Playful Learning Blog

Valentines 2012: Part One

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 15:35:42 -0500

I must confess that I love creating Valentines with the girls each year! It is always a crafty time where we get to be creative, sit and chat, and learn valuable lessons in generosity and persistence.

This year, for our third-grade daughter, we took our inspiration from these great MadLib Valentines. We combined the brilliant MadLib idea with this creative packaging and are really happy with the results. My daughter likes the fact that they are “really unique” and I love that we are sneaking in a bit of a (sugar free) learning experience :-)

Book Love: Moving Through the Seasons

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:51:27 -0500

This year, as we move through the seasons, we have welcomed two new (to us) books into our family cycle...

Is it Easy? Is it Hard?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:00:09 -0500

During my first year in the classroom as an assistant, I was fortunate to be able to work with a gifted kindergarten teacher, who knew the importance of creating a safe and supportive classroom community (thanks Debbie!). One of the “beginning-of-the-year” lessons, which helped to set the tone, was inspired by the (out of print) book, Is it Hard? Is it Easy? by Mary McBurney Green.

It is a story about a group of friends that have different things they are good at and things that are harder for them to do. What I love most about this book and the discussion that follows, is that it helps children to realize there are things that will come easy to them and that we all (even grown-ups) have things that take more practice. It also helps convey the message that it is alright, even good, to have things that we need to work on. In the classroom, I observed that this lesson created a culture where children respected each other for their strengths and supported each other in the areas that needed strengthening.

Because I felt this lesson was so valuable, I have kept a photo copied version of, Is it Hard? Is it Easy? over the years. Recently, we decided to read the story as a family and make individual charts of the things that are easy and hard for us. It was an enlightening family activity that allowed all of us to feel safe enough to discuss the personal things in our lives that we would like to work on, as well as give each other and ourselves put-ups for the things we are good at. We all gained new insight into each other...

Because Is it Hard? Is it Easy? is out of print and not readily available, the girls thought it would be fun to find a way to share it with you...

Playful Learning Spaces is About to Begin!

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:58:46 -0500

Yay! I am really excited about launching this next session of the Playful Learning Spaces E-Course. My house is in a bit of disarray after closing the shop and bringing everything home, so I am really looking forward to rolling my sleeves up and tackling some of my own big projects right along with the participants.

We have an amazing group of parents and teachers from all of the world who will be working together to create engaging spaces for the children in their lives.

There is still time to join in! We we would love to have you :-)

The course starts today and registration ends on Friday.

Tree of Life

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:37:11 -0500

I love engaging in learning experiences that inspire great conversations and encourage new insights. The girls are at a point developmentally where they are starting to take an interest in history, which opens up a whole new exciting avenue for exploration and discovery!

A good starting point is to encourage children to research their own personal histories. Through this process they are able to gain a deeper understanding of themselves and how they have changed over time. There are a variety of ways that children can develop their own personal timelines. I thought I would revisit a project that I did when I was teaching first grade as part of a year long tree study.

We started by exploring a cross section of a tree trunk. We talked about what the rings tell us about the life of that particular tree. Next, I asked the girls, “If you were a tree what would your rings say about your life?”

Immediately, they got busy drawing a ring for each year of their lives. They used permanent black pens on watercolor paper and then painted over the top with watercolor paints.

For the early years we talked about developmental milestones they had both reached such as when they first crawled, spoke their first words, and took their first steps. For each year the girls used a combination of words and drawings to tell their stories. It was really fun reminiscing about all of the “firsts” in their lives...

As they worked their way out towards more recent years, the girls began to remember and record significant events and developments on their own. The conversation became very interesting as they started to consider their own growth over time—comparing what they were like from one year to the next. My oldest daughter took a metacognitive approach as she filled in her current year. She wrote things like, “feel grown up”, “getting to know myself”, “more centered” and “giving myself more positive thoughts.” It was amazing to hear about how both of them see themselves at this point in their lives.

This is definitely a project that would be fun to revisit each year. After having completed it, my advice would be to use a much larger piece of paper or canvas board. That way each year, children can add on a new outer ring. I have a feeling I will begin seeing these pop up over and over again—just like I continue to discover heart maps!

Lessons from my daughter...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:55:04 -0500

Humbled and eternally grateful.

They always have been and always will be my greatest teachers...

Interview + Giveaway Over at Tinkerlab

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:56:59 -0500

Rachelle from Tinkerlab invited me over to her space, to chat about creative spaces for children, as a part of her series of inspiring interviews. Come visit and hear about utilizing small spaces, storing children’s work, and my dream art studio... Oh, yes and you can enter to win spot in my upcoming Playful Learning Spaces E-Course :-)

See you there!

Repurposed Mitten Puppets

Mon, 9 Jan 2012 12:32:11 -0500

This weekend it was time to sort through our winter gear to make sure that we have scarves, hats, and gloves that fit and are accessible as winter begins to show itself. Needless to say there were plenty of single gloves and too-small mittens left over at the end of it all. In comes Marie LeBaron’s Make and Takes for Kids. It is a crafty book with lots of ideas for fun, seasonal projects. She had the great idea of repurposing all of those unloved stragglers and transform them into entertaining hand puppets.

The girls used the photos in the book as inspiration and, using materials we had on hand, got busy creating their puppets. It was fun to see all of the characters they came up with and even more fun to watch all of the puppet shows that ensued!

For more of a peek into Make and Takes for Kids check out the Goodyblog.

* A copy of this book was provided by the publisher.