Course | Certificate of Play Leadership and Program Design

Play-based learning boosts the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and young people. Learn how to create and facilitate engaging play opportunities for children of all ages, whether you’re an educator, parent, youth worker or caregiver.

The Certificate of Play Leadership and Program Design is a professional development program that will show you how to create play programs that support a child’s social, physical, and cognitive development.

In this play leadership course, you will learn about childhood development, leadership communication and responsibilities, program planning processes and learning theories. You will develop an understanding of explorative, constructive, symbolic, pretend, physical, social, and adventure play.

You will also learn how to facilitate play-based and craft activities, such as painting, weaving, candle-making, mosaics, growing crystals, camping and more.

On completion of this course, you will have a foundation understanding of how to create and lead successful play-based activities for children and teenagers.

Unit

Unit 1 – Understanding Play
• Play leadership
• Levels of childhood development
• Nature or nurture
• Isolating hereditary characteristics
• Cause versus correlation
• Continuity versus discontinuity
• Cross sectional and longitudinal studies
• Reliability of verbal reports
• Ethics and experiments
• Play deprivation and juvenile violence
• Pure play is free!

Unit 2 – Leadership Skills
• Skills to carry out play leadership role
• The philosophy of play work
• Understanding leadership
• Qualities of a good leader
• Leadership responsibilities
• Leadership communication
• Different types of activities
• What is a good back up plan?
• Hints for leading activities
• Achievability of activities
• Challenging the child
• Community participation

Unit 3 – Planning Play Programs
• Develop a plan for a supervised children’s play program
• Planning play programs
• Issues for effective programming
• Program planning process
• Type of program
• Dimensions of a play program
• Participants’ goals
• Personal characteristics
• Socio-physical context
• The participant’s approach to achieving goals
• Accommodating different kinds of participation
• Participant behaviour
• Perceptions of consequences
• Using and supporting participants’ perceptions

Unit 4 – Child Development Through Play
• Levels of child development
• Theories of learning in infancy and early childhood
• Habituation
• Vicarious learning
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
• Cognitive development
• Jean Piaget’s theory
• Sensorimotor stage
• Pre-operational stage
• concrete operational stage
• Formal operational stage
• The importance of play
• Assimilation and accommodation
• Socialisation

Unit 5 – Play Safety
• Play versus safety
• Legal considerations
• Age and safety
• Safety in exercise
• Safety in aerobic activities
• First aid facilities
• Oxygen equipment
• Identifying hazards
• Sample checklist for safety maintenance
• Basic safety audit
• Pre-screening of participants
• Example of a screening questionnaire (not comprehensive)
• Legal liability
• When is liability a problem?
• Contributory negligence
• Insurance
• Inspecting play equipment

Unit 6 – Physical Play
• Manipulating and changing the environment
• Plant associations for revegetating developed areas
• Playing with the environment
• Trailing
• Sensory trails
• Cryptic puzzle trail
• Gardening
• Animals
• Collecting
• Crafts
• Sports
• Environmental activities
• Collecting
• Making an aquarium
• The national parks game
• Ant safari
• Leaf or bark collage
• Alphabetical nature hunt
• Organised exercise classes for children
• Suitable program for childs age

Unit 7 – Social Play
• Influences on social behaviour
• Other influences on social behaviour
• Social play
• Social facilitation
• Benefits of social play
• Strategies for facilitating social interaction in play
• Social play activities

Unit 8 – Adventure Play
• What is an adventure playground?
• Establishing an adventure playground
• The play leader
• Site design
• Playground facilities for children with disability
• Disability terminology
• Catering in general design
• Inclusive playgrounds
• Dedicated playgrounds
• Liability

Unit 9 – Play Apparatus
• Toys
• Playground equipment
• Big toy playgrounds
• Environmental features
• Equipment (consumables)
• Tools
• Naturally occurring items
• The characteristics of a good toy:
• Painting materials
• Oil painting
• Watercolour painting
• Acrylic painting
• Fabric painting

Unit 10 – Activities
• Scope of activities
• Craft activities
• Puff paint recipe
• Sawdust clay
• Brooch/fridge magnet
• Weaving
• Candle making
• Bark pictures
• Mosaics using leaves
• Growing crystals
• Sugar crystals
• Salt crystals
• Camping
• Successful camp programming

Unit 11 – Special Project: Problem Based Learning

Study Hours

Estimated duration 50 hours

Course Delivery and Start

Start anytime, self-paced and 100% online

Assessment

Assessment will be comprised of written exercises, including short-answer questions, reflective tasks, short reports and/or projects. There are no examinations or due dates for assessment. As a result, you can complete training in your own time and at your own pace with the assistance of unlimited tutor support.

Approval and Recognition

Australian Online Courses Pty Ltd is an approved and recognised member of IARC. The IARC is an International association that recognises quality and excellence in tertiary education providers.

Career Pathways

Professional Development for:
• Childcare workers
• Youth leaders
• Educators – kindergarten, prep, early primary