Early Childhood Education has attracted interest worldwide in recent decades and more recently, it has attracted much interest in Singapore. This has been primarily due to recent studies on brain development such as those of McCain, Mustard, & Shanker (2007) from Canada along with research from the United States showing the long term positive effects of high quality pre-school.
However, such studies have also emphasized the quality of early learning, emphasizing that learning experiences are optimised when they are play-based, hands-on, authentic, real-life and are related to the child's social context, unhurried, consider all areas of a child's developmental and are supported by teachers, peers, parents and others.
This lecture and workshop discusses why play-based learning is important and some hands on activities to assist parents and teachers in understanding this approach.