Planning for Play: Strategies for Guiding Preschool Learning

By PhD Kristen M. Kemple

Play is learning! But play in the early years is endangered by the emphasis on push-down academics, mounting parental expectations, and pressures on early childhood teachers to prepare young children for the rigors of kindergarten and beyond. With all of that, gains made by play experiences, including readiness skills and social-emotional development, have fallen away.

Young children learn best through play. Planning for Play helps educators understand the different types of play and the rich opportunities offered through carefully planned time and environments designed for valuable pre-K play experiences. Learn how to get the most out of the play in your classroom:

How to support play without controlling it
How to guide play toward important concepts and skills
How to use materials to provoke rich play
How to get a reluctant child to play with peers
And so much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gryphon House, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9780876597170

PhD Kristen M. Kemple

Kristen M. Kemple, PhD, is a professor of early childhood studies at the University of Florida. She serves on the consulting editors board for NAEYC and is an active presenter at major national conferences. She previously worked as a teacher in Head Start, as well as in a variety of other early childhood programs. She has been an early childhood teacher educator for 30 years and has been fascinated by play since she was an infant. She is a founding faculty member of the Unified Early Childhood Proteach Program at the University of Florida, begun in 1992 as one of the first cross-departmental inclusive teacher education programs in the United States. She is the author of a wide variety of publications on early childhood development and education. Her current scholarship is focused on play, creativity, and social-emotional learning in early childhood.