Part of our baseline for storyplay is observing how play is used in the ECD setting.
Play is problematic in the South African context. Imagination is not encouraged, freeplay is not seen as learning.
Teachers themselves have very few memories of play and certainly none in the context of their schooling.
We are sowing the seeds of play for a purpose-we need to create spaces where children can learn how to play in a social and democratic way. Where they can learn to negotiate, solve problems and share ideas and questions in their mother tongue.
When the voices come so too will the stories. The challenge is to enable children to play and staff to observe the stories that happen when children discover identity and independence .
These 3 and 4 year olds had never experienced these activities before. We created these very simple play spaces to support storyplay based on the 3 billy goats gruff book we had just shared. Where would the troll live? What would he eat from the mud kitchen ? How can you make grass cakes with playdough? And most importantly what does it feel like to be part of a shared experience where you can jump in and out of the pages of a book ?