When children play they develop social skills, language skills, physical skills, and creativity. Children may play on their own, with other children, and with or without objects. When adults participate in play, this is known as 'guided play', whereas when children engage in self-directed play, this is known as 'free play'. Integrated teaching and learning approaches combine guided play and learning, adult-led learning, and child-directed play and learning. Integrated teaching and learning involves the adult 'intentionally' engaging with the child in play. The diagram above shows these three elements woven together, or A mix of child-directed and guided play should be incorporated into the day. When the play environment is intentionally created, the learning that occurs is as deliberate and logical as any teacher-directed lesson, yet the activities are offered in a manner that is appropriate to the development of each child (Leong & Bodrova 2012). The Need for Pretend Play in Child Development A key question that arises from the literature is how parent and teacher training in "guided play" may influence literacy. For example For example, a child may be engaged in a difficult, goal-directed activity set up by his teacher, but he may still be actively engaged and intrinsically motivated. free play provides the child with true autonomy, while guided play is an avenue through which parents and The Case of Brain Science and Guided Play: A Developing Story Here, we outline some examples of how guided play can work in the classroom to build specific language, mathematics, and spatial skills. In fact, many researchers and teachers now concur that the "child-driven educational While these skills may be internalized and further implemented during free-play, one of the teacher's most important roles, at Montclare, is to encourage each child to question and learn. Through teacher-guided activities, children acquire and expand their language skills so they ma