What Is the Role of Play in Kindergarten?

In Beverly's Cleary's ode to kindergarten, Ramona the Pest, the kindergarten protagonist describes kindergarten as being "divided into two parts" -- the part which includes "games, dancing, finger painting, and playing," and the part called "seat work".  Ramona calls out the importance of play in her kindergarten experience as a kind of counter balance to the "serious" part of school.  My favorite educational philosopher, Vivan Paley, also signals the importance of play to learning in her book You Can't Say You Can't Play, a study of her students' social relationships with one another as developed through classroom play.  After having spent a morning in my Darling Daughter 1 (DD1)'s classroom this week on Valentine's Day wherein I got to observe my daughter and her classmates during a half hour of free choice play, and having had a lengthy conversation this week, too, with two colleagues at my younger daughter's preschool about the purpose of free play, I find myself wondering:  what is the role of play in kindergarten, in terms of students'  academic learning and social development?


At home, my DD1 loves to engage in imaginative free play with her younger sister.  They usually enlist a legion of stuffed animals to act out their scenarios.  They collect props from their room as well as from throughout the house to furnish scenes for their staged play.  In the spring and summer, they move seamlessly between inside the house, the patio, and the yard to create a series of elaborate sets.  What is the purpose of this free play during my daughters' extracurricular hours? To enjoy being alive and the sparks of their own lively imaginations? To experience the thrill of creativity and the power of their own agency?  To expand language skills and fine and gross motor production skills?  All of the above and more?

And at school, what is the purpose of play?  On Valentine's Day, my DD1 and her classmates could select the block area, the housekeeping area, puzzles, the writing center, books, or the computer and Promethean board stations.  Because it was a special holiday, the students were not assigned to their usual small groups or to a specific rotation of centers.  Rather, they could choose which form of play they wanted to engage in, and with whom.  And yet instead of blissful engagement and the visible enrapture of fun, I noticed several of the kindergarteners wandering around the classroom, apparently not sure where to go or what to do.  For those at the computer stations, tension erupted as to whose turn it was to use the mouse and the Promethean pencil.  And on both the carpet with the puzzles as well as in the block station, the kindergarteners in those areas bickered with each other as to how long the block road should be, which animals should be allowed on the road, and which puzzle pieces could be used by who.  Where was the fun?   Where was the productive learning?  And where was sense of the social connectedness that can come through children playing together?

Clearly play is important in elementary school and in kindergarten because recess on the playground is an integral part of the daily schedule for students.  At my DD1's school, the kindergarteners have their own dedicated playground which is adjacent to the Pre-K and kindergarten wing of the school.  I can tell a positive difference in my daughter's energy and behavior on the days when she plays outside during recess or after school versus the days when the weather or our schedules do not permit her this playground time.  However, I am coming to see that I cannot really articulate what this playground time during school hours is for, given how little guidance there is of childrens' interactions with one another.

I appeal to my readers to consider with me:  How purposeful does play need to be in order to be productive?  Under what conditions is play beneficial to children's learning and development?  And under what conditions can free, unstructured play become counterproductive?