Play: The most powerful way to learn and be in the world

By Camila Medeiros Silva
Pedagogical Coordinator at Builders School

In early childhood, play is not a pause, nor a break between forms of learning considered “more important.” Play is learning itself. It is through play that children come to know themselves, others, and the world, building meaning, connections, and knowledge in an integral way.

In a school that values well-being, self-awareness, sustainable relationships, and love as the foundation of experiences, play occupies a central place. It respects the rhythm of childhood, sustains curiosity, and recognizes that learning happens more deeply when there is engagement, presence, and meaning.

What children develop through play

Through play, children investigate, create hypotheses, test possibilities, make mistakes, start over, and learn. They play with their bodies, with language, with materials, and with others. In this process, they develop cognitive, social, emotional, and physical aspects in an integrated way, strengthening their autonomy and the construction of their identity.

It is also through play that the learning rights established by the BNCC come to life. When a child builds a fort with classmates in the playground, they negotiate, listen, participate, and learn how to coexist. While exploring water, sand, natural paints, and elements from nature in the atelier, they investigate, observe transformations, and expand their repertoire. In symbolic play, when creating stories, taking on roles, and representing everyday life, children express feelings, organize thoughts, and reframe experiences. And in each of these experiences, they come to know themselves better — recognizing emotions, preferences, and potentialities.

The educator’s role in play experiences

When we place play at the center of pedagogical practice, we consciously and ethically embrace our role in relation to childhood. Play is not improvisation. It is an intentional, planned practice sustained by attentive observation.

In this context, the educator acts with presence: observing, listening, intervening with purpose, and expanding possibilities without taking away the child’s protagonism in the process.

Play also sustains more conscious and sustainable relationships. In everyday life, this becomes visible when children care for shared spaces, share materials, create agreements, and take responsibility for the collective. These are learnings that go beyond play itself and unfold in the way each child positions themselves in the world.

Play is a right, an experience, and a form of construction

Valuing play in Early Childhood Education is an ethical choice. It means recognizing children in their entirety and ensuring experiences that respect their time, their way of learning, and their way of expressing themselves. It is also a commitment to an education that forms conscious, sensitive, and responsible individuals.

And it means embracing, as a school and as educators, the commitment to offer experiences that nurture not only learning, but being.

Because play is language, investigation, and construction.
And above all, it is a right.