Choose Play Everyday: Exploring Risk, Mud, and Mortality for Early Childhood Development

To commemorate the United Nations’ International Day of Play on June 11, 2024, the Ministry of Education hosted an exhibition at the University of Guyana’s Turkeyen Campus under the theme “Choose Play Everyday”. The event featured various departments of the Ministry and several public and private nursery schools. The aim of the exhibition was to demonstrate the importance of play in a child’s development and general well-being.

This International Day of Play exhibition, spearheaded by the Ministry of Education’s Nursery Sector in collaboration with UG’s Faculty of Education and Humanities, aligns with article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that “parties must recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.” Thus, the Ministry has been working to incorporate more play-based learning and provide more play experiences which promote children’s Social, Physical, Intellectual, Creative, Emotional and Spiritual (SPICES) development.

Among this year’s exhibitors was UG’s Early Childhood Centre of Excellence (ECCE). The ECCE is a laboratory school that falls under the University of Guyana, primarily in the Faculty of Education and Humanities. The school is responsible for conducting research in early childhood. Since play is a critical part of early childhood development, Coordinator of Creative Expression and Special Education Needs Development Support Althea Edwards stated that the ECCE has been working on several studies on the different types of play including Risky Play, Mud Play and Death Play.

Althea Edwards- ECCE Coordinator of Creative Expression and Special Education Needs Development Support

Risky Play

According to Edwards, “Risky Play is allowing children to explore nature naturally”. It involves challenging physical activities like climbing high, jumping, digging, crawling, and “all the things that children can do outside”. By navigating uncertain scenarios, children begin to understand their bodies, develop spatial awareness, improve their coordination, and develop a sense of self-reliance. These challenges teach them how to assess risks, make decisions and solve problems independently. Additionally, many of the mistakes or missteps made during Risky Play serve as lasting life lessons about the effects and consequences of one’s actions. Risky play also nurtures social growth, as children create their own rules, negotiate and settle disputes, and form friendships. These moments of free, unstructured play are where many valuable life skills are first learned. However, while this type of play encourages children to explore the world around them by playing freely, Edwards emphasised that supervision by teachers and caregivers is still necessary to ensure the children’s safety.

 

Mud Play

Playing in mud connects children to nature in a deeply sensory way. It engages their touch, sight, and smell while also stimulating creativity and imagination. Children can mold mud into shapes, create stories, build structures, or just squish it between their fingers. Beyond the joy it brings, Mud Play also has physical benefits. “We need children to get exposure to what we would want to call healthy unhealthy things,” says Edwards. Exposure to the microbes found in soil helps strengthen a child’s immune system. Mud play encourages children to take risks, to explore, and to understand that getting dirty is not only okay, but also part of how we learn.

Early Childhood Centre of Excellence Mud Play Project

Death Play

“Sparky, play dead!” Resting puppy Aishalton Primary pet show

Death play is one of the ongoing areas of study at the ECCE. While the term is indeed unsettling, it addresses the most tragic universal human experience in an age-appropriate way. This type of play, Edwards explained, falls under what educators and researchers call Sociodramatic Play—where children pretend to be doctors, parents, or teachers. With Death Play, children use these scenarios to explore themes of mortality. Children may pretend a pet has died or they may encounter a real dead animal during outdoor exploration. Initially, they may react with disgust or fear, expressing things like “that’s stinky” or “that’s nasty.” But with gentle guidance from their teachers and open conversation, Edwards reports that children often become curious. They may choose to bury the animal, say a few words, and engage in a small ceremony. Through this experience, they learn to process emotions and begin to understand the concept of loss as a part of life. “It may sound a bit morbid”, Edwards noted, “but when you see the children’s interactions and how they learn, how they communicate, how they handle their emotions as it relates to death, it’s amazing.” Rather than leaving them unprepared, Death Play nurtures emotional intelligence and resilience. As Edwards puts it, “Die we must. It’s inevitable. It’s sad, but it’s inevitable. What we do with children matters… Why not teach them in a way they learn naturally?”

Play is a foundational aspect of Early Childhood Development. However, alongside structured and supervised play, research increasingly shows that some of the most essential forms of learning happen through what might seem like risky, messy, or even slightly morbid activities.

Risky play, Mud Play and Death Play offer some of the most transformative learning opportunities available to children. They remind us that childhood is the time for exploration, mistakes, emotion, and learning which are all necessary for raising resilient and capable individuals. As the Ministry of Education continues to promote the value of play in all its forms, the message is clear: to raise strong, curious, and confident children, we must choose play everyday