e something, play a formal game, or dramatize a situation. One or two children control who belongs to the group and direct activities. By a division of labor, children take on different roles and supplement each other's efforts.
Parten (1932) stated that her categories evidence a hierarchial order of social and cooperative behavior. In her study, she noticed that as children get older, their play tends to become more social and cooperative.
Smilansky (1968) categorized children's play in yet another way. He noted that as children's cognitive development increases, they move through four categories of play from simple functional or repetitive play like rolling a ball to pretend play like playing doctor and then finally to formal games with rules like hopscotch or marbles. Each of Smilansky's categories is more fully described below:
CATEGORY DESCRIPTION
play Any simple, repetitive muscle mo
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