How play-based learning supports your child’s development (0 to 5 years)
Sep 10, 2026 | Emma O'Dell | Education | children, development, learning, play, play-based
Play-based learning is an approach to early childhood education in which children learn through play, with educators taking a deliberate role alongside them. Australia’s national framework describes play as both a context, the place or space where children play, and a process, a way of learning and teaching in which children ask questions, solve problems and think critically. Building a tower, filling containers with water, working out who plays which role in a game: each of these builds real skills in language, thinking, movement and getting along with other people.
This is the approach set out in The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF) and the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF), and it shapes every room and outdoor space across Y Whittlesea’s early learning centres in Melbourne’s north. Here is what it looks like at each age.
Why play does the work
The EYLF names play-based learning and intentionality as one of the practices guiding every educator’s work, and says play-based learning lets children learn as they discover, create, improvise and imagine.
Children act intentionally in play, deciding what to play, with what, and with whom. The framework notes that neural pathways and connections in the brain are stimulated when children are fully engaged in their play, as they make plans, create characters, solve problems, develop self-awareness and learn to socialise, negotiate and think with others. Educators are intentional too, balancing play children lead themselves with play an educator sets up and guides.
Babies: 6 weeks to 18 months
For babies, play is sensory and it is social. Reaching for a scarf, mouthing a wooden ring, watching a face and having that face respond: this is where communication and a sense of self begin.
In our nursery rooms, educators follow each baby’s rhythm for feeding, sleeping and being awake, and play happens in the awake stretches between. Tummy time on a textured mat builds the strength a baby needs to sit, then crawl. Peek-a-boo teaches that people and things still exist when they are out of sight. Repeating a baby’s babble back to them turns sound into conversation.
At home, name what your baby is looking at, sing the same songs often, and give them floor time with a few simple objects rather than many.
Toddlers: 18 months to 3 years
Toddlers are testing what their bodies and their words can do. Play at this age is repetitive, physical and often messy, and the repetition is the point.
Toddler play in our rooms means water and sand, dough, climbing, and posting objects into containers. A toddler who tips out a basket of blocks twenty times is learning about cause and effect, volume and gravity. Dress-ups and home corner play give them a way to practise feelings they cannot yet name. Playing beside other children, then gradually with them, is where sharing and turn-taking start.
The EYLF asks educators to notice and work sensitively with very young children’s intentions as they explore, practise and experiment. That is what is happening when “no” and “mine” arrive.
At home, offer simple choices, allow time for the same game again, and let your child do the slow version of dressing and eating themselves.
Preschool years: 3 and 4 years
By three and four, play becomes long, complex and full of stories. Children plan, assign roles, make rules and argue about them. A group might spend a week building on the same construction, adding to it each day.
Our three-year-old and four-year-old kindergarten programs are led by Bachelor-qualified early childhood teachers, who use children’s interests as the way into early literacy and numeracy. Counting out cups for a shop, writing a sign for a cubby, sorting leaves by size: these are the skills a school curriculum names, learned in a context that makes sense to a four-year-old.
The EYLF asks that children experience sustained periods of time both indoors and outdoors for learning to happen well. Given long stretches with open-ended, natural materials, children’s play deepens, so our programs protect long, unbroken play periods.
School readiness grows out of this. Sitting with a task, asking for help, managing a disappointment and holding an idea in mind are what teachers notice most in a prep classroom.
How play connects to the EYLF outcomes
The EYLF sets out five learning outcomes for children from birth to five. Play is how children work towards all of them at once.
Children have a strong sense of identity. Choosing what to play tells a child who they are.
Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Caring for a garden bed puts a child inside a community.
Children have a strong sense of wellbeing. Climbing, digging and running build physical confidence, and choosing builds emotional confidence.
Children are confident and involved learners. Persisting with a tower that keeps falling is where problem solving is learned.
Children are effective communicators. Negotiating a game demands more language than answering a question does.
Underneath all five sits the framework’s view of childhood: belonging, being and becoming.
Playing outdoors
Outdoor learning spaces are a feature of Australian early learning. Natural play spaces with plants, trees, edible gardens, sand, rocks, mud and water invite open-ended and physically active play, spontaneity, risk-taking, exploration and connection with nature. Bush Kinder is part of the program across our centres, where children learn in a natural outdoor setting in all weather.
When your child needs extra support
Some children need extra support to join in play, and that is common. The framework asks educators to respond to the strategies children with additional needs use to negotiate their everyday lives.
Our Early Years Engagement Support (EYES) Program works alongside educators and families where a child may be eligible for early intervention or National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) support. It helps with positive behaviour strategies, builds inclusion support plans, and supports families through the NDIS process. You can talk to your centre’s team at any point, and you do not need a diagnosis to start.
Come and see it for yourself
Reading about play-based learning gives you the idea. Standing in a room while it happens tells you if it suits your child. On a tour you can watch how educators talk to children, see how long children stay with what they are doing, and ask how the program is planned.
Book a tour at a centre near you, or get in touch with our team if you would like to talk it through first. You can also read more about our programs for each age group and about Y Whittlesea Early Learning.