Although known as schools, play schools are ideally not the place to develop academic skills like reading and writing. Rather, play schools have a lot more to offer. It is the place where children spend a few hours of the day along with their fellow mates and keep them engaged with several fun-filled yet productive activities which help them in their physical and psychological development.
It is evident from recent studies that parents nowadays are more conscious than the parents a few years back. This starts by sending the child to play school. There are several advantages to sending children to play school.
Helps in the learning process:
Parents give their children plenty of attention in looking after their basic needs and gifting them with toys for entertainment. In play schools, children are provided with appropriate and safe toys that are suited to their stage of development. The play is guided in order to make it an easy and effective learning experience. The idea behind this is children should reflect play behaviors such as feeding a doll, changing its clothes, etc. to themselves and hence develop self-help skills. The idea is that if a child can go through the motions of feeding a doll, it will soon learn to feed itself.
Playschools also teach children to identify their own belongings. With this, a child will learn to identify his schoolbag, learn the mealtime routine accompanied by opening the lunchbox and eating, folding a napkin and putting everything back after the meal is over, and so on. More importantly, a child’s language skills develop faster as they interact with many children of their own age and a little older.
Exposure to different cultures:
Children from different cultures come closer to each other thus exchanging cultural values. Children adopt the idea of being away from home for a couple of hours a day and to be with friends and enjoy this time. Children become more talkative and start interacting much more.
Prepares children for formal schooling:
Play schools prepare children for taking admission to formal school. On the first day of school, the child suddenly enters into a strange world from the cozy mother’s lap. At the age of two or three when the child goes to school for the first time, all start expecting a lot from him/her. Crying children, clinging to their parents on the first day of school is a very common sight. This is where Play school comes into play. It helps to minimize separation anxiety. Play schools start preparing children to face the world, as they are more self-confident and independent, they have improved interpersonal skills and better vocabulary. This way Play schools make children ready for a better tomorrow.
