At the kid’s care center, the children launch in the morning in stations within the playroom, including the one led by Sally, an early childhood educator. At the wobble table, Sally explores the theme of water. She gives the kids a variety of mud kitchen-friendly materials in which water play and imagination are protected, particularly while preparing food with their toys for cooking. Sally forms a team, sending a player to the edge of the field to ensure the other is watching and teamwork simultaneously. Besides, the investigations further focus on self-determination and its influence on achieving physical, cognitive, language,social-emotional development, and creativity.
The play in defying gravity at the water table seems to indicate that the activity is intrinsically motivated and fulfilled by the inborn joy and happiness of the drives, not by external values. Sally, the teacher who works with preschoolers, has been intentionally very careful about offering kids explicit instructions and letting them go out of their interests, creativity, and impulses (Bopp et al., 2019). Sally’s teaching children the reasons for feeling and sharing thoughts and the joyous celebration of the outcome is evidence that the play experience has intrinsic worth (Lomas et al., 2017). Their creativity and passion put together with each other show as they never stop splashing about and making-believe.
Physical
The movement of water in carrying it with plastic cups and buckets in this same play experience is a stimulus that encourages children’s physical growth. Not only does the water table assist in perfecting the child’s small motor skills through solutions of holding, pouring, and measuring.(Siedentop & Mars, 2022). Water play represents a wide variety of sensory elements to the touch and whole body alignment. This sort of experience is related to the development of fine and gross movement, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, sensory learning, working against instability and equilibrium, and creating the full range of physical development in the stimulating playground.
Cognitive
It is through this aquatic space of this playscape that the water gives rise to physical and psychological development as well. The understanding of basic mathematical concepts emerges through pouring and measuring, and teamwork and communication are what it generates from the chocolate cake (Eckstein et al., 2017). Through the directives with open-ended questions, Sally tries to develop language as a second language for her students. Overall, the concept of water school improves the whole cognitive process that develops observational skills, problem-solving, imagination play, early arithmetic, collaboration, critical thinking, and language ability.
Language
During this kind of water activity, language gets a positive area to grow. Fantasy play, such as while they are playing with kitchen supplies and water toys, introduces children to new words. This seemingly unassuming feature of Sally’s communication style invites its audience to be more expressive and share their feelings and thoughts(Snow, 2019). This visually interactive water game becomes the source of synergistic learning, a platform aiming at the expansion of vocabulary, development of a child’s expressive language, improvement of communication competence, development of a story plot, and the emergence of communication among the participating children.
Social-emotional
Through this setting, the pleasant activity becomes a factor that not only causes but also evokes important social and emotional change. Through her support for emotional expression, Sally has empowered individuals to engage in dynamic articulation, ultimately leading to a deeper understanding of their feelings(Snow, 2019). In give-and-take play, as an illustration, “cooking’ using toys such as water helps in developing empathy. In this setting that develops day by day, children learn social skills and also master emotion regulation skills, making the water activity a fully equipped platform for socio-emotional growth.
Creative
Being in the water serves as the jumping-off point for children to draw up their imaginations in open-ended play like “cooking” with water toys. Sally pushes for the verbalization of processes in motion and sets off powerful emotions(Resnick, 2017). Being vague leads to creative thinking, and problem-solving mainly happens while playing. Collaborative work in the creation of the chocolate cake entails both individual imagination and commonality vision. For that matter, in this case, playschool provides a vibrant playground for the nourishment of creativity in children of all ages via imaginary play, symbolic representation, artistic expression, problem-solving, and collaborative creativity.
Conclusion
It is a playful way to instill creative thinking through non-restrictive play using water to make cooking with water toys a range of thinking. The kids’ use of water and containers in their symbolic roles, such as chocolate-making, which requires much creativity, the kids illustrates that symbolic representation is a crucial aspect of creative development. In the lack of explicit instructions, children are forced to use their imagination and problem-solving skills, which promotes creativity during play. Collaborative efforts in designing our chocolate cake involve a joint idea. Therefore, such a water task offers a lively environment where children would find their playgrounds full of imagination through symbolic acting, creative art, problem-solving, and collaborative creativity.
References
Bopp, C., Engler, A., Poortvliet, P. M., & Jara-Rojas, R. (2019). The role of farmers’ intrinsic motivation in the effectiveness of policy incentives to promote sustainable agricultural practices. Journal of Environmental Management, 244, 320–327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.04.107
Darling-Churchill, K. E., & Lippman, L. (2016). Early childhood social and emotional development: advancing the field of measurement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, pp. 45, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2016.02.002
Eckstein, M. K., Guerra-Carrillo, B., Miller Singley, A. T., & Bunge, S. A. (2017). Beyond eye gaze: What else can eye-tracking reveal about cognition and cognitive development? Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 25, 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2016.11.001
Lomas, J. D., Koedinger, K., Patel, N., Shodhan, S., Poonwala, N., & Forlizzi, J. L. (2017). Is difficulty overrated? Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025638
Pike, A., Rodriguez-Pose, A., & Tomaney, J. (2016). Local and regional development. In Google Books. Routledge. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yKyuDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=how+plays+provide+physical+development+issues&ots=NXauc0R41k&sig=NYjGznTsZMP4AAGe28m-GslPcqY&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=how%20plays%20provide%20physical%20development%20issues&f=false
Resnick, M. (2017). Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity Through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play. In Google Books. MIT Press. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nGYyDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=how+plays+provide+creative+development+issues&ots=lD4zfy6Yuw&sig=W_rF3-omiRGhqV23D6KlOlJKjDg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=how%20plays%20provide%20creative%20development%20issues&f=false
Siedentop, D., & Mars, H. V. D. (2022). Introduction to Physical Education, Fitness, and Sport. In Google Books. Human Kinetics. https://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=J4FzEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=how+plays+provide+physical+development+issues&ots=aDRgcxbXdM&sig=VhvuprgisyzQnwKomD0fNn2Vziw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=how%20plays%20provide%20physical%20development%20issues&f=false
Snow, C. E. (2019). Issues in the Study of Input: Finetuning, Universality, Individual and Developmental Differences, and Necessary Causes. The Handbook of Child Language, pp. 179–193. https://doi.org/10.1111/b.9780631203124.1996.00007.x
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