Abstract:

In the modern educational system, more and more attention is being paid to the phenomenon of play, as one of the most important elements for a child development. It is widely believed that play and recreational activities are the most essential for the health and well-being of children, it contributes to the development of creativity, imagination, self-confidence, as well as the development of physical, social, cognitive and emotional strengths and skills. Since Georgia has joined the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the process of active development of a preschool curriculum for the past few years has started, the need of inclusion of play as one of the elements into the early education curriculum, along with other important parts, has become a part of the agenda. It was preconditioned by the fact that young children (from birth to 8 years) learn through play, find their place in the world, interact with peers and adults. Since, the main goal of pre-school services and educational institutions is to promote a multilateral development of young (pre-school) children, ensuring their intellectual, physical development, formation of their cognitive, creative and social-emotional skills, as well as supports their individual and personal self-expression and fosters their aesthetic tastes and feelings, the early and pre-school educational program curriculum is mainly focused on the following areas of child development: physical development and motor skills, social and emotional development, communication, language and literacy development, cognitive development – investigation and discovery, development of independent and adaptive behaviors. Play is considered to contribute significantly to the development of those areas. The researches show that while playing the children are being developed multilaterally, their social and physical skills, their language competences are being widened. Therefore, one of the most important goals of a good educational program is to provide such an environment, where children spend most of their time playing. The paper discusses the characteristics and types of play, and gives particular examples of their use. In the research process the quantitative as well as qualitative methods have been applied, the scientific literature and recent researches on this topic in Georgian reality have been studied. The study results revealed that there are plenty of types of plays, among them creative, moving, manipulative, board-games, imaginative and others, which can be successfully be introduced into practice and all such plays shall be accessible in terms of the nursery schools, as well as outside – in the yards or beyond the early childhood services.

Keywords:

Curriculum, Play, Early Education, Types of Play.