Play in Developmental Preschool Settings

Abstract

The ideal of a developmental preschool is to provide a facilitating environment in which children can achieve their potential for optimal social, intellectual, emotional, moral, and physical growth and development. In a developmental preschool each child is encouraged to be the active partner in the learning process—to be the actor, the doer, the initiator. Children determine their own curriculum rather than being expected to fit into a preset, lockstep curriculum. The importance and value of play for the preschool child's social, emotional, and cognitive development have been basic tenets of the developmental preschool. The importance of peers in children's social development has been of interest since the 1930s. Preschoolers are deeply invested and interested in the basic life processes: birth, death, intactness of one's body, loss and restitution, love, hate, and the intricacies of human relationships. Friendships in preschool seem built on individual and mutual needs. Friendships seem to shift but also stabilize when children discover common developmental concerns.