There are many different kinds of play, they include Pretend Play, Constructive Play, Creative Play, Exploratory Play, Physical Play and Structured Play. Adults can support, engage with children and extend each one (with or without the use of ICTs):

• Pretend play: dressing up and pretending (mothers and fathers, doctors and nurses, or whatever interests children is an important way of exercising children’s imaginations, developing their language and social skills, and helping them to explore their own identity. Some children prefer to ‘pretend’ with small world toys like cars and little people, and can be just as imaginative in these activities.
• Constructive play: children’s play with small construction toys like Lego, large building blocks, and ‘junk’ for modelling, teaches them logical thinking and spatial awareness, as well as developing their hand and eye co-ordination, and their fine motor skills.
• Creative play: children explore and represent their world through drawing and painting, singing and dancing and making music. They are learning to communicate their ideas and feelings, as well as acquiring new physical skills.
• Exploratory play: children may have access indoors to sand and water and all kinds of equipment including construction toys computer applications, but they also get the chance to look at the world outside: the earth and stones, trees and leaves which make up our outdoor environment, and the small creatures who live there.
• Physical play: outdoors in all our gardens, the children are encouraged to run and jump, climb and balance, and explore their environment actively. All children are encouraged to venture outdoors, but if the weather is bad we have conservatories and indoor spaces where children can stretch their legs too.
• Structured play: gradually, most children begin to enjoy working at more structured play activities. These may include puzzles and table-top games, and the wide range of computer activities available. Some of these activities have ‘rules’ and ‘goals’: there is a right way to do them, and success is achieved by completing the puzzle or winning the game. Other activities enable the child to find out new ways of playing them: this includes many computer activities, and table-top equipment such as pegboards, bricks and mosaics.