{"id":38701,"date":"2018-03-12T07:44:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T11:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/?p=38701"},"modified":"2021-02-11T12:34:01","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T17:34:01","slug":"encourage-unstructured-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahealthysliceoflife.com\/encourage-unstructured-play\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Encourage Unstructured Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

“But what are we going to dooooooo??”<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve heard Hailey whine this at me plenty of times. She’s like me in that she likes to know what to expect in her schedule. I get it. Most times I have a loose outline of the day to give her, but I’m careful not to fill every hour- sometimes that even means telling her that between 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM is just free play<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I’ve read enough research to believe that children need time, a lot of time, to just play and explore. I’ve also seen positive results in my own house when I allow for more unstructured play time for the girls, so since they were babies I’ve tried to be very intentional in trying to create space for it every day.<\/p>\n

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Unstructured play<\/strong> is a hot topic today, especially with recess disappearing from schools and the rise of so many structured activity options for our kids. But what is it exactly?<\/p>\n

Unstructured play can be defined as an activity in which children (or adults!) engage in that is open-ended and has no specific learning objective. <\/em><\/h2>\n

It’s different from recreational soccer, piano lessons, or art class- it’s literally free time to explore, create, and find joy in activities that we love so much we lose all sense of time when we engage in them. Don’t let the “no specific learning objective” part throw you. Though there might not be a specific parent-directed goal in mind, there is so much to gain from unstructured play.<\/p>\n