In this course you will investigate the importance of play in early childhood and its significant role towards building all round competence in areas of children's learning and development. You will engage in theoretical perspectives and research that promote the value of play and its relationship in planning play based curriculum in early childhood educational settings and schools. Play based curriculum within national and state curriculum frameworks will be examined together with planning programs where observation serves as a tool for the cycle of planning, documenting and assessing children's learning experiences. The links between play-space design and the provision of loose materials with high affordance for play to promote children's learning across curriculum related to science, numeracy, technology, social, emotional and environmental education will be emphasised.