Associative Play

Associative Play usually begins at around age four and features children playing separately from each other while being involved in what the other child is doing. They might be building a city with blocks, and although they are creating their own buildings they are talking to one another and engaging with each other.

As they develop the skills related to Associative Play, you might see children discussing what to do next, taking turns, problem solving collaboratively, cooperating and building up their vocabularies. At this stage, there is not yet any planning or competition.

Associative play is how many children begin to make real friendships as their world expands to include people beyond their caregivers. This is the ideal time to offer opportunities for children to begin to separate from their adults in short bursts in order to give them the confidence to grow as their own individual person.

At Discovery Time, we support this development by offering a drop and go style program for a short period of time. Social interactions can be exhausting, overwhelming and exhilirating for our little ones. They crave this type of play in a safe and supportive space. Children are under the watchful and experienced eye of an educator who is able to know when to intervene and when to allow children to explore and develop their social skills with similar aged peers. Adults are of course more than welcome to stay and play alongside their children. You know your child best and some children are not yet ready to be apart from their adult; that is absolutely fine.