The Play Cycle in Practice: Supporting, Observing, and Reflecting on Children’s Play

This book explores how the Play Cycle can help practitioners to observe and understand children’s play and support their interactions with children. It explains the six elements of the Play Cycle – pre cue, play cue, play return, play frame, flow, and annihilation – and shows how practitioners can use this to guide their interventions.

Building on the author’s research and including an updated and revised theory of the Play Cycle, the book applies the Play Cycle to key aspects of provision alongside examples from a wide range of settings. Chapters cover:

• The indoor and outdoor environment and resources
• Child-led and non-directive play including risk
• The adult role, play maintenance and interventions
• The Play Cycle and Play Cycle Observation Method
• The Play Cycle in Policy and Practice

Including vignettes and reflective questions, this text brings the theory and application of the Play Cycle fully up-to-date and is essential reading for practitioners and those studying play-related courses, for example, playwork, childcare, and early years education.

Pete King is a Senior Lecturer at Swansea University and the Programme Director for the MA in Developmental and Therapeutic Play. He is co-author of The Play Cycle: Theory, Research and Application, and his research has been published both nationally and internationally in academic journals. Pete has been involved in children’s play since 1996 and this book is a combination of nearly 30 years professional practice, teaching, research.