Social Play

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody. My name's Emma. And welcome to today's lesson. I'm really looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. But before we get started, just a quick reminder. We here hear Oak are trying to support any approaches you might already be using, and any work that you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have questions, then please contact your usual speech and language therapy team or your child's school. In today's session, I'll be G I'll be introducing the idea of Social Play. We'll be doing some thinking about why social play is important, and then we'll have the opportunity for some play together. Throughout your play, I will be setting the adults some tasks so that they can help you to get the most out of your playtime together. So for today's session, you'll need some toys, a toy car, if you have one, and a ball. Adults you'll need some writing equipment and downloadable resources available with this lesson on the Oak website. So before we begin, make sure you're in a quiet place where you won't be disturbed through the lesson. Turn off any distractions or notifications that you have running on your device that you're using for this lesson. Make sure that you and your adult are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start by doing some talking and thinking about social play. As we know, pretend play prepares the child for language and thinking. Social play, on the other hand, prepares the child for socialising or getting on with others. Although slightly different in their focus, both are absolutely crucial for the development of communication. There are three stages of social play development. The first stage is where children learn to play in a solitary place. This means they're happiest when they're playing alone with objects. The second stage of social play development is parallel play. This is where children are happy to play alongside others, and they may even watch what others are doing in their play. The third and final stage of social play is called cooperative play. This is where children show an active interest in wanting to play with one another. And they begin to take turns with toys and games. Children, we're going to have five minutes of special time. This is where you get to choose the toys or activities, and the adult has to follow your lead. It's time to get all of your favourite toys. Get down on the floor and the adult will join you in your play. Adults, we going to use this time to observe the child and how they interact with us whilst playing. We're going to be thinking about the three levels of social play I just mentioned. Once you've had five minutes of play together, come back to the video and press play to continue with the lesson. When we're thinking about encouraging parallel play, if our child is currently playing in the solitary stage, we can join them in their play regularly and make this as fun-filled as possible. It might be helpful to play with matching sets of objects alongside one another. And whilst doing this, using our core principles, stop, look and listen, where we're really observing what the child is doing and interested in, waiting, to see what those leads are from the children that we're observing, responding to those leads, but then also joining in with what the child is leading through that play. This means that we're finding a way to join in with play, playfully. We can try copying whatever the child does, or we can try building on what they're doing by commenting or adding something to an action that they're already taking part in. The idea when we're joining in with play is that we don't change the focus or direct the way the play is going, but we wait and observe to see how our child reacts when we join in with them. This starts to build some more parallel play and also begins to embed the concept of turn-taking. Pause the video here, to use those core principles, to work towards some more parallel play with your child in their special time. Once you've had five or 10 minutes of joining in and following the child's lead, come back to their video to continue the rest of the lesson. If your child is playing at the parallel stage, then we can begin to think about encouraging cooperative play. We can do this by really ramping up how interactive we are in the way that we're playing with the children. We can encourage turn-taking by playing simple, repetitive turn-taking games. And whilst doing this, explicitly labelling turns. your turn, my turn. So children, it's time to play a game. We're going to roll a ball or a toy car between you and your adult. Adults, with each turn, you need to be labelling "your turn" "my turn". You could try this activity with lots of different objects, but make sure that whatever you choose follows the child's lead and their interests. Let's see if we can work towards passing one thing from the child to you, and then back again. Once you've had five minutes of your turn, my turn, come back to the video to continue with the lesson. As we said, we can encourage co-operative play by adding some early turn-taking and repetitive turns in our play. These are things like give and take, like we just did, and also labelling your turn/my turn. We could also work some of this early turn-taking into some more kind of pretend play. So buying items from a shop, or taking turns to fill up petrol in toy cars. Try and find as many fun and creative ways for your child to take turns with you. Let's see if we can work on some early turn-taking when sharing a book together. Children, it's time to find your favourite book. Adults, once you've got a book, try and sit face to face with your child for this activity. It will help you to read the child's cues and find out what they're really interested in when reading the book. Allow the child to hold the book and try and take turns turning the pages. This will ensure that the child is really actively involved in the activity. Let the child read the book. This could be just looking at the pictures. After you turn the page or read one of the pages, wait silently. Wait to see what the child does, or if they can say something. Avoid questions though, or pointing out things on that page. We want to give the child the opportunity to take turns. Once you've had five or 10 minutes reading your book together, come back to the video to continue. Pause the video to take a few moments to reflect on how your child engaged with the shared reading. Did they enjoy it? Were they able to sit longer? And how much communication happened through the activity? You can use the downloadable resource for more ideas on how to develop and extend social play. You can also use the Adult Communication Strategies Checklist to help promote your child's engagement during play, and really get the most out of your activities together. Don't forget to record and reflect on how your child engages and progresses with their early social play. We'll be continuing to work on this in lesson seven, though. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson. A really big well done on all the fantastic learning and play that you've achieved today. I just got two things I'd like to ask you and your adult today. First, adults, look back on your notes and identify three important things that you've learned. Second, if you're able to, please take a picture of some of your play or some of the toys that you've been using to practise your early social play, and record these in your play diary in the downloadable resources. Ask your parent or carer to share this with your teacher so that they can see the fantastic progress that you're making with your interaction and communication. And if you'd like, you could ask a parent or carer to send a picture of your playtime record book to @OakNational on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, so that I can see your lovely progress too. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you. But take care and enjoy the rest of your learning. Bye bye.

Social Play

Social Play

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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