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Children at each age have to cope with
changing and maturing sensory, motor, social, mental, and emotional
powers. As they develop, they have a driving desire and need to
practice their skills in an ameliorating milieu of play and challenge.
Below are the three ages and stages of play development:
1. Sensorimotor play that takes place during the first two years when a
child is busy acquiring control over his bodily movements, learning to
coordinate actions with perceptions of their effects. For example, the
child will learn that "When I pull this string, I make the feet and
arms of a jumping jack move"). Play at this stage consists of repeating
and varying physical movements. The baby derives pleasure from
mastering motor skills and experimenting with touch, sight, sound, etc.
He delights in causing events to happen. He is actively learning "cause
and effect".
2. Pretend or symbolic play occurs between two and six years when the
child uses pretend play, symbols, or objects to represent reality.
Wooden cylinders are made to represent soldiers or other people; he
moves them about to make them march or climb up to the roof of one of
his block constructions. Dolls are fed, washed, "disciplined," and put
to bed. Sand is made into pies to be "eaten." This is the type of
imaginative sociodramatic play that one finds in the nursery school and
kindergarten.
3. Play involving games with rules that encompass both competition and
teamwork. This type of play starts in elementary school beyond the
eighth year (the third and fourth grades) when children are greatly
involved with their peers.
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