You currently work with preschoolers, but you have worked in the primary-grade space. How did you ensure that guided play was part of children’ s experiences in kindergarten through grade 3?
The pressure to abandon play in these grades is real. Standardized assessments, pacing guides, and a common assumption that children past kindergarten are past play all push toward an overemphasis on direct instruction. The research, however, doesn’ t support that move. Guided play benefits K – 3 learners as well as preschoolers.
What worked for me as a primary-grades educator was being deliberate about three things:
› The first was using standards-aligned language. A center where children built and compared structures while exploring community helpers wasn’ t labeled“ block play” in my lesson plans. It was“ geometry and spatial reasoning practice with manipulatives and thematic vocabulary integration.” The activity didn’ t change, but the framing did. Administrators reading my plans needed words that mapped to the standards we were accountable for.
› The second was making the connection between play and learning outcomes visible to families. I sent home a brief newsletter every other week with a photograph of one center activity, the standard it targeted, and a short note on the learning I had observed. Families who initially worried that their children were“ just playing” began asking when the next themed center rotation would happen.
› The third was documenting learning in ways that would hold up at family-educator conferences and grade-level meetings. For example, in a winter-themed geometry center, children built shapes from toothpicks and sugar cubes, then sorted the structures by attribute. I observed their sorting groups and asked the children to explain their reasoning. I transcribed what they told me and recorded a brief, anecdotal note for each child. The evidence of learning was authentic, and families could see what I was assessing as well as the fun their children were having. Both administrators and families came to trust these guided play practices once they saw children’ s learning.
How can early childhood educators apply what you’ ve learned to their own settings?
My advice to educators is to reframe: Rather than seeing a prescribed curriculum as the enemy of guided play, think about the curriculum as the menu of what needs to be taught. Guided play is one method of teaching it. Both can coexist. A both / and perspective is supported by research, and my classroom data support it clearly too.
In the same way,“ play versus rigor” is the wrong framing. Rigor is not about how hard something looks; it’ s about how durable the learning is, how generalizable or transferable it is to other contexts. Children can hit serious academic goals while still being curious and engaged and having agency in their day. Some of the strongest language and problem solving I see comes out of guided play, and I think that’ s because the children are invested— what they’ re doing feels real to them.
Photographs: courtesy of Lauren Fleming. Copyright © 2026 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See permissions and reprints online at NAEYC. org / resources / permissions.
40 Young Children
Fall 2026