What is role-play?
Playing is so natural in childhood that taking a part often seems like such a great joy for the little ones. Role-playing helps children how the world they live in operates, without any need for too many explanations in the process. As far as children are concerned, it’s basically enough for them to notice and observe the grownups in order to be able to succeed in imitating the latter. Experts find this type of experimental learning to be highly efficient, working on four essential levels of child development, namely:
- Social/emotional level: by reproducing real-life experiments, the child learns how to deal with the fears that may go along with such experiments. Also, by getting into the role and working together with other children, he develops the skills he needs in order to cooperate with his mates and control his impulses.
- Physical level: roles involving physical effort or dexterity (fireman, worker, surgeon) help develop a child’s motor skills.
- Cognitive level: role-playing supports the abstract concepts a child has learnt in school by means of practical examples, both the ones in the “realistic” world (for example, counting money at the bank or working as a laboratory technician), as well as those in the “humanistic” area (working as a TV journalist or interior designer).
- Vocabulary: role-playing involves the due development of language, since the child needs to explain what he’s doing.
Role-play in Destiny Park
While at Destiny Park, in order to role-play, children aged 4 – 14 are guided by entertainers to take on specific roles that are characteristic to jobs and positions of grownups in the real world, such as: firefighters, doctors, lab technicians, farmers, police officers, television presenters, pilots, commercial workers, etc.
Play areas are especially designed for role-playing, each telling the story that is specific to the job they represent and providing a background that is as real as reasonably possible so that each child can better and better get inside the character he’s playing.
Destiny Park experience helps children expand their range of knowledge, while also developing their personal skills and enhancing their moral values.
