Understanding Play Schemas Through the Lens of Reggio Emilia

When we speak about the Reggio Emilia approach, we refer to a deeply respectful view of childhood. It sees the child as the protagonist of their own learning, full of infinite potential. Within this perspective, understanding play schemas becomes essential for observing, documenting, and meaningfully supporting each child’s development.

 

What Are Play Schemas?

Schemas are natural, irresistible, and necessary urges that children express through play. They are repetitive patterns of behavior that allow them to explore and understand the world through action. Quite literally, they are how the brain organizes, connects, and builds knowledge.

These impulses often manifest in ways that adults may find confusing—or even “inappropriate.” But once we understand them, we can stop seeing them as problems and begin to recognize them as rich opportunities for learning.

How Do They Relate to Reggio Emilia?

The Reggio Emilia approach invites us to observe without judgment, to document children's play, and to create rich, engaging environments filled with materials that respond to the child’s real interests and needs. Understanding play schemas allows us to do exactly that: to offer materials and proposals that honor the child’s genuine inner motivations.

Common Play Schemas in Early Childhood

Below is a list of some of the most common schemas you may observe in your students—or even in your own children:

• Orientation: Hanging upside down, looking under tables, climbing on furniture. This schema explores the world from different perspectives.

• Positioning: Aligning objects, sorting by color or size, arranging figures in specific ways. This impulse is strongly linked to logical and mathematical thinking.

• Connection: Joining train tracks, assembling puzzles, tying ropes. Connecting and disconnecting are both part of the learning process—sometimes building means also taking apart.

• Trajectory: Throwing objects, dropping things, jumping from heights. This schema explores movement and spatial relationships.

• Enclosure/Containment: Climbing into boxes, filling containers, fencing in animals. Everything that involves boundaries or containment.

• Transporting: Carrying things from one place to another—in hands, carts, bags, or buckets. A very common and active schema in early childhood.

• Enveloping: Covering oneself with blankets, wrapping toys, playing hide and seek. The classic game of peek-a-boo is a clear example of this.

• Rotation: Spinning, watching spinning objects, drawing circles. A strong fascination with circular motion often appears in young children.

• Transformation: Mixing materials, combining food, making mud. This is exploratory play taken into the realm of sensory experimentation.

 

How Can We Support These Urges?

From the Reggio Emilia perspective, the adult’s role is to observe, document, and offer. In other words:

• Observe to identify the present schema.

• Document to understand how it evolves and connects with other interests.

• Offer materials that help the child deepen and expand their explorations.

For example:

• If you notice a strong interest in the trajectory schema, you might offer balls of various sizes, ramps, paper for splatter painting, or flowing water.

• If you observe enveloping behavior, provide fabrics, boxes, tape, and wrapping materials.

Schemas and Educational Resources

Designing educational proposals with schemas in mind allows us to create more effective and meaningful materials. Instead of imposing activities, we offer provocations that respond to the child's real interests.

A well-designed educational resource may incorporate multiple schemas at once. For example:

• A sensory tray filled with loose materials (stones, beads, sand) might support transporting, containment, and transformation.

• A construction set encourages connection, positioning, and trajectory.

Understanding play schemas opens our eyes to a universe that unfolds before us every day. It shifts our perspective from “Why are they doing that?” to “What are they exploring?” With this deeper understanding, we can better support children, plan with more intention, and trust that each child follows their own unique developmental path.

If you’re looking for Reggio Emilia-inspired resources to enrich learning in the classroom or at home, visit my TpT store, where you’ll find materials designed to support this methodology.