One of the biggest ways in which children change as they move through the Children's House is in their approach to friendship. Three year olds are often just beginning to become interested in their peers. They often engage in "parallel play", which involves sitting near one another using the same materials but only a few direct interactions.  Examples include digging side-by-side in the playground, running together with trucks, and sitting together at the same table working with similar materials.  As children grow older and their ability to explain their ideas, take turns, and compromise develops they begin to play cooperatively. This kind of play, with many exchanges of ideas and negotiations, is usually begun with only one playmate at a time. For example, the children may make a sandcastle and road together or become fairies who fly around the playground and gather wood chips to "cook" for dinner.  

As children move past age five, they often begin to tackle the complexity of playing with larger groups. In this kind of play, children not only have to negotiate with many others at once, but they must hold in their working memory what everyone else's role and task is in the game. A recent example included a "zoo" game on the playground in which each child was a different animal or zoo keeper, and each child had a different job (such as building a shelter or finding "meat").  

As children develop cognitively and emotionally and move through these different types of play, they also begin to form friendships with each other. Like the play itself, these friendships grow in complexity from short term companions who share the same interests over days or weeks to more stable and long term friends who build and share their experiences together. Look below for some different types of play and friendship in action!

-Cheryl, Serina, and Mariam