• Rough and Tumble Play – close encounter play which is less to do with
fighting and more to do with touching, tickling, gauging relative strength. Discovering physical flexibility
and the exhilaration of display.
• Socio-dramatic Play –
the enactment of real and potential experiences of an intense personal, social, domestic or interpersonal nature.
• Social Play – play during which the rules and criteria for social engagement
and interaction can be revealed, explored and amended.
• Creative
Play – play which allows a new response, the transformation of information, awareness of new connections,
with an element of surprise.
• Communication Play – play using
words, nuances or gestures for example, mime, jokes, play acting, mickey taking, singing, debate, poetry.
• Dramatic Play – play which dramatizes events in which the child is not
a direct participator
• Symbolic Play – play which
allows control, gradual exploration and increased understanding without the risk of being out of one’s depth.
• Deep Play – play which allows the child to encounter risky or even potentially
life threatening experiences, to assses risk, develop survival skills and conquer fear
•
Exploratory Play – play to access factual information consisting of manipulative behaviours such
as handling, throwing, banging or mouthing objects.
• Fantasy Play
– play which rearranges the world in the child’s way, a way which is unlikely to occur.
• Imaginative Play – play where the conventional rules, which govern the
physical world, do not apply.
• Locomotor Play – movement
in any or every direction for its own sake.
• Mastery –
control of the physical and affective ingredients of the environment.
• Object
Play – play which uses infinite and interesting sequences of hand-eye manipulations and movements.
• Role Play – play exploring ways of being, although not normally of an intense personal, social, domestic
or interpersonal nature.
• Recapitulative Play – play that
allows the child to explore ancestry, history, rituals, stories, rhymes, fire and darkness. Enables children to
access play of earlier human evolutionary stages.
Devised by Bob Hughes, published
in full in ‘A Playworker’s Taxonomy of Play Types’ (PLAYLINK, second edition 2002).
Available from PlayEducation, 13 Castelhythe, Ely, Cambs CB7 4BU