The Play Challenge
Welcome to Liliane Fonds’ dedicated page for the Global Action Week for Education (GAWE), taking place from April 22nd to 26th, 2024. As advocates for inclusive education, Liliane Fonds is proud to announce its participation in this significant Global-Campaign-for-Education event. We are spearheading initiatives to promote inclusive play-based early childhood education (IPECE) and highlight the urgency of playing for formal and community based pre-primary education.
GAWE 2024 empathizes transformative practices in educational settings where teachers, educators, and communities play a pivotal role in ensuring learning and participation.
To amplify our efforts, we’ve launched a challenge as part of the We Ring the Bell campaign. This challenge aims to spotlight the importance of IPECE and ignite creativity and inspiration in promoting play-based learning.
The Challenge:
Invent/Create Your Own Games and Toys with Local Materials
Here’s How to Participate:
- Select a type of local material e.g. wood, clay, bottles/containers, bottle tops, banana leaves, fabric, rice sacks, cardboard, stones, etc.
- Invent or create games and toys with this material that support different abilities.
- Select five ways to play with your chosen material.
- Keep it simple and most importantly, fun!
How to send it in?
- Capture five pictures showcasing your five different play activities.
- Briefly describe each of your five play activities.
- Share your creations and contact information with us by sending it to weringthebell@lilianefonds.nl.
Example of one type of material and five different activities
Why play is important
Through these play activities children develop physical, social, emotional, cognitive and creative skills. Essential skills for life!
An important aspect of play is children’s agency and control over the experience. Agency refers to children’s initiative, decision-making and self-choice in play.
Learning through play happens when children:
- experience it as joyful, without stress
- find meaning in what they are doing and learning
- are stimulated in active, engaged, minds-on thinking and doing
- will experiment: learning by doing
- will have social interaction with other children, with and without disabilities
- with all types of disabilities can participate
Turn results into a toolkit
The results of this challenge will be carefully collected and compiled in a special toolkit. This toolkit will serve as a comprehensive resource showcasing the diverse array of games and toys created by participants from around the world using local materials. The submissions, along with their accompanying images and descriptions, will be included in the toolkit to highlight the creativity, innovation and cultural richness inherent in play-based learning.
Additionally, the toolkit will provide insights into the various ways children engage with play activities, fostering learning, social interaction, and skill development. By compiling these submissions into one cohesive publication, we aim to create a global play-toolkit to promote play in an accessible way. A toolkit that educators, parents, carers and communities can use to play with their children, inspiring and engaging them in inclusive play-based early childhood education (IPECE).
Through this initiative, we aspire to celebrate the universal language of play while championing the importance of inclusive education for all children, regardless of ability or background. The toolkit will serve as a testament to the collective efforts of participants worldwide, illustrating the power of collaboration and creativity in advancing the cause of inclusive education.
For more information on the We Ring the Bell campaign, the Global Action Week for Education (GAWE) and Inclusive Play-based Early Childhood Education (IPECE), please visit:
> We Ring the Bell Campaign
> Global Campaign for Education (GAWE)
> Inclusive Play-based Early Childhood Education (IPECE)
