Part 1 Introduction

1. Play in children’s learning and development

During early childhood, more concepts and structure should be added to the curriculum very
gradually. We should emphasize that even changes in our society over the past years,
developmental rates have remained constant.

Play is one of the diverse ranges of behaviours that exist, which has multiple purposes to
children and adults. Play in early education is viewed as important for cognitive development,
social skills, positive physical and emotional outcomes, language learning, and cognitive or
social skills, to list only a few.

Play has certain characteristics it can be integrated into the curriculum as a way for children to
play. For example, the characteristics of play are play is child-chosen which children are given
liberty to decide the various activities or ideas they want to participate in. The next
characteristics of play are play is child-invented. Children are always trying new ideas although
it might not seem new to an adult but to a child it is new. They learn about concepts and develop
perspective about people, events, relationship and rules through playing.

Play is also like work for children. The process of play is where learning occurs. Children also
tend to do their first attempt in reading and writing during play. Play is done by the players,
children not the adults, teachers or parents. Children plan their own play and they often need
time, material and space. The adult’s role is to help children plan and support children’s plan.
This can be done by providing them with a proper environment, support rules and safety.

Play need active involvement, a child’s mind and body are active and their learnings are
maximized when they interact with the environment and materials. Play is typically a fun activity
for children as they are able to choose their activity and playmates.

Pedagogical framing involves making informed decisions about the structure and content of the
curriculum. Teachers have used a variety of techniques to support learning which includes
playing along with children, observing, introducing new ideas and demonstrating new skills.
Teacher should often need to respond to children’s intentions, needs and interest which is why
unplanned lessons serves as a better method for a child’s need. Teachers plan out activities,
resources and the environment but this is combined with children’s choices and decisions based
on a combination of materials and activities.

Sociocultural and academically aware and sensitive in decision-making in the early childhood
development centers, in the classrooms, in family environments by combining their knowledge
of child development with an understanding of the connection between healthy early childhood
play experiences and desired and meaningful literacy development outcomes in fostering the
development of the whole child.

As development and learning are so complex, no one theory is sufficient to explain the
phenomena of how children develop and learn. In Rousseau, (1948) and Piaget's theory of the
development of children's cognition, Rousseau puts forward a hypothesis of human development
in four stages; Piaget (1929) lists the most general stages of development (Crain, 2000). Erikson
(1963) proposes the theory of Eight Stages of Human Development.

Maturations theories emphasize that growth and development come from within the child and
follow a predictable timetable. Representative theorists of this school Gesell. Montessori and
Steiner prescribe a particular practice based on how children grow and develop.

Bloom states the importance of early years for later development contributing to the Brain
Research that finds out very significant learning takes place in the first five years of life; and
Erikson proposes the theory of Eight Stages of Human Development and describes those stages
in his work.

There are other modern theories of play have emerged to assist in understanding other facets of
children’s play and its developmental consequences. A theory by Vygotsky (1967) speculates
that play builds mental structures through the use of signs and tools that promote language and
thought development. Ellis uses competence motivation and arousal seeking to understand play,
and he believes that children formulate information internally through fantasy play. While
White's (1959) theory of competence motivation explains that play activities build up children's
confidence and are self-rewarding.
It is important because the decline of play has ramifications for child well-being. Indeed, ‘What
activities children participate in, and how much time they spend in them is believed to have
important implications for their social and cognitive development. Play defines as the
spontaneous, inventive activity of children. In this definition, play can be governed by
boundaries but is child-initiated and unstructured.

Early childhood programming more likely to value this right when social and cultural scripts
surrounding early education reflect a deeper commitment to childhood play and a greater
understanding of play’s inherent educational value. Shifting the paradigm may enable the full
realization of children’s right to play.

Play is an essential and critical part of all children’s development. Play is how children learn to
socialize, to think, to solve problems and most importantly, to have fun as an emotional outlet.
Play serves a child’s immense need for attachment, affection and closeness. Play also helps
children recover from emotional distress and play is a fundamental way to learn, allowing
children to try on adult roles and master new skills.

2. Categories of play in early childhood

There are different categories of play in early childhood. For instance, unoccupied play refers to
activity when a child isn’t playing at all. The child may be engaged in seemingly random
movements, with no objectives. Despite appearances, this definitely is play and sets the stage for
future play exploration. The other play is solitary play. This play when the child plays alone.
This type of play is important because it teaches a child how to keep them entertained, eventually
setting the path to being self-sufficient.

While for onlooker play is when a child simply observes other children playing and doesn't
partake in the action. It's common for younger children who are working on their developing
vocabulary. For the other play is parallel play which is children begin to play side-by-side to
other children without any interaction. Parallel play provides toddler with opportunities for role-
playing such as dressing up and pretending. It also helps children gain understanding of the idea
of property, including the concept of what is ‘theirs’ and what belongs to ‘others’.

Associative play also features children playing separately from one another. However, in this
mode of play, they are involved with what the others are doing, think children building a city
with blocks. As they build their individual buildings, they are talking to one another and
engaging each other. This is an important stage of play because it helps little ones develop a
whole host of skills, socialization, and problem solving, cooperation and language development.
Through this associative play is how children begin to make real friendships.

Cooperative play is where all the stages come together and children truly start playing together.
It is common in older preschoolers or in younger preschoolers who have older siblings or have
been around a lot of children. Cooperative play uses all of the social skills your child has been
working together and puts them into action.

There are other types of play that usually develop as a child begins to engage in cooperative
play. This is includes dramatic or fantasy play. This is when a child who loves to play dress up,
doctor or restaurant, it’s dramatic or fantasy play. . Through this type of play, not only does your
child's imagination get a workout, but she learns how to take turns, cooperate, share and work on
language development.

The next play is competitive play which is having rules and turn-taking, and functioning as part
of the team are the big lessons taken from this this type of play. Teachers or parents should give
guidance about dealing with both winning and losing. One example for this kind of this play is
the local sport. While the other of different categories of play is the physical play which is
encourage children to do physical activity. This kind of play improve gross motor skills and fine
motor skills when it come to this kind of play, whether a child is throwing a ball or riding a bike.

The other play such as constructive play which are include building with blocks, making a road
for toy cars, or constructing a fort out of couch pillows. Constructive play teaches kids about
manipulation, building, and fitting things together. Cognitive skills are used to figure out how to
make something work best, whether it is a block tower that won't stand up or a sand castle that
keeps collapsing. And for the last play are symbolic play which can be vocal, for example
singing, jokes and rhymes. For graphic arts which include drawing and coloring, counting or
making music. This type of play helps children learn to develop skills in expressing themselves
and exploring their experiences, ideas and emotional.

When children play electronic video games or computer-based learning programs, they are
engaging in digital play. This type of play develops hand-eye coordination which children
follows an object on the screen and actively participates the application presents. Not only that,
children are now gives them a vast library of material to allow them to discover new things.
Active screen times also help children develop language skills by reading e-Books or accessing
stories online.

Part 2

3. Factors need to be emphasized to ensure the appropriateness of early childhood

The key factor in early childhood curriculum that needs to be emphasized is the safety for
children to learn and develop. The learning environment must be carefully planned and
sufficiently equipped. The learning environment must also be organized in a way that they are
interesting to meet children’s needs such as emotional, social, moral, physical, intellectual
stimulation and safety. Apart from that, the surrounding of learning centers must meet the basic
space and hygienic standards for the comfort and development of young children.

The next factor that to be highlighted in early childhood curriculum is learning environment or
school should be enjoyable to children as a child takes much of their time in playing. The
learning environment and other related need to study and do research about the child learning
and development. For another one is making the children to be independent however giving
some guide when they need help. For example, the teacher should think critically about whether
or not to intervene in any given situation to their students. In these cases, for instance, it will
better often to say something along the lines of: ‘Try to solve it yourself first’, or ‘Well, what do
you think is the best way to proceed and why?’ Repeating this over time is likely to a habit of
independence in children.

The other to made children be independent in their learning is to setting up activities in which
children are given a framework within which they have to make various choices. For example,
this is football manager developing a formation and then allowing the players to express
themselves within that formation. For the last to made children be independent is to consider to
involves formative feedback which gives a students a clear sense of what they need to do to
improve. For instance: ‘In your next report you should aim to begin the analysis earlier so as to
avoid too many passages of description.’

All children should be achieving at high levels, not separated children in different group that is
children who economically disadvantaged, major racial and ethnic minorities, special education
recipients and English language learners or Malay language learners. With that being said, to be
able to do that, we must close existing learning gaps and enable all children to succeed at higher
level. To made children beneficial the most, standard not only to be comprehensive but address
what is important for children to know and able to do.

Small children have a unique ability to learn language. Most experts agree that language learning
is easiest before the age of seven. However, the ability to learn language declines further around
puberty. Children learn language quite different than adult do. For example, children learn a
second language in the same way they learned their first language and store it in their alongside
their first language. On the hand, adult store second language information in a separate area of
the brain. Therefore, children should be exposing to a language learning as early as possible.
This also should be the factors to focus on early childhood curriculum.

As the factor safety that was mention before, this should be discuss further by preparing the
learning environment well design and effectively equipped. For example, setting up the
classroom the way it arranged and the way it looks are influence children’s behavior and adult
behavior. The suggested following to setting up the classroom are center should have multiple
uses, not just serve one specific topic. While the other suggestion to set up a classroom is have as
much natural light in the classroom as possible and keep noisy and quiet areas separate.
In the other hand, the next factor need to emphasize in early childhood is understanding children
behavior, their learning and development. Teacher should understand developmental stages and
age or grade levels of children and be consistent with how children learn and develop. It should
be align with the development and learning in children, thus alignment of development and
learning is desirable, critical and standards to be effective. For example, effective alignment
consists of more than the standard simplifying for a younger age group, the standard appropriate
for older children. Rather than rely on such downward mapping, developer of early learning
standard should base them on what we know from research and practice about children from a
variety of background at a given age or stage.

4. Moral education curriculum

A curriculum is an organized framework which delineates the content that children are to learn,
the processes through which children achieve the identified curricular goals, what teachers do to
help children achieve those goals and the context in which teaching and learning occurs.

Curriculum of the primary education means a planned primary-level course for a period of six
years, but which may expire in the period between five to seven years. This is to introduce a
wider and flexible approach to the primary education period. After that, the end of the primary
schools compels all students to sit for the Primary School Achievement Test, also known Ujian
Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) in Malay for five subjects, for example Malay language,
English, Mathematical, Science which is one of the core subjects. Other subjects are such as
Tamil language, Chinese language, Science and technology, moral education and Islam
education. Another subject is physical education, health education, visual arts education and
music.

The school curriculum is probably has the variety and have in number. This will be focus on one
curriculum that is moral education. Pre-school moral education focuses on moral conduct that is
nurtured continuously throughout the time the student is in preschool. Moral education is not
carried out through specific activities but is implanted through all activities.

The moral education curriculum aims to create noble moral values with integrity that holds
universal values based on moral principles and contributes to the unity and well-being of the
country and the global community.
In this curriculum moral education, the content of this subject is to evaluate related with the self-
development, that can stated God the Creator of Nature. The learning outcomes in this
curriculum are to state that human is the creation of God and be able to differentiate between the
creation of God and human.

5. Suggested areas need to be improved

The suggestion of the activity in this curriculum is to tell stories about difference between a child
and dolls. For the other activity is compare and differentiate between native flowers and plastic
leaves and list the objects of God’s creation and human designs. The other recommended activity
is by explaining that the creation of God is more special and incapable of being created by
humans.

In this curriculum of moral education, there are some suggested parts that need to improve. As
this curriculum needs to be improved, teacher should have freedom to choose desired planning
for any activity. Teaching moral education is not a particular topic but it can be teach under
various programs and activities.

Suggestion to improve this moral curriculum with teacher can use different plays and such
activities to demonstrate various moral education lessons. For example, for the cultural activities,
to provide moral education lessons like daily prayer can arrange as a daily activity such as ‘The
quote of the day’; where students say nice thoughts.

Other suggestion is to improve the moral education is having an effective teachers and parents as
a role model to children. By having effective teacher and parent with the quality of good
character and attitude, children are more likely to nurture their achievement and ethical behavior.
If such teachers adopt the attitude, they will do all they can to help children meet basic needs
such as autonomy, belonging and competence, sense of purpose, understanding and trust.

In the other hand, moral education lesson can be suggested by implement with social and
emotional skills as recent researcher that emotional intelligence has more bearing on life and
school outcomes than academic intelligence. Social and emotional skills facilitate everyday life,
affecting relationships and school achievement, skills in communication, conflict resolution,
decision making and cooperation. A substantial literature shows that programs that address social
and emotional intelligence are effective in preventing problem behaviors.

6. Conclusion

In conclusion, the physical environment is an important element in determining the feeling of the
classroom center. It shows the children what they are able to touch and what they will learn.
Curriculum has deeper meaning for children when it connects them to real world experiences,
including their cultures. The more input we have from the children in curriculum planning, the
closer we come to achieving that direction. Teacher educators with a potential ‘unit plan’ for
equipping preservice education major with the skill necessary to take on their moral education
responsibilities with intentional transparency.
7. Reference
Mahani Abdul Malik, Nik Noraini Abu Bakar, Arlina Ahmad Zaki (1st Edition) [PDF
File] Copyright (c) University Malaysia (OUM): August 2016, HBEC2203. Retrieved
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Florah K. Burudi, Dr. Moses W. Poipoi (Vol 1, No 4 Edition) [PDF File] Copyright (c)
HR Mars Exploring Intellectual Capital: October 2012, Retrieved from
http://www.hrmars.com/admin/pics/1196.pdf

Amanda Rock (June 13, 2018) Important types of play in your child development
Retrieved from https://www.verywellfamily.com/types-of-play-2764587

Why Kids Need 12 Type of play. Retrieved from https://www.famlii.com/why-kids-need-

Janet Castrejon. Why early exposure to language is so important Retrieved from