literacy.
6. When children engage in block play, they learn to share, collaborate, negotiate, and work as a team, which are very important social and life skills. I know you have seen that proud child who says, ‘I made this look, look!’ – that is confident boosting.

Loose Parts and Magnatile Play

Loose parts play, involving items that can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, lined up, and taken apart, offers endless possibilities for creativity and innovation. One caveat is to be mindful of small loose parts when operating a mixed-age childcare. Do you want to learn more about loose parts? You may find this article very helpful HERE.

Similarly, Magnatile play encourages spatial reasoning, fine motor skills, and collaborative play as children work together to build complex structures and shapes.

1. Loose parts do not come with predefined instructions; therefore, it encourages children to use their imagination and creativity to build and create. 
2. Children learn to think critically and solve problems as they learn how to use different materials together. 
3. Manipulating loose parts requires small muscle movements, enhancing fine motor skills – an important precursor to writing, scissors, and practical life skills.
4.  Loose parts play naturally involves sorting, sequencing, counting, and patterning foundational mathematical concepts. Children learn about shapes, dimensions, and quantities in a hands-on manner.

See one of my posts about loose parts HERE

Creative Arts and Expression

When children engage in activities such as painting, they unleash their creativity and curiosity, exploring colors, shapes, and textures.

1. Creative arts encourage children to use their imagination, think outside the box, and express themselves uniquely. 
2. The arts provide a safe and constructive outlet for children to express their emotions and feelings. This can be especially beneficial for children who struggle to verbalize their thoughts and emotions, helping with emotional regulation and resilience.

1. Children learn to appreciate diversity and gain a broader understanding of the world through exposure to different art forms, music, and dance from various cultures.
2. I prefer allowing children to make process art than art prepared by teachers. Completing an art project themselves helps boost their confidence while taking risks to produce their uniqueness. 
3. Creative arts stimulate the senses as children explore textures, sounds, and visual effects. This sensory play is crucial for young children’s development, helping them understand and process the world around them.

See how the children made art by using flowers on the light table HERE. 

Some Practical Applications and Examples:

Facilitating ‘Free Play’ in Home Childcare:

• Create an Inviting Environment:  Designate areas in your home childcare space that encourage ‘free play .’This could be a corner with dress-up clothes for dramatic play, a space on the floor for blocks and construction materials, or a small easel for painting. As a home childcare provider, I understand that we use our family space to accommodate the children we teach daily.  
  1. For example, I have an area used for construction play in my childcare. The children use magnatiles, blocks, and other loose parts material in this area. 
  2. Consider adding loose parts to your block area – fabric scraps, small boxes, tubes, recycle bottle caps, spools, small figures, animals, and vehicles. It’s incredible to see children use these items to create intricate stories and landscapes, diving deep into their imaginations.
  3. Please work through the clean-up process together as a group until it becomes the natural flow of your day, where children take responsibility for their creations and joyfully share in the clean-up process. 

• Observe and Support When Needed: While ‘free play’ is child-led, be observant and ready to step in to scaffold their play if necessary. This could mean providing a word or idea to help resolve a conflict, suggesting a new use for a material, or simply offering encouragement.
  1. For example, Observing a new child who struggles with playtime. I have seen children entering my daycare after COVID with less social skills. Some enter my program, and they don’t know how to play. I encourage an inclusive group, so I ask my older children to invite that onlooker into their play. 
• Set Clear Boundaries: Establish and communicate clear free-play boundaries. Children should know the limits of their play space and understand the importance of respecting others, not being hurtful verbally or physically, and respecting the materials and how they interact with them.

• Reflect and Document: While navigating the busy morning, I document their play through photos or notes, which I share with parents to highlight their child’s learning and development.
  1. For example, I make it a point to document the children’s creations with photos even during our busy mornings. Families need to understand how children learn with play. Some parents may ask – ‘all they do is play?’ however, when we share the content domains, mathematical skills, language development, and engineering accomplishments, families are more understanding that their play has had a more profound impact.  Remember, multitasking is what we do best, however, once families understand the benefits of free play it may be easier to transition your program to a play- based curriculum. 

Conclusion

 Wrapping up this discussion about the important role of ‘free play’ in-home childcare settings, let’s recognize this approach not merely as an activity but as the cornerstone of modern educational philosophy. ‘Free play’ transcends the boundaries of conventional learning, inviting children into an environment where the image of the child is valued, creativity soars and learning capacity is limitless. By integrating ‘free play’ into our daily routines, we do more than fill the hours with activity; we open doors to exploration, self-discovery, and the development of foundational skills that children will carry into all facets of their lives.

Educators and childcare providers play a unique role in this process. We affirm the value of each child’s ideas and innovations by crafting environments that welcome curiosity, observing and guiding without dictating the course of play, and appreciating the unpredictable and often messy paths of creative exploration. 

The evidence of ‘free play’s’ profound impact on development—spanning cognitive, social, emotional, and physical domains—is undeniable. Children learn to navigate their worlds with confidence and agility, solve problems with creativity and resilience, and engage with others with empathy and understanding. These skills prepare them for the complexities and challenges of the world beyond our doors.

Remember to share this article with another educator looking for morning routine strategies. 

See our other tips designed for Home Child Care Educators:

Tip #1 Home Childcare Morning Routine Using Puzzles  

Tip # 2 Home Childcare Routine Using Playdough + Loose Parts   

Tip #3 Free Play in a Home Childcare – Morning Routine(this article)

Tip # 4 Transform Your Home Childcare with a Music Box  

Tip # 5 Benefits of Dramatic Play: Effective Strategies for Your Home Childcare

 

Next week, we will explore the power of music and movement in your home childcare. Until next time, I am Miss Sue, your educator in the trenches with you.

xoxo Miss Sue