What are Invitations to Play?
This term is used a lot by Early Childhood Educators and is deeply rooted in the Reggio philosophy of allowing children to direct their own play by offering open-ended, meaningful resources to explore.
It simply describes a little set up of play materials for your child to come and discover and play with in any way that they choose. It can be as simple as setting out the tea set and play food on a little table with napkins, bringing out the building blocks and setting them on the grass or presenting the child with an unusual object for investigation.
These are pictures of some of the Invitations to Play that I have set up for our students during Games & Choices time. In providing these opportunities, my hope is to inspire the students to play and create in new and different ways with materials they have seen before.
These invitations will occur throughout the year…here are a few examples…
- Some branches from the yard…and clip boards (anything with clip boards is super fun!)
- An old tablecloth and napkins (with toilet rolls for napkin holders!) is the backdrop for a birthday party…
- a train set with some shiny rocks…
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Take a moment and try one at home…happy learning!