Play or Learn?

Lately my Facebook feed has been inundated with pictures and articles about children not being taught, schools that let children spend the day outside and people who insist learning is for school! Well, I would like to say, there is no need to choose play over learning or vise versa. You don't need to worry that you are or are not teaching your child to learn (everything they do is a form or learning). And really every parent is doing their best so lets just get along!

In this post I wanted to state that we are teaching the boys many things but that doesn't mean they don't play ALL day long. The learning part is not the concern of the child but the concern of the parent. Let me elaborate. If I want my child to learn to draw, I will provide lots of drawing opportunities - different paper, pencils, canvases etc but they will draw or use these materials when they choose to, not a set time or by force, and to them this is a fun play activity, yet to me it is a goal we are reaching.

So, my boys are learning to read, learning maths, beginning with concepts then addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and algebra (then mummy is a bit limited so I will have to re-learn some things). They are leaning a third language and how to play the piano and swim. We are learning lots of science concepts and they already have a good basis in geography which we are gradually expanding and basics in history are coming together.

This list may look crazy to you but to the boys they just play. The rest is for me and my husband. So how do we do it? 

Reading: This is explained in depth in another post Learning to Read but basically fun games with letters and words and plenty of reading together - most of you probably already do this and if you think about it your goal will be for your child to read!

Cuisenaire rods

Maths: This is done through play with our number rods. They make lines and see how many smaller rods make a bigger rod. The parent aspect is reading the manual and knowing how to direct play so they get the information needed. But these rods are very self instructive and any play with them helps to physically put maths concepts into perspective. The way we describe things also helps here and with the right language choices, maths terms become part of their vocabulary. The boys also enjoy activity books so we choose math related books. 

Languages: The boys are being brought up bilingually (English and Portuguese) but this sometimes triggers interest in other languages. We have friends in Spain and the boys speak to them often via Skype. This contact has sparked an interest in our eldest son to learn Spanish. This is simply done by watching cartoons in Spanish instead of English or Portuguese. If his interest continues and he wants lessons when he's older then he will at least have a basis to go on.

Piano: This also came from the boys. My husband plays the piano and I would like to and we have a keyboard at home. We leave it set up in the living room and the boys have access to it all the time. For Christmas we got some basic first learning piano books both for myself to learn and for them too if they choose this. Most days they play on the keyboard and lately the big boy has asked to play from the book. He has seen me using the book to practice and often wants to join in. The youngest is learning the notes and enjoys playing the demos!

Swimming: This is also a subject which has it's own post Learning to swim. This is an activity which, living on an island and close to the sea, has great importance to us. We have never paid for swimming lessons for the boys but they are very confident in the water and can both swim unaided (youngest for a few kicks, eldest 10 meters or so), enough to save themselves should an accident occur. This has been one of our favorite learning activities this summer and we have been to the pool a few times each week practicing our water skills!

Science: Like math, science is all around us. We love science! Especially messy, explosive and hands on science. Here is our post on several of our experiments and there are several videos of these experiments on our Youtube channel. The more hands on the science the more the boys enjoy it. We try to do some kind of experiment each day and watch documentaries on how things are made as well as any cartoons we find about science.

Geography: As we are quite an international family the boys have relations and friends scattered all around the world. We have a map up in their room and they often pause to look at it and discuss who lives where. If we hears of people travelling we usually check the map to see where the place is. The big guy is doing a project on Egypt at nursery so we have located it on our map and stared to discuss the languages spoken there, cultures and climate.

History: This comes up most days in the conversations we have from when they were young (their own history), to what happened when dinosaurs were alive and hundreds of things in between. We use a children's encyclopedia to explain many things and YouTube often has child friendly videos about other subjects.


Our days are packed with fun, play and learning as i'm sure the majority of your days are too. My aim with this post was to share the secret that play versus learning is only a concern for adults. In my experience, children love learning. They are naturally curious, ask an endless stream of questions just waiting to soak up information. I do not intend to suggest sitting a child down to 'work' on something that doesn't interest them but to encourage their curiosity and offer them many opportunities. Never miss a minute, these years are too precious. We would love to hear all you play and learning experiences - we are always on the lookout for new things to try!

(This post contains affiliate links to help us to continue our educational journey-thank you for all your support).