Play stages: Associate Play (3-4 years)

Today is week 3 of our Play stages blog festival! Today we’ll talk about Associate Play.

By 3 years children start interacting with other in their play and there may be fleeting cooperation between in play. This cooperation is it is however a loosely organized fashion. During associate play the more mature child soon emerges as the leader or organizer. They develop friendships and the preferences for playing with some but not all other children. during this stage play is normally in mixed sex groups.  Children are now recognizing shapes, letters and colors, solving jigsaw puzzles through mixture of thinking and trial and error. They play cooperatively together and take turns with other children. Show more reasoning skills and asking questions for instance ‘why’ and ‘how’. During this stage they are also start pretend play, for example playing  house, dressing up and cooking.

Next week we’ll talk some more about pretend play!

Is your child now playing in cooperation with other children? What do they like to play?