The Implementation of Traditional Games for Early Childhood Education

摘要

It was very important to provide stimulation for early childhood development that can be done by parents and teachers. Early children were in the golden age which has high sensitivity to receive the given knowledge. The process of providing stimulation for early childhood was through playing games. One of the game activities that can be done was a traditional game. Why traditional games? The existence of traditional games has increasingly eroded, if teachers and parents did not early introduce the traditional games to them, over time the games will be replaced by gadgets, whereas the traditional games are the cultural heritage of Indonesia. Traditional games have many benefits in all aspects of early childhood development that include physical-motor, socio-emotional, moral, cognitive, and language development. This study aimed to find out the application of traditional games in early childhood education (ECE). The research method employed was survey and data were collected by using questionnaires. The research subjects were 40 ECE teachers. The results showed that as many as 55% of subjects often apply traditional games, but as many as 45% of them still rarely apply traditional games. In conclusion, traditional games apparently have many benefits in early childhood development, and this study suggests the use of traditional games in ECE.