Parents may notice that their children’s play has been affected by the COVID-19 crisis. How the Coronavirus Is Influencing Children’s Play describes some possible impacts.

Play offers many benefits for healthy physical, social and cognitive development. But, did you know it can be particularly important now to help children deal with emotions?

Play is the safest place for relationships, for your consciousness, for your emotional system to not be overloaded and so it’s a perfect respite, but it will be the one thing that gets overlooked in a time of great stress.

Play as the release valve to the COVID-19 pandemic: ‘it provides the emotional release we need’ offers a concise explanation of how play can help children cope. For a more detailed exploration, watch the webinar recording of the Neufeld Institute webinar with Deborah MacNamara, The Power of Play to Take Care of Us.

For some suggestions on play activities, download Let’s Play! Activities for Families. You can also download the four sets of activities separately:

• Set 1: Engagement with Others, Materials, and the World
• Set 2: Communication and Literacies
• Set 3: Identities, Social Responsibility, and Diversity
• Set 4: Well-Being and Belonging

Visit the website to download these booklets in Chinese Simplified, Filipino, German, Korean, Persian, Punjabi and Spanish.  Once family literacy programs resume, these could be good resources to share with parents.