Symbolic Play: Applying Piaget's Theory

The objective of activity two (Appendix 2) was for children to produce a narrative following a story that they had recently been covering in class. The practitioner’s intention was for children to use their social, emotional and imaginative skills to complete the task.
Activity two (Appendix 2) was planned considering children’s interests and their current development. The children enjoy stories and role play, so by combining the two the practitioner was meeting their interests. All children were missing evidence towards being imaginative; particularly for the milestone ‘to introduce a story line or narrative in to their play’ taken from the EYFS (2012). This activity allowed practitioners to gather the evidence to support children’s profiles.
This activity resembles Piaget’s (1896) theory discussing symbolic play.
The children used symbolic play throughout the activity, as they chose resources to represent an event or item in their narrative. The children were creative with their selections, they created their own lighthouse using white blocks and put a yellow bucket on top to represent the light. Similar to Piaget’s (1896) theory is Hutt’s (1934) theory of ludic play. This was evident as children used past experiences in their role play such as; making lunch and visiting the beach. This developed children’s learning as they were able to share and discuss their past experiences (Andrews, 2012).
The children were partially involved in the planning process, as the practitioner gave them the opportunity to request what resources they required in order to act out the narrative. This complied with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), by providing children with a choice of resources and the opportunity to select the resources to use in their play
(UNICEF).
By providing children with the opportunity to select their own resources, the activity corresponds with the ‘children, their world, their education’ report. In particular the ‘learning, knowing and doing’ theme, as children had to deliberate the given task and what resources they required to complete it; this indicated the children’s understanding. The requirements outlined were met, as the activity provided children with the opportunity to explore, use exciting imagination and dialogue.
This group task gave children the opportunity to use ‘Sustained Shared Thinking’ outlined by the EPPE. Children shared their ideas of how they could act out the story, how the characters may talk, they spoke about feelings and what they could use each resource for. All children participated in sharing their thoughts, although Child Two needed support (Brodie, 2014).
The practitioner felt that this activity would benefit Child Two (Appendix 6), to promote his social and language development.
It initially put Child Two out of his comfort zone, as he would usually watch others in the role play area and listen to ideas expressed by peers. Child Two has low confidence due to his speech, and often chooses to use actions rather than words. The practitioner supported Child Two during the activity, to inspire him to participate in communicating his ideas with the group. When planning the activity the practitioner had high aspirations and knew that this activity would build Child Two’s confidence to speak within a group. It supported a statement taken from the Special educational needs and disability code of practice (2015) which states that children are entitled to ‘become confident young children with a growing ability to communicate their own views’. This was the intention for Child Two, and after completing the activity he chose to play in the role play area in the classroom (Department for Education,
2015). Throughout the activity, children used self- expression to share their ideas with peers. Isaac (1951) suggests that self-expression is a vital part of children’s emotional and social development. During the activity Child One was extremely vocal in sharing her ideas and she was willing to listen to ideas expressed by others. Child Three was confident to share her ideas, and with support so did Child Two. Similar to this is Freud’s (1856) theory that children’s personality develops through play. Children’s egos were apparent in this activity as they planned their narrative- Child One (Appendix 5) being the most confident of the group took the lead in organising the narrative (Hammersley-Fletcher et al, 2006).