🌱 Joy and Play in Education: Why They Matter at Every Age - Play Based Learning

🌱 Each classroom tells a story. Walk into one filled with worksheets, silence,

and pressure, and you’ll feel the weight in the air. Walk into another where students are laughing while building, creating, or debating, and you’ll feel the difference instantly. That difference is joy and it grows when play is part of learning.

🎨 Why Joy and Play Belong in Every Classroom

Too often, play gets left behind after the preschool years. Lessons become more serious, more rigid, and less joyful. By upper primary, the word play has almost vanished from the classroom vocabulary.

But research from Finland reminds us that this is a mistake.

“Well-being and trust are not extras; they are the foundation of success.” (Sahlberg, Finnish Lessons 3.0)

When students experience joy, their brains are more open to learning. Play isn’t wasted time, it builds resilience, curiosity, and creativity, which are qualities they will need far beyond tests and grades.

In fact, neuroscience confirms that positive emotions like joy enhance memory formation and attention, while stress and pressure block learning pathways .

Kenya’s CBC echoes this truth: competencies like problem-solving, collaboration, and communication grow best when learning is active and playful. A 2021 policy review highlighted that student-centered, play-based methods align most strongly with CBC’s vision of lifelong learning .

🌱 The big truth: Play is not the opposite of learning. Play is how deep learning happens.

🧩 What Play Looks Like Across Ages

Play changes as children grow but it never disappears. In fact, it matures with them.

• Early Primary: Building with blocks to explore math patterns, role-play to understand relationships, scavenger hunts to connect with the environment.

• Upper Primary: Group projects where teams design a poster for environmental awareness, grammar or math games that turn repetition into fun, collaborative storytelling circles where students build a story line by line.

• Secondary: Structured debates to sharpen critical thinking, simulations like Model UN or courtroom trials to practice civic roles, creative problem-solving challenges in science or entrepreneurship, and hands-on projects tied to real-world issues like water conservation or community health.

  
  

At every level, joy fuels focus. Play is not a distraction; it is the engine of engagement.

🌱 Joyful Classrooms are Effective Classrooms

When joy and play are present, the whole atmosphere changes:

• Students remember more because learning is tied to experience, not just memorization.

• Teachers feel less drained because energy flows back from engaged learners joy is reciprocal.

• Classrooms become calmer, because students are active participants instead of restless listeners.

  
  

Finnish pedagogy shows us that a calm, joyful environment is the soil where deep learning grows. Shorter school days, longer breaks, and integrated play aren’t luxuries in Finland, they are deliberate strategies for quality learning.

CBC gives us the framework to bring this same balance into every Kenyan classroom: competencies are not built by silence and compliance but through interaction, play, and joy.

✨ Rekla Reflection

🌱 Where do you see joy in your classroom right now? And where has play disappeared?

Think of one lesson this week where you could reintroduce play not as extra, but as the method of learning itself.

To learn more and see real classroom examples check out the new themed video on Rekla's YouTube Channel - The Courage to Teach Differently - Play Based Learning in Action - Part 1