Nursery World - Learning & development: Open-ended Play

The importance of leaving children to their own devices with imagination and the most basic materials is explored by Helen Huleatt of Community Playthings with Professor Tina Bruce, Lynn McNair and Sian Wyn Siencyn.

Play, for children, is not just recreation - it's their approach to life! Every action is undertaken with the whole being: mind, body, and spirit. Play is basic to children's well-being. It's their way to discover the world around them and to express how they feel and, sometimes, to cope with difficulty.

Although children's play just 'happens' spontaneously, it is complex and comes in myriad forms. One universal type is open-ended play, also known as free-flow play (Bruce 1991), in which the children themselves determine what to do, how to do it, and what to use.

Open-ended means 'not having a fixed answer; unrestricted; allowing for future change'. In the course of such play, children have no fear of doing it wrong, since there is no 'correct' method or outcome. Observant adults are privileged with insights into children's development and thinking.

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