Identifying Areas for Guided Play
Identifying Areas for Guided Play
When looking to intentionally incorporate guided play into existing curricula, educators should analyze unit and lesson plans. Can activities be modified to be more playful and connected to children’ s experiences and contexts? Can they be altered to give children more agency? The following bullet points describe the guided play opportunities identified by Mr. Ridgley’ s teaching team.
› Transitions and other routines may include songs, chants, and movement activities to support specific skills, such as vocabulary development or phonological awareness. For example, the curriculum used by Mr. Ridgley included Bird Simon Says, where children can act out verbs( hop, snatch, peck, leap) connected to the movements of birds. Sound Shuffle asks children to repeat a word, then change the first letter to make a new word(“ Say sap. Now change the / s / to / t /.”) Educators can ask children which of these activities they would like to engage in when moving from one task to the next.
› The curriculum may include poems and other short texts that are useful for building vocabulary, teaching highfrequency words, or practicing lettersound correspondence. Educators can ask children to act out these texts, assessing specific literacy and language skills as they play( Foorman et al. 2016; Ripstein 2019). After reading a poem multiple times, for example, Mr. Ridgley asked children to identify movements that would correspond to the poem’ s language.
The class added these movements each time the poem was read.
› If the curriculum suggests that children demonstrate their learning through drawing or writing, educators can set up workstations or centers where children can use various art and writing materials to illustrate the content included in literacy or math lessons. Mr. Ridgley provided feathers, photos of birds, and other materials in the writing center to support children’ s creation of written works about the birds they were studying. He assessed their learning through observation.
› A curriculum may include games that address specific skills. Games are an effective way for primary-grade children to practice targeted skills( Toub et al. 2016; Vogt et al. 2018; Masterson 2022; Zosh et al. 2022). As shared in the opening vignette, Mr. Ridgley prompted, scaffolded, and supported children during games to ensure that targeted skills were addressed.
› Optional or extension activities may include opportunities for outdoor explorations, dramatizations, art, and the creation of videos or stories. Teachers can facilitate these activities, which help children connect with science and social studies content, by introducing the activity, providing materials, encouraging children to participate, asking questions, and / or debriefing with children after the activity has concluded.
46 Young Children
Fall 2026