Free Play
Overview
It is important to schedule at least 30 minutes of free choice or play time for learners.
Example: Use This Strategy In in the Classroom
Design It into Your Product
Use It in the Classroom
Watch how preschoolers play and listen to them explain their perspectives on free play. By allowing learners to have agency in how they play, they participate in authentic social interactions and develop their Motivation for exploration.
Design It Into Your Product
With 38 games and counting, Toca Boca empowers students to play for the sake of play. By engaging in free play through open-ended interactions, student Motivation can increase, and students can practice their Emotion and Self-Regulation skills.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Active Learning Strategies
Students activate more cognitive processes by exploring and representing their understandings in visual form.
Visiting places connected to classroom learning provides opportunities to deepen understanding through firsthand experiences.
Reading aloud helps students to hear and practice reading and fluency skills.
Pretending allows students to step back from a problem or task and think about it from multiple angles.
Response devices boost engagement by encouraging all students to answer every question.
Providing students a voice in their learning is critical for making learning meaningful.
Actively manipulating word parts deepens a student's understanding of the way words are formed.
