9 Powerful Play Schemas: What they are and why they matter

Jordan is in their playroom twirling and swirling around with scarves. They call out for you to join them - it’s just so much fun! Of course you go over and you start to play by throwing your scarves up in the air “look at them fly!” you exclaim. Suddenly, Jordan is upset. “No! Not like that!”, they exclaim. “You’re doing it all wrong. You have to do this” - they continue twirling and swirling. You’re not sure why exactly your way is ‘wrong’, but you laugh and start twirling anyway.

Pile of multicolored scarves for potential use in trajectory and rotational play schema

Joining children in play can be a tricky process. We tend to think that when we join play, as long as we’re doing something that ‘goes with’ the play of a child, it’s play. In our above example, both Jordan and their grownup were playing and exploring scarves. However, Jordan’s play was centered in exploring the rotational play schema whereas we introduced trajectory play. If these words seem foreign, you’re in the right place ;-) We’re here to learn about play schemas including: what play schemas are, why we care, and how to support schema play across environments.

What are Play Schemas?

When we think about ‘play’ and describing how a child plays, we might be more familiar with terms like “pretend play”, “cause-and-effect play”, and “functional play”. But there is so much more to play to consider and explore!

Play schemas are repeated actions during play. Play schemas were first introduced by Piaget but received additional information and description from Chis Athey and the Frobel Project. While watching children play, it was noted that children tended to play with items in a variety of predictable, and similar, ways. These actions were identified as schemas.

A wide variety of play schemas have been identified. Today, we’re going to focus on nine of the most common play schemas: trajectory, rotation, enclosing, enveloping, transporting, connecting and disconnecting, positioning, orientation, and transforming.

I’ve also prepared a little ‘cheat sheet’ which lists the nine play schemas, explanations, and examples. Be sure to grab your copy!

Nine Common Play schemas

Why do we Care about Play Schemas?

Let’s return to our beginning example with Jordan playing with the scarves. There are undoubtedly endless possibilities for how to play and explore scarves. For Jordan, they were interested in engaging in a rotation play schema - noticing how both the scarves and themselves turned and twisted. When we entered the play, we introduced a trajectory play schema - throwing the scarves and noticing how they landed. Sometimes we are interested in combining play schemas but, for Jordan, today was not that day.

Knowledge and consideration of play schemas allows us to:

Child stacking blocks engaging in connecting and disconnecting play schema and positioning schema

Understand what a child is currently interested in exploring
Join play with related actions and suggestions
Suggest additional materials to use within the current schema exploration
Offer opportunities to explore a play schema in different environments
Support problem solving during play

Considering what type of play schema a child is exploring gives us information and insights into what else might be interesting for a child to explore. Children will continue exploring a play schema until they are ready to move on to another play schema. Therefore, it’s important that we are able to provide ample opportunities to explore each play schema. We can’t support that development and exploration if we don’t understand what schema a child is actively exploring ;-)

How and when children explore play schemas varies. While schemas don’t have a specific developmental sequence, some schemas do tend to develop/occur before others. Trajectory and rotation play schemas are some of the first schemas to develop. We see this in young toddlers finding such joy and excitement in repeatedly dropping toys from their high chair over and over and over again. Enclosing and enveloping play schemas tend to come after the trajectory schema has been explored.

With that said, some children may prefer exploring one schema exclusively for a period of time before moving on to another schema. Other children may explore multiple schemas at once. Often, a child’s play can involve multiple schemas. Looking back at Jordan’s exploration of the scarves, we might see some rotational schema play (twirling, spinning around), trajectory play (throwing the scarves), and some enveloping play (covering ourselves or body parts with the scarves).

When we know what schemas a child is interested in, we can suggest and support other options that align with their interests. For Jordan, they are letting us know that they are very interested in the rotational play schema. Currently, they do not seem interested in combining any play schemas (which is totally fine!). Therefore, if we were looking for additional play activities, we might suggest things like: cogs and gears, hula hoops, salad spinner art, rolling items down a ramp, wind-up toys.

How Play Schemas help with Problem Solving

We now know that children use play schemas to learn more about their environment and the schemas they choose tell us what they are interested in and actively learning about. We also know that children will engage in a particular play schema until they have learned what they need to learn (for now!). As much as adults may want to change or alter the current schema of interest, that isn’t the way things work ;-)

“Children will find ways to continue exploring a play schema until *they* are ready to move on”

— Janelle Fenwick

Sometimes, children engage in play that may not be the best fit for the current environment. As a result, adults often try to redirect a child’s play to something that does align with the environmental restrictions. When suggesting an alternative activity, it is important for the suggested activity to still align with the current interests and play preferences. Without taking the current play schema into account, it is unlikely that the suggested activity will be beneficial ;-)

In our current example with Jordan, twirling around with scarves usually aligns with the environmental expectations of engaging with scarves and play in this area. So let’s instead examine a block center based play schema with Rex.

Rex *loves* blocks. In her classroom, many of her classmates enjoy building tall structures with blocks. Rex loves to knock over block structures. Whenever Rex sees a tall block creation, Rex races over to kick or push it over. Rex is thrilled. At times, her peers are not thrilled. Rex’s parents and teachers try to help Rex build with blocks but Rex either leaves the play space or watches her peers build. As soon as someone has a tall tower, Rex is right there to knock it over (seem familiar? You may know the book “Rex Wrecks It”).

Let’s break apart Rex and the blocks. Knocking over block towers is certainly an incredibly exciting experience! It is also part of the trajectory play schema (interest in planes of movement and how objects move/land). When we knock things over, we learn so much about how objects move. Each time we knock over a structure, something slightly different happens. The fall is different if we kick a tower versus if we push it with our hands. The trajectory of the blocks is different if it is a light push or a strong push. What happens if we knock out a block from the bottom of the tower versus from the middle or the top? The learning opportunities are endless!

In these situations, it can be tempting to try and teach ‘building’. However, ‘building’ is a connecting/disconnecting play schema. While Rex may like to knock over towers, she’s not currently interested in the process of connecting the pieces to build the tower.

Instead, we want to support Rex in experimenting and engaging with trajectory play schemas both while in blocks center and in different environments. This might mean we create structures in blocks center specifically for Rex to knock over. We can also work to ensure additional trajectory play options available throughout her day. Once we know that schema a child is exploring, we can be more effective problem solvers.

Many people express concerns or uncertainty around supporting trajectory play - particularly when indoors and/or if there may be safety concerns in group settings. As a result, I wrote a separate blog outlining supports and some of my favorite items for indoor trajectory play exploration. Check out Trajectory Play: Why kids like to knock things over and how to support them.

The Nuts and Bolts

We covered a lot! And I clearly could talk about play schemas for days ;-). Here’s the ‘short’ version:

Play schemas are repeated actions that children engage in during play. While there are many play schemas, the ‘main’ nine are: trajectory, rotation, enclosing, enveloping, transporting, connecting and disconnecting, positioning, orientation, and transforming. I’ve created a little ‘cheat sheet’ for you that describes each of these schemas and provides some examples of how they may present in play.

Play schemas are important because they tell us what a child is interested in. Children will engage in schema play until they have learned what they currently want/need to know about that schema. If we don’t know what schema(s) a child is exploring, we don’t know how to support that exploration or join their play!

Finally, sometimes we might find there’s a disconnect between environmental needs and current play exploration. When suggesting or modeling potential alternative play, it’s imperative that we are modeling play that aligns with the child’s interests - which means we need to understand play schemas. I take a deeper dive into supporting this disconnect in Trajectory Play: Why kids like to knock things over and how to support them

So there you have it! Now that you know more about play schemas, grab your summary of these nine play schemas and consider what schemas you and your child enjoy exploring. That’s right, play schemas aren’t just present in the play of children - but that could be an entirely different blog post ;-)

References:

Athey, C. (1990). Extending Thoughts in Young Children; A parent-teacher Partnership, Paul Chapman Publishing

Louis, S., Beswick, C., Magraw, L., & Hayes, L. (2008). Understanding Schemas in Young Children, Featherstone Professional Development