Welcome to The Educating Parent Beverley Paine's archive of articles about homeschooling and unschooling written over a period of 30 plus years

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The Value of Play: Lego

by Beverley Paine

Play has long been recognised as enhancing learning, but sometimes when our kids play all day it is hard to believe they are learning anything at all. I often used to ask myself just what was it the children were learning from playing Lego all day long, and whether they were wasting precious 'learning moments' when we could have been doing something more educational! I once took the time to observe their play, occasionally joining in and having some fun too. I brought to the front of my mind all I knew about learning, and asked myself what was going on as we played. Here are some of the things I discovered were happening:

having fun

evaluating

strength and force

talking and listening

predicting

measuring time

role playing

co-operating

measuring length

constructing

negotiating

measuring weight

testing

decision making

concentrating

designing

problem solving

drawing

spacial concepts

classifying

working with energy

velocity concepts

efficiency

safety

We were also, without knowing it, fully engaged in experiments in physics and mathematics, in the areas of space, measurement, motion, energy, speed, efficiency, safety, strength. And when we used the Technic bricks we were becoming competent with using technology such as gears, pulleys, levers, chains, etc. All this in 'just playing'!

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The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

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