Free Spins (Method)
The free game is a method of designing day in kindergarten or in daycare . Children are given the opportunity - usually in a defined time and in a certain space - to develop and design games freely. In free play, the child is, as the word suggests, more free in the organization of his occupation than in the rest of the day, on which z. B. offers are made by the educators.
Free play is also taught as a method in the technical school for social education or the specialist academy (in the subject of games or didactic methodology or in education or educational science (s)). A contrast would be, for example, the guided game - what is meant is the instruction by the educator or intern. It is very difficult or even impossible to define the content of the free game in general or to describe it in principle, since the free game is always dependent
- from the educational concept of an institution
- of the main focus of the educational activities of an educator or team
- of many situation conditions, which are known to be different in different institutions
- finally and finally on the level of development (level of socialization ) of the child or group of children.
It is correspondingly difficult to teach the method of free play. After all, Brockschnieder and Ullrich (p. 172) write: "Free play in the open kindergarten means really free play for the children, largely free of interventions by adults." Here the free play is also defined as a suggestion for educators to orient the planning of specific actions or exercises on what children lack, what they still have to learn or where they show deficits. The educators should take up what children are talking about in free play. The free game provides suggestions and important information for educational work.
Even if educators in free play should hold back with regard to interventions and regulations, they should think very carefully beforehand about the design of the situation that children find in free play. The number and combination of suggestions (stimuli) have a decisive influence on the course of the game and the learning effect of the child. Monotonous environments (situations) are to be avoided, but suggestions from appropriate objects (e.g. game material, books, etc.) are recommended. The permanently stimulating situation in free play has positive consequences for the progress in the development of the child; she is able to prepare or establish important motivational structures and learning progress.
The free game basically requires an educational concept in which this is conceivable or possible. Free play is not a sensible method in every concept (see for example children's shop or anti-authoritarian education ).
criticism
The term free play makes sense if there is a corresponding pedagogical concept of the day-care center which, in addition to free design, also provides periods of time that are characterized by a greater degree of control (guided actions, sporting exercises, targeted practice of (e.g. motor skills etc.). A nursery (or Kinderladen ) z. For example, if you leave most of the day (with appropriate suggestions) to the children's creative ability, there would be no room for the term free play.
Critically, however, one could say: Free play is the concession of a regulating or directing upbringing to children's needs for free design. Hardly any kindergarten or daycare center will do without the possibilities of free play these days. To fill this free space optimally or to design it advantageously is as controversial or at least varied as there are educational concepts (including variants).
Of course, there is also a game that finds a place in the context of targeted activities, but has little or nothing to do with free play.
literature
- Franz-Josef Brockschnieder, Wolfgang Ullrich: Practice Field Education, Stam Verlag, Cologne 1997