All about... heuristic play

The guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage tells us that 'when children have opportunities to play with ideas in different situations with a variety of resources, they discover connections and come to new and better understandings and ways of doing things'.

Heuristic play, when offered to babies and young children in the way that Elinor Goldschmied et al intended, is one such play experience.

Heuristic play is a term that can be confused with the term 'holistic'

(planning for and meeting the needs of the whole child) (Hughes, 2006). But the two terms are quite distinct.

'Heuristic' is derived from Greek word 'eurisko', which means to 'discover or gain an understanding of' (Goldschmied & Hughes, 1992). Elinor Goldschmied's work promoted heuristic play as it is mostly widely understood. For many early years practitioners, it is the introduction of 'Heuristic Play With Objects' (Goldschmied and Hughes, 1992) in the video of the same name and her book People Under Three: Young children in day care (1993) written with Sonia Jackson, with which we are most familiar. It is in relation to the ethos and spirit of Goldschmied's view of heuristic play that young children can derive most benefit.