How can you encourage exploratory play with digital tech today?

By Michael Hilkemeijer

 

 

Exploring, Discovering, and Creating: Lesson Plans That Spark Exploratory Play

In early childhood education, exploratory play activities give children the chance to investigate, test, and make sense of the world around them. Unlike structured play, exploratory play thrives on curiosity, trial and error, and open-ended discovery. Twinkl describes it as play where children explore everyday objects and environments freely, guided by their senses and imagination (Twinkl). NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde also notes that exploratory play helps children understand how things work, builds concentration, and develops cognitive and motor skills (NHSGGC).

 

When educators integrate technology into this type of play, children don’t just learn about ICT—they use it as a tool for discovery. Inside the ICT in Education Teacher Academy, members access carefully designed lesson plans that bring exploratory play to life while supporting teacher growth and transformation.

 

 

Lesson Plans That Promote Exploratory Play

Here are exploratory play examples from the membership that show how ICT can enhance curiosity-driven learning:

• Outdoor Digital Storytelling – Children use tablets to record natural sounds (birds, wind, water) and weave them into their own digital stories using apps like Book Creator or iMovie. They explore how sounds influence storytelling, experimenting with creative expression and digital tools.

• QR Code Nature Hunt – A tech-powered scavenger hunt where children scan QR codes hidden outdoors to reveal facts about plants and insects. The play becomes exploratory when children then create their own QR codes for peers, sharing discoveries and leading new investigations.

• Taking Apart a Computer – With adult supervision, children dismantle a non-working computer tower. This tactile exploration lets them manipulate real parts, ask questions, and make sense of ICT in everyday life—pure exploratory play in action.

• Drawing with Programmable Toys – By attaching markers to Bee-Bots, children discover how sequences create drawings. Trial and error, creativity, and cause-and-effect understanding make this an excellent example of exploratory play with coding.

• Abstract Art with Bee-Bots – Children attach multiple markers to Bee-Bots and watch as patterns emerge. They then extend their play with paint and music, combining exploration of technology, art, and sensory experience.

• Augmented Reality Outdoor Exploration – Using AR apps like Seek, children identify plants and insects in real time. They then record their findings in a digital journal, blending natural exploration with cutting-edge digital discovery.

• Digital Nature Walk and Photography – Armed with tablets or cameras, children capture textures, colours, and shapes outdoors. Back inside, they create digital collages or slideshows, reflecting on what caught their attention—exploratory play that connects environment and creativity.

• Coding with Nature and Programmable Toys – Children design outdoor obstacle courses with natural objects and guide Bee-Bots through them. They test, adjust, and debug their sequences, combining exploration of space with digital problem-solving.

 

 

 

Benefits of Exploratory Play in These Lessons

The benefits of exploratory play are clear across these activities:

• 🔍 Curiosity and Inquiry – Children investigate their surroundings and test new ideas.

• 🎨 Creativity and Expression – Technology becomes a medium for art, storytelling, and self-expression.

• 🧩 Problem-Solving and Persistence – Trial-and-error builds resilience and logical thinking.

• 👥 Collaboration and Communication – Peer-led hunts, shared stories, and group projects promote social development.

• 💻 Digital Literacy – Children learn to use ICT purposefully, not passively, as a tool for discovery.

These benefits align with what research tells us: exploratory play boosts confidence, motor skills, and cognitive development, while making learning joyful and meaningful (Twinkl, NHSGGC).

 

 

 

How the Membership Transforms Teaching

As a non-member, these lessons may look like creative ideas to try. But inside the ICT in Education Teacher Academy, they become a pathway for professional growth. Every exploratory play activity is supported by:

• 📘 Workbook Tools – Lesson Planning Templates, Observation Guides, and Reflection Prompts that help you set goals, track progress, and reflect on learning.

• 👩‍🏫 Community Support – Share adaptations and get feedback from educators facing the same challenges, ensuring exploratory play thrives in your unique setting.

• 🔁 Success Path Guidance – Learn not just what to do, but how to progress—from trying exploratory play activities, to adapting them, to infusing them into your curriculum with confidence.

This is the difference between simply downloading a fun idea and engaging in a professional journey that transforms how you teach and how children learn.

 

 

Exploratory play thrives when children lead, investigate, and experiment—but it flourishes even more when teachers have the tools and support to guide it with intention. Are you ready to move beyond activities and start transforming your teaching with ICT?

👉 Join the ICT in Education Teacher Academy today for just $20 AUD per month—a risk-free way to trial before upgrading to the annual plan and saving $40 instantly.

 

 

 

 

Encouraging Exploratory Play with Digital Technolology

Exploratory means to search, discover and learn more about something and there are many early childhood learning activities that can immerse young children into a variety of experiences and adventures.

 

To this day, play is closely linked to developmental process, engagement in socio-cultural contexts, gender and power relationships, and being culturally relative.

 

Combine this and it helps to keep the focus on play based learning in early childhood education. Exploratory play based learning is one of the earliest forms of play and involves the use of a child’s senses such as touch.

 

Play based learning in any form is connected to children’s learning and development.

 

 

Benefits of Exploratory play

There are several benefits of exploratory play in early childhood and include:

• Resourcefulness – The ability to find and use resources to create a solution.
• Critical thinking skills – The ability to evaluate information and use reasonable judgment to solve problems.
• Problem-solving skills – The ability to use one's imagination and logic to find a solution.
• Increased self-esteem – Increasing one's value and self-worth, for example, "Knowing I am loved."
• Increased self-confidence – Building trust in your own abilities, for example, "Knowing I can do this."
• Early childhood cognitive development – Involves skill-building such as counting, vocabulary, and language development.

(discoverybuildingsets.com)

 

 

 

How can exploratory play be used with digital technology in early childhood education?

Exploratory play is great for the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). Exploratory play is how children learn the properties of materials. It may involve children becoming familiar with how the different functions on digital technologies operate. You can support this by showing them how different functions operate.

 

You can use it as a teaching method to develop the following from the EYLF learning outcomes.

 

• Fine motor skills - Exploratory, touchscreen technology can encourage young children to interact with text in ways that have not previously been possible. Additionally, exploring a variety of new movements is essential for the early development of fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Digital technology such computer mouse holding is an activity that help achieve this. You can also get children to practice pointing to letters on the keyboard. What about having young children finish an incomplete picture on a computer.

 

• Aids vocabulary – if you as the educator use the correct technical vocabulary when involved in digital play based learning then young children can pick up new vocabulary and expand their language skills. Another example would be to ask the children to discuss their art they did using a painting app with whoever was near them at the time. They could explain why preferred one drawing to another. Or perhaps highlighting the differences between the two formats. Another approach could be to have them verbally identify pictures n a computer screen or let them make up sentences about pictures they see on technological equipment.

 

• Sparks creativity – exploratory play is great for creativity as it encourages children to create their own source of entertainment. Creative exploration with digital technologies ideas such as using a CD-ROM and the computer for exploration and feedback is one way to get started. There are also exploratory games and young children can be creative and explore with sound, graphics, animation and video to excite and motivate their reading and language development. The exposition of the software and the exploration of its potential must be conducted with an adult whose aims include the development of creativity. The most best tools at this age are drawing and painting programs and programmable toys such as the bee bot robot.

 

Remember too, that when you see young children press buttons repeatedly or use the same functions over and over, this is also exploratory play then engage in when they learn to use digital technologies for different purposes.

 

Exploratory tasks

Here some exploratory play examples when using programmable toys such as robots.

• Can you race your robots to the end of the Olympic circuit?
• Can you make your robots dance better?
• Your robot is working in the local sawmill and hot to move the big logs (wooden blocks). Can you manoeuvre the logs from the truck dumping area to the sawmill for cutting into planks?
• In teams of five, can you play ‘Snakes and Ladders’ with the robots on the large floor mat?

 

These examples were discussed by Fleer (2021) in relation to young children between the ages of 4 -12 years imaginatively play with robotic toys.

 

 

Epistemic or Exploratory

Epistemic play is just exploratory play in which knowledge of things is acquired. It is a form of activity within the Digital Play Framework that identifies potential learning of children in the use of digital technologies in their play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploratory Play with Technology: Why Membership Matters

Exploratory play is how children search, discover, and learn through curiosity, trial and error, and their senses. It builds resourcefulness, problem-solving, creativity, digital literacy, and confidence—all outcomes linked to the EYLF (Twinkl, NHSGGC).

Digital technologies make exploratory play even more powerful:

• Children record and remix natural sounds into digital stories.

• They scan QR codes to uncover and share discoveries.

• They dismantle a computer to explore its parts.

• They guide Bee-Bots to draw, dance, or navigate obstacle courses.

These aren’t just fun ideas—they’re exploratory play activities already built into the ICT in Education Teacher Academy membership.

 

 

Why Membership Enhances Child Learning

As a member, every activity comes with:

• 📘 Lesson Planning Templates – to link play with EYLF outcomes.

• 📝 Observation Guides – to track children’s progress and reflect on learning.

• 🤝 Community Support – to adapt activities and share ideas.

• 🔁 Success Path Guidance – to grow from using exploratory play to transforming your teaching practice.

Instead of downloading a one-off activity, you gain a complete system that makes exploratory play intentional, effective, and professionally rewarding.

👉 Are you ready to give children meaningful exploratory play experiences and transform your own teaching with ICT?

Join the ICT in Education Teacher Academy for just $20 AUD per month—trial it risk-free, then switch to annual to save $40 instantly.