How Creative Play Helps Learning in Surprising Places

First the context for this post on play

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Imperial War Museum at Duxford near Cambridge in England.  I went with four of my grandchildren as well as my daughter and my wife. As a lover of planes I was excited to have the chance to visit this wonderful former WWI and WWII air base with many large hangars filled with over two hundred aircraft, as well as tanks, military vehicles and boats. The museum was opened in 2007 and has so many iconic aircraft, including the legendary Spitfire, Lancaster, Harrier and the fastest passenger plane ever, the joint British/French Concorde. But this is NOT a post about military weaponry!

The thing that impressed me most about the museum was the way the whole site was planned to involve children in learning. It does this using varied methods, including play. The result was that in our party of 7 people, two 60ish year-old adults, a 36 year old mother, three girls aged 2, 6 & 8, and a 10 year old boy all had a wonderful time and learned many things.

The use of play in learning

The main purpose of this post is to highlight how this exhibit used play so brilliantly. I was surprised just how much play was used. For example, IWM Duxford has one of the best playgrounds that I've ever seen. A playground for fun, but also a place to learn. The Air and Space building also uses a wide range of interactive mechanical, automated and scientific apparatus that teach children about aeronautics and basic physics. All the while children use these they are having great fun with many complex apparatus. It was obvious that the designers of this place understood the role of play in learning. Play was as important for my grandson as it was for three of my granddaughters aged 6, 8 and 2. For each of them play was instrumental to how they enjoyed and learned from the experience. What's more there were just as many adults enjoying the same scientific apparatus and having great fun.

Above: A basic experiment in air pressure

The Playground

The playground just inside the entrance had just two items, a replica plane and a control tower connected by a simple acoustic telephone. This was the ultimate piece of playground equipment. Its setting next to the runway offered the opportunity for one of my granddaughters to pretend she was the flight controller, giving directions to her sister who was the pilot.  At one stage a WWI Tiger Moth took off on the runway as she called instructions to her sister waiting on her own take off.

While this was all going on, my 2-year granddaughter was exploring every bit of the plane at a running pace. She was walking the balance beam to cross the open bomb window with safety net below, she ran to try her hand at the controls, the rear gunners station, she slid down the wings on the slippery dip and explored the numerous interactive pieces of equipment spread throughout the plane.  At one stage she ran breathlessly past me and when I asked, "Are you having a good time" she called out:

'This is the best fun ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, in every way'.

This playground was more than a place to run around and enjoy the usual slides and climbing ropes.  This was a place to explore an aircraft on the edge of a famous runway before going inside to enjoy looking at planes and being involved in other interactive displays. Provision of knowledge was mixed with physical activity, kinaesthetic experience of parts of an aircraft modelled on the Spitfire and Lancaster bomber, and lots of fun!

Interactive Learning

Above: Sitting in the cockpit the pilot can speak to the control tower

The key for a good museum to work for children would seem to be a preparedness to do a number of basic things:

1. Have an understanding of what people of all ages find interesting.
2. Using varied methods for learning, including observation of iconic objects, provision of information in spoken and written word, image (picture, video, computer programs etc), discovery learning, use of sound, and the situating of learning in exciting contexts.
3. Providing evocative objects and places.
4. Offering opportunities for play, experimentation, hands on experiences and

Above: A great moment! As my granddaughters were communicating tower to pilot, a real Tiger Moth flew overhead

The experience of visiting IWM Duxford demonstrated for me why I stress so much on this blog that play, exploration, discovery, experimentation and firsthand experience are so vital for learning. It was a wonderful learning experience for all of our family members, and a lot of fun!

Other Posts on Play & Discovery Learning

Posts on play HERE
Firsthand experience HERE
Creativity posts HERE

Stimulating the imagination of the gifted child

Above: Imaginative creation with mixed media

Once giftedness was defined primarily in terms of intellectual skills and knowledge that could be tested with a narrow range of intelligence tests. But increasingly we recognise that giftedness has multiple dimensions (see for example my post on Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences). While some gifted children demonstrate exceptional abilities across a wide range of capabilities (e.g. memory, language, mathematics, problem solving etc), others are gifted in narrower and more specific ways (e.g. visual arts, music, leadership, sport etc). If you are interested in more information on the nature of giftedness you can read a previous detailed post HERE.

Imaginative play starts early

One aspect of giftedness is rich imagination. While I addressed the importance of the imagination in a previous post earlier in the year (HERE), I want to revisit this in more practical detail.  While all children demonstrate imaginative qualities at a very young age, many seem to lose much of their uninhibited almost natural ability. But some grow and demonstrate this to a greater extent as they age. The gifted demonstrate high levels of imagination, which in turn reflects high levels of creativity and significant knowledge. The latter is important, for creativity requires knowledge (e.g. knowledge of subject, language, mathematics etc), and in most instances associated high levels of skill and proficiency (e.g. hand-eye coordination, observation, computation, bodily dexterity, memory, verbal fluency etc).  

Imagination requires the mind to take existing data or knowledge and reintroduce it in a variety of new forms. If your child demonstrates to a significantly greater extent than most children - a large number of the following types of imaginative activity, they are likely to be gifted. If so, they will need support, encouragement and some adaptation by teachers and parents. I will list just some ways in which imagination is demonstrated and how each form can be stimulated.

1. The ability to invent or create novel or original things, or look at their world in unusual ways?

Here a 6 yr old looks at prey from above

Encourage children to look for different perspectives with lots of 'what if?' questions. What if the penguin's wing was bigger? What if we tried to do this another way? What if we had a small city in Antarctica? What if 'The Wind in the Willows' was set in Australia not England? What if you spent most of your life flying, how differently would you understand the world?

2. Using real world objects and knowledge in unusual ways?

Most 'what if' questions can end up here but there are other paths. It requires children to investigate their immediate world (this requires skills), to see the unusual and observe things that others don't notice.

Simple cubby made from a box

• Make a cubby house from boxes, old sheets etc (see previous post on cubbies HERE).
• Create a clubhouse in the back yard with membership rules, club motto, a logo and so on. 
• Create a new board game with a theme of interest. You can use many formats adapted from existing games or create a new form. It requires them to think of a theme (dragons, 'Polly Pocket', Spider Man etc), a format (e.g. series of boxes with a start and finish), rules for playing and scoring etc. 

3. Encourage the child's extreme curiosity that is typically demonstrated by experimentation, investigation and in-depth study

Encourage the study of a topic of interest (but don't be afraid to nudge them on to new areas) by helping to find books, key websites, by taking them to movies, enrichment activities, museums, zoos, special sites, and by helping them to acquire knowledge, buying key tools (e.g. binoculars, microscope, sewing machine, tools). Help them to start an insect collection, a resource book on whales, a short history of your community, a study of one animal, a short talk on the challenges of interplanetary space, a short video on a topic (see my previous post on simple animation HERE), or write their own blog (see my post on children as bloggers HERE).

4. Encourage children to use extended vocabulary, complex sentence structure and varied language forms.

• This is perhaps the easiest area to enrich. Immerse your children in a rich diet of poetry, literature and drama. Share literature and talk about it, make it a key part of the home or classroom. 
• Play with language, rhyme, introduce new words and technical terms never use an approximate word in the face. 
• Play with words as part of life, as you play with your children, drive with them in the car, walk with them along the road. 
• Play word games with them and make it fun! Dr Seuss is a great place to start with general language silliness (see my post on Dr Seuss HERE). 
• Give them new words in the midst of real life experiences. 
• Introduce them to literature beyond their immediate experience.

5. Introduce your children to imagery and metaphorical language.

The gifted child will begin to become aware that language has more than literal meanings. Point out some of this richness, encourage them to observe it, and eventually to use it. Point out that language is enriched by simile, metaphor, homophones, homonyms and so on. Again, this can be done in everyday life as you play, travel, share meals (see my previous posts that deal with this HERE , HERE & HERE)

6. Encourage imaginative discovery in as many varied situations as possible.

Play is one way to achieve this, sometimes with adults, sometimes alone, and also with other children (see my previous post on this HERE).

Another way is to provide rich firsthand experiences from a very young age. Many of these are very basic:

• The squelch of mud between toes on a wet day in the back yard.
• Running on a sandy beach for the first time.
• Watching a worm wiggle in the palm of a small hand.
• Going outside on a dark and cloudless night to gaze and talk about the stars (if you have an iPad, you might use Star Walk).
• Watching a bird build its nest in a tree in the playground in spring.
• Doing hand painting.
• Observing chickens as they grow bigger day by day, collecting the eggs, sweeping the cage.

7. Encourage your child to try to imagine and generate multiple solutions to problems of varied kinds

This will include problems that are verbal, mathematical, scientific and even practical in nature. Let your children see how you or others solve problems. Draw attention to novel solutions that engineers, doctors, builders and artists come up with. Encourage them to discuss and generate novel solutions to hypothetical as well as real problems.





 Summing Up

Some will look at the above list and feel as if all children could benefit from them. There is truth in this, but it's a matter of degree and regularity. All children need to have their imaginations stimulated, not shut down. But the gifted child will experience painful boredom and frustration if their school experience is filled with repetitive and unchallenging work that does little to stimulate their imaginations.

You might like to consider some of the other ideas in my previous post on giftedness HERE
 

Jacob (4 years) draws Grandad from the unusual vantage point of the fish inside the aquarium looking out