Play provides fours with a language of their own. They can express themselves through play. Play also fosters socio-emotional growth. It enables fours try on new roles and take risks in a safe arena. Play facilitates children's sense of mastery and competence. When four year olds fill an empty piece of paper with colored paint, or work with manipulatives, creating a space ship, a car, or a carriage, they are using play to solve problems of shape, size, color, aesthetics, form and function.
Play also has a vital role in children's physical development: when children use their bodies to run, skip, hop, or climb, they are negotiating space and using these primary experiences to "feel" their place in relationship to the real world.