filed under: Family Life, Play Research

This is your child’s brain on play

If you’ve ever wondered how play helps your child’s brain development, then watch the video below. In all the noise of social media, once in a while a great and simple pleasure to watch comes to my attention with a message that I couldn’t have said better myself!

Thanks to the Lego Foundation for sharing this valuable message! Click here to purchase Lego online.

Your Brain on Play, Gangnam Style!

The clip is just under 20 minutes long and well worth the time to take it all in however if you need a quick overview I’ve listed the main takeaways below.

Here are the big messages from the video:

many parents and educators who value play can’t describe why it is valuable for learning
childhood is great time to learn through play and humans are naturally wired to learn through play
dramatic brain growth occurs in the first 10 years.
childhood creates a once in a lifetime opportunity to create connections between neurons and pathways for problem solving
more development happens in the brain in the first ten years of life than in the rest of your life combined
you don’t get new neurons as you get older, but you do develop new pathways and ways for your brain to communicate as you age. The basic architecture of the brain is set in early childhood
the environment, and the surroundings the child is in, supports the architecture of the brain
nature has organized children perfectly to take advantage of this time of growth through play
play is experimentation and exploration.
learning from playing and making, through hands on learning, is critical for optimal brain development
play is important for social/ emotional development, cognitive development, academic content and motor/ physical development. Play develops the whole child!
There should not be a battle between play and learning! Play and learning go together because play IS learning!