Play Materials in the Teaching and Learning Process of Nursery School Children in Katsina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State

The study investigated the effectiveness of play materials in the teaching and learning process of nursery school children in Katsina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State. The study was guided by three research questions and adopted the descriptive research design. The population of the study comprise of two thousand, four hundred and forty-four (2,444) caregivers and teachers in all the 42 nursery schools in Katsina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State. The sample size for the study comprises 302 caregivers and teachers. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire developed by the researcher titled “Children Play Questionnaire (CPQ)”. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in data analysis. Specifically, Mean and Standard Deviation were used in answering the research questions while Chi-square (goodness of fit) was used to test the null hypothesis at 0.05 level. the study found that dramatic and role play (80.5%), guided play-based learning (65.6%), games and puzzles (86.4%), role-playing 94.7), (70.2%) and free play or unstructured play (71.9%) are the common methods of teaching used by nursery school teachers. The result showed that building blocks (63.9%), puzzles (71.5%), use of clay dough (60.6%), paints and brushes (60.6%), crayons (90.1%) and construction toys (88.4%) are the types of play materials available in the nursery schools. The study concludes that teachers still use the traditional play materials without realizing that play itself is a learning process. Whatever the child is exposed to during this period of growth and development improves the cognitive, social and emotional development of the young child. These play materials should therefore be properly developed with learning concepts in each of the methods and learning materials used. The study recommends that nursery schools teachers should integrate structured lesson plans that incorporate all the learning components for cognitive, affective and physical development of the child. Teachers should continually upgrade their teaching skills to inculcate the proper elements in the learning environment.