The Importance of Free Play in Early Childhood and Primary School Education: Critical Analysis for Romania

Abstract

1. Abstract Play is the most important activity for a child. Through play he develops social, emotional and cognitive skills. The value of play is recognised by researchers because of the intellectual achievement and emotional well-being. From all types of play, unfortunately, free play is the least used in the daily program in kindergartens and primary schools in most of the European countries. When the child is free to play, he develops all his personality traits during it. He learns how to communicate with peers, to act or react in different situations, to respect some rules, etc. All these reasons determined us to study the most important theoretical approaches and data about free play and to initiate a theoretical study concerning a critical analysis of using free play in early childhood and primary school education in Romania. The aims of the study were to define and to list some of the most important characteristics of free play, to highlight the advantages and limits of this type of play and to encourage practitioners to use it in their educational program in kindergartens and primary schools. Even if there are a lot of benefits of free play, and children enjoy it, this type of play has been replaced with structured activities, based on teaching. All these, due to the fact that in preschool, teachers have to prepare children for school requirements, providing academic skills. 2. Keywords: Childhood; Development; Free play; Learning; Social skills; Well-being