There are many ways to think about different types of play, but for the purposes of our work to observe and support children’s development through play opportunities, we use the 16 play types researched and made popular by Bob Hughes. You can read about each of them in greater detail here, but to summarize (adapted from the Play Wales 2023 publication, Play Types):

• Communication Play involves words, signals, facial expressions, rhymes, songs - through this type of play, children explore and test the limits of language and meaning.

• Creative Play involves using materials in different and novel combinations, making something from intrinsic motivation and curiosity. 

• Deep Play enables children to explore risk, danger, and challenges - balancing on a precarious perch, climbing something tall, or using a bike or scooter in a more advanced way can all be examples. 

• Dramatic Play is how children act out and perform events that a child hasn’t directly experienced.

• Exploratory Play is learning through manipulation of an object or environment. Children benefit from having a wide range of objects and different landscape features to explore. 

• Fantasy Play is pretending at scenarios that aren’t possible in the real world. It helps children “explore the boundaries between reality and unreality”.(5) They can explore “what if” questions. “These are important ways that children express and regulate their emotions and deal with the anxieties and novelties of their environment.” (5)

• Imaginative Play can easily be mistaken for fantasy play, but the difference is that imaginative play has a basis in reality. To foster this type of play, children need an environment of permission and some basic props to use. 

• Locomotor Play is movement for movement’s sake. Facilitating locomotor play can look like providing time, space, and opportunity for running, chasing, jumping, gymnastics, etc.

• Mastery Play “describes the urge children have to control, manipulate, and master their physical and affective environment.” Examples include building dens, building a fire, and playing with water, and each of these helps children understand the possibilities and limits of the environment. 

• Object Play is close examination of objects, and helps children discover what things do and how they work. 

• Recapitulative Play “refers to the idea that some aspects of children’s play might recap our evolutionary history.”(7) These can include creating or practicing rituals, creating stories and songs, creating mock battles, building and using weapons, and building shelters, among other things.

• Role Play is how children explore imitation and build their understanding of others, figuring out for themselves how another perspective may feel. 

• Rough and Tumble Play includes play fighting, tumbling, tickling, wrestling, “where children involved are laughing and squealing and from their facial expressions obviously enjoying themselves.”(8) Adults often have a difficult time with this one, trying to ban or prevent such behavior and misinterpreting it as aggression. In fact, this type of play helps children build critical skills: a physical awareness of themselves and others, impulse control, and establishing consent. 

• Social Play supports learning in a few different ways. Children who engage with social play exchange information, process the needs and requests of others, and build their understanding of rules and power. Social play also supports the development of sympathy and empathy. It encompasses several other types of play as well. 

• Socio-dramatic Play is how children rehearse or process experiences from their lives. “In socio-dramatic play, children imitate real world experiences but add elements of make believe.”(9) This type of play contributes to development of language and literacy along with creativity and problem solving. 

• Symbolic Play is the use of objects or signs to represent other things. “It is the meaning that determines the play”.(9) 

“Outdoor space is a critical component of a play setting. Where space is insufficient…we are likely to observe the absence of a full range of play behaviors expressed by children.”(10)

“Permission is arguably the most significant influence when facilitating play types. In practice, it means to enable children to feel ‘we are allowed to be here and do what we do’ without being judged.

It requires tolerance, approval, and empowerment. Without permission, children will not feel ownership of the play space nor freedom within it.” (10)