The three-credit course on Play, Creativity and Materials in Early Childhood, offered in the second semester, will be planned as a hands-on course that will enable direct engagement with materials
and play experiences in ECCE. 

The course will draw on theoretical perspectives to understand play and playfulness as a ​‘natural’ experience for young children as well as how play is constructed as a social-cultural-historical-political category in the study of early childhood. The course will elaborate on the integrated relationship between play, development and learning that will be foregrounded in discussions on diversity, atypicality and inequality in play experiences of children in different contexts. 

The socialisation influences and gender experiences of play and the nature of adult-child, child-child interactions in play, will be studied. Children’s agency, embedded in the socio-cultural realities of shifting power structures and relationships and the role of play in creating space for negotiation, resistance and even subversion will be discussed. Contemporary issues and debates related to the role of technology and commercialisation of play will be included. 

Further the course will discuss the concept and the significance of creativity in early childhood. Role of play in fostering creativity will be discussed. Children’s creative expressions through different forms such as art, drama, storytelling, music and movement will be studied through direct hands-on experiences with these forms. Children’s use of material, both natural and non- natural, their properties and functions, along with issues of availability, access and contextual relevance will be explored.

 Students will engage in material development with a focus on principles such as inclusivity, flexibility, contextual relevance, appropriateness and safety of children. Toys and electronic gadgets as material and the influence of the market will be discussed. Next, the course will focus on how play and creativity are fostered through playful learning. 

The principles and perspectives related to playful learning, pedagogical practices and learning environments that support playful learning will be discussed. Practices and policies advocating playful learning will be included. Discourses around implementing a play-based pedagogy, and the challenges/​ gaps in doing so in ECCE will be examined.