Learning through play

National guidelines in Australia support the importance of play in learning. 

"The guidelines recognise the importance of play, particularly in the way it develops creativity, teaches sociability, negotiating and linguistic skills, and stresses that learning is not limited to a time or place." Guidelines Recognize The Importance of Play, The Melbourne Age

Something we unschoolers knew all along. 

Creativity - our cooking, our free arts and crafts, our Lego, our dress ups, our imaginary play, our forts and cubbies and cars and dolls and music and...

Sociability - getting along with each other day after day, park days, play dates, church, parihs activities....

Negotiating skills - whose turn is it to sit in the front of the car or to have a go at the Playstation or...

Linguistic skills  - we talk, we read, we watch movies, we talk some more, we write,we journal, we are on facebook and blogs and twitter, we learn prayers and poems and languages, we sing, we play games...

Learning is not limited to a time - stories and looking up links on Google at bedtime and watching just-anther-episode  - oh, it's midnight already?

Learning is not limited to a place - writing journals while having ice creams at McDonalds and mum feeds the baby, working on a Maths sheet or reading a religion book in the car on the way to skating, sitting on the sofa to read and use the laptop or lying in the grass outside with that book and play cards and throw balls and everything else....

Learning through play.