Playing is learning

Playing is not just fun. It is about learning and building vital skills. From problem solving to expressing great ideas, playing is crucial for every child’s development. Play in the preschool years enables children to explore and make sense of the world around them. It also helps them develop their imagination and creativity. In Behima Primary School, Oromia region Ethiopia, five-year-olds enjoy their first school experience in a lively blackboard free classroom where playing takes a central role. The learning is designed to activate children’s curiosity and help them develop cognitive, emotional, physical and language skills. We spent a day with them and, here is their reaction to play-based learning.  

“I love the letter blocks because the colours are beautiful,” says Sifen Juneydi “I connect one with the other and make the alphabet. Look, I make ABC!”

As Sifen keeps connecting the letter blocks on her desk, her friends, sitting next to her, help in getting the orders correct.

While Sifen loves to make the alphabet with colourful letter blocks, five-year-old Farahan Mohammednur is busy making the number jigsaw puzzle. Once he gets the arrangement of the jigsaw numbers, his next task is to correspond the numbers with the dots. “I have collated the numbers 1 up to 10. Then I put the dots next to each corresponding number. I love this game because it helps me count the numbers,” he says.

Mohammednur noticed that he misplaced numbers 9 and 6, but that is alright. The play is not about getting everything right and making mistakes is part of the learning. It is all about helping the children try things by themselves so that they learn a lot through that journey.

Obse Ahmedin is a number genius. Unlike the other children, she loves to play with her multiplication chart.  Little dice of hardboard with numbers written on them are scattered around her. She picks each dice and gazes on the multiplication chart. When the number she calculated matched with the one on the chart, she carefully places it on top. “I love numbers. I want to be clever in math,” says Obse.

Kalid Siraji loves to play with the letter cards. “My favourite letter is ‘K’ because my name starts with it. I play with my friend Garo competing who can first match the letters on the box. I love school because I can play with my friends here. I don’t want to miss school. It’s fun here.”

Five-year-old Asanti Ahmedin is clever in building the ‘pink tower’. She starts by putting the bigger blocks at the bottom and then continues building them up step by step putting the smaller ones on top. “If you get the sizes correct the blocks do not fall. So, I make sure that I put the bigger ones first.” 

The three things Faydia loves about school are all related to playing. She loves singing, playing with her best friend Obse in the compound, and playing with toys in class.

Children in Behima’s preprimary class are happy to learn while playing. Their future takes shape at an early age despite many challenges and limited resources.

With technical and financial support from the LEGO Foundation and Education Cannot Wait, UNICEF supported the development of a national Early Childhood Development and Education (ECDE) policy framework that aims to address the needs of the most disadvantaged and marginalized children in rural Ethiopia. In the Oromia region, UNICEF and its partner imagine1day are promoting play-based early childhood learning. UNICEF also provides learning material and trains teachers.