Children learn an enormous amount through play, and most of it does not look like learning. Here is what is going on when a toddler spends forty-five minutes on something that bores an adult to tears, what the research says about toys, and why the most useful thing an adult can do is often nothing at all.
When my son was about two, we walked the same loop every afternoon to a reserve four hundred metres from our house. At the far end there was a dip in the path that held water for a few days after rain. Calling it a puddle would be generous.
One afternoon he picked up a stick and spent forty-five minutes moving water from the puddle to the grass.
I timed it, eventually, because after about fifteen minutes I stopped believing what I was seeing. He hit the water to make splashes. Then he dragged the stick slowly and watched the trail close behind it. Then he discovered that if he lifted the stick flat and fast, a little water came with it, and he tried that near the edge, in the middle, at different angles, once with the wrong end. Then he started carrying water to the grass, four or five drops at a time, with complete seriousness. Then he added gravel. Then he stood up, handed me the stick and said "home".
At home he had a shelf of beautiful wooden toys, some of which I had chosen myself with the word "heirloom" in my head. Between them they had held his attention for about nine minutes since Christmas.
How do young children learn through play?
Te Whāriki, the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, puts it simply. Children learn through play "by doing, asking questions, interacting with others, devising theories about how things work and then trying them out and by making purposeful use of resources." It also asks that children's play be "valued as meaningful learning" and that "the importance of spontaneous play is recognised".
Look at the puddle again with that in mind. Cause and effect, because water does not behave like a spoon. Carrying things from one place to another, over and over, for no outcome an adult would recognise. Containers and what happens when you put things in them. Testing an idea, noticing it did not work, adjusting. That is a two-year-old devising a theory about how things work and trying it out.
The American Academy of Pediatrics made a similar case in a 2018 clinical report called "The Power of Play", arguing that play is not frivolous and that, with parents and peers, it is a singular opportunity to build the social-emotional, cognitive, language and self-regulation skills that children rely on later. In other words, play is not a break from learning. For young children it is mostly how learning happens.
Why the least impressive things often work best
A stick does nothing. That is not a criticism. It is the whole point.
A stick has no correct use. It is a sword, a spoon, a fishing rod, a pen, a lever, a way of measuring how deep the puddle is. Every use has to be invented by the child, tested, and dropped when a better one comes along. A toy that plays a tune when you press the yellow button does one thing very well, and after the twentieth press it has nothing left to say. The child has not run out of curiosity. The toy has run out of answers.
Early childhood teachers call open-ended materials like this "loose parts", a phrase that comes from a 1971 essay by the architect Simon Nicholson. Boxes, pegs, stones, water, scarves, cardboard tubes, a muffin tray, the pot drawer. Worse toys, much better materials.
There is some research that points the same way. In a study by Carly Dauch and colleagues at the University of Toledo, 36 toddlers aged 18 to 30 months each played twice in the same room, once with four toys and once with sixteen. With four toys, they played with each one for longer and in more varied ways. With sixteen, many of them moved quickly from toy to toy. A separate small study by Anna Sosa found that when parents and babies aged 10 to 16 months played with electronic toys, parents said fewer words and there was less back-and-forth conversation than when they played with traditional toys or read books. Both studies were small, and I would not treat either as the final word. But they fit closely with what you see in any early childhood room on any afternoon.
Everyday experiences count
Play is not only what happens with toys. For a young child, the most interesting materials in the house are often the ones adults are using: the pegs from the washing basket, water in the sink, the measuring cups, the sorting of socks, the shopping bags. Children are drawn to real work because it is real.
Picture, as an example, a three-year-old helping to unpack the groceries. They are sorting (cold things here, tins there), comparing weights, using words like heavy, more and empty, following a sequence, and being trusted with something that matters. None of it was planned as a lesson. It does not need to be.
The same applies outdoors. A small, deeply familiar place, like the reserve we walked every day, can be richer than a big new one, because familiarity frees up attention for detail. You cannot study a puddle you have never seen before. You are too busy studying everything else.
Should you join in, or leave them to it?
Both, at different times. Playing with your child, following their lead and responding to what they do, is one of the best things you can do for a relationship and for language. Harvard's Center on the Developing Child calls this "serve and return", and it matters a great deal.
But there is another kind of moment, and I think it is the one adults most often miss. When a child is deeply absorbed in something, the most useful thing you can do is nothing.
For forty-five minutes at that puddle, nobody asked my son what colour the stone was. Nobody said "good boy". Nobody suggested a better way, took a photo or announced it was time to go. I would love to claim that was wisdom. Honestly, I was too tired and too bored to intervene. But it produced a stretch of concentration I could not have created on purpose with any amount of equipment. Montessori educators and the educators of Reggio Emilia reached the same conclusion from different starting points: deep concentration in a young child is precious and easily broken.
A few things that help:
- If they are absorbed, be furniture. No questions, no suggestions, no photos. You will fail at this constantly. Every minute you manage is a minute of concentration they keep.
- Describe rather than judge. "Good job" ends things, because a verdict has been delivered. "You've moved a lot of that water" shows you were watching and hands the moment back.
- Put out fewer things. Rotate them. A room with four things in it is easier to start playing in than a room with everything.
- Let the repetition run. If they are doing it again, it is not finished. They will stop when the question has been answered, and they will not tell you.
- Allow a little boredom. Inventing is what children do when nothing has been provided. The ten minutes of "I'm bored" often come right before something interesting.
For educators
Most kaiako already know all of this. The pressure, in my experience, comes from elsewhere: from wanting to show learning, from documentation, from a well-meaning urge to turn every moment of play into a teachable one. It is worth remembering that one of the learning outcomes in Te Whāriki is the "ability to pursue an interest or a project for a sustained period of time". That outcome can only happen if somebody lets the sustained period exist.
The stick cost nothing. It taught a great deal. And none of it looked like learning.
Sources
- Ministry of Education. (2017). Te Whāriki. Mana aotūroa | Exploration strand. Te Whāriki online
- Yogman, M., Garner, A., Hutchinson, J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, & Council on Communications and Media. (2018). The power of play: A pediatric role in enhancing development in young children. Pediatrics, 142(3), e20182058. doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-2058
- Nicholson, S. (1971). How not to cheat children: The theory of loose parts. Landscape Architecture, 62(1), 30-34.
- Dauch, C., Imwalle, M., Ocasio, B., & Metz, A. E. (2018). The influence of the number of toys in the environment on toddlers' play. Infant Behavior and Development, 50, 78-87. doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2017.11.005
- Sosa, A. V. (2016). Association of the type of toy used during play with the quantity and quality of parent-infant communication. JAMA Pediatrics, 170(2), 132-137. doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.3753
- Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University. Serve and return. developingchild.harvard.edu
- Montessori, M. (1967). The absorbent mind. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.