Heuristic Play

Treasure baskets and Heuristic play are a core component of the SPACE programme. These open ended play experiences provide infants with opportunities to personally select, discover and handle objects in order to construct their own understanding.

Treasure Baskets

Treasure baskets are a unique approach to play and learning, pioneered by Elinor Goldschmied (Goldschmied and Jackson, 1994). Babies who cannot yet move independently are offered a range of natural, household and recycled objects in a basket, for exploration and interest.

The items are selected to offer rich sensory experiences. Treasure baskets offer opportunities for play and learning to babies and infants. The predominant interest is "What is this object like?"

Heuristic play

Heuristic play or discovery play refers to the way infants personally select and handle objects in order to construct their own understanding.

Goldschmied (1994) explains that the word 'heuristic' comes from the Greek work 'heurisko' which means 'serves to discover or reach understanding of'. It is defined as 'a system of education under which the pupil is trained to find out things for himself'.

Through heuristic play, infants are satisfying their natural need to explore. It gives infants the opportunity to decide for themselves what they want to play with. By looking, touching, sucking, licking, banging, picking up and dropping, infants begin to collect information that will later lead to identification and naming of the objects. Providing infants with interesting and stimulating sensory play experiences will help the connections in the infant's brain that lead to healthy cognitive development. The predominant interest is "What can I do with it?"

The objects selected for the Heuristic play and Treasure baskets can be mouthed by a baby. Mouthing is part of a healthy child's natural development and should be encouraged: Taste is an important sense and is a fundamental way in which infants learn. Penelope Leach, a writer and child educator, suggests that an infant "will not fully understand an object unless he does put it in his mouth" (Leach, 1989, p.167).

The early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 1996) promotes holistic development, and states that an environment should be provided where children can develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical and material worlds.

References

Goldschmied, E. and Jackson, S. (1994). People Under Three: Young Children in Day Care. New York: Routledge.

Leach, P. (1989) Your Baby and Child.  Random House.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whariki. Wellington: Learning Media.