Playful Learning Landscapes

Playful learning
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JANUARY 13, 2022

By Guest Columnists Sarah Lytle and Ally Masters, Playful Learning Landscapes

Imagine a caregiver and child sitting at a bus stop. The child is antsy and is having trouble waiting. Now imagine that the bus stop has a small area behind it with activities for the caregiver and child to engage in while they are waiting. A short walking path is dotted with tiles that display pictures. The child walks along the path, and together the caregiver and child make up a story using the pictures they come across. Instead of merely waiting for a bus, they are now engaged in playful learning: the child is active (not passive), engaged (not distracted), the vocabulary they’re learning is meaningful (not disjointed), this learning is socially interactive (not solo), the activity can be tweaked to many different levels and is therefore iterative (not merely repetitive), and finally, it is joyful.

Playful learning occurs when an adult or the environment guides a child’s play towards a particular learning goal. When the bus stop became an opportunity to tell a story, the child was guided by their environment and their caregiver towards the goal of learning vocabulary and developing literacy. Research shows that the playful learning context leads to the kinds of deep learning that set children up for success in the future.  

​The Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network (PLLAN) works with communities, researchers, architects, and designers to implement playful learning across the United States and internationally, though Philadelphia is our demonstration city. In partnership with communities, we create equitable playful learning opportunities for all children that are based on the science of how children learn and research on what children need to know for success in the 21st century. We have transformed bus stops, playgrounds, museums, and libraries into playful learning opportunities for children and families. In each case, research has shown that the installations led to increases in child-caregiver conversations containing math, science, and literacy content, all of which are critical to early learning in these areas. 

In this photo: PEC's Everyday Learning Play Spaces (ELPS) team and Playful Learning Landscapes team.

PLLAN is looking forward to working with PEC and Philadelphia-based shelters to create playful learning opportunities for children and families. We’ll be incorporating a trauma-informed lens to these spaces as well as input from each of the shelter communities. You can learn more about this project and Playful Learning Landscapes via the links below: 
https://playfullearninglandscapes.com/ ​