STAGES OF PLAY. Children’s skill and development and experience all affect how they play. However, we can broadly classify play into a series of stages. The first series of stages we will look at relates to Social stages of play. There are 6 social stages of play that children engage in from 0-6. Stage 1 Onlooker Play. This is where children watch others, usually from the sidelines and then later imitate the play behaviour they have seen.