For Your Binder

I believe that by clarifying definitions we can show that children can be provided “opportunities to interact with technology” without having to plug anything in. #play #DAP #teaching #learning #technology #screens 

It's only the abstract to the study, but the message is still clear: fewer toys leads to increased focus and more creative play. #play #toys #teaching #learning #environment

Play and exploration requires enormous amounts of unscheduled time - time to do whatever one wants to do, without pressure, judgment, or intrusion from authority figures.  #play #teaching #learning #mixedages

The first days of preschool can be stressful for everyone. In this short but helpful article, Lillian Katz offers a few ideas that might assist both parents and teachers.  #environment #learning #teaching #relationships #care 

How might forest schools differ from location to location? This report looks at forest schools in Norway and England. #play #nature #outside #forestschools #teaching #learning 

First off, regardless of your position on screen based tech please shelve it for this read as, seriously, the article is from 1996 and I am quite sure anyone currently involved in designing interactive media would laugh at how dated and old the language is ("the popular analogy of an office desktop to help a user understand the operation of a microcomputer")  

Also, I reread it a couple times before posting and I really think we can take the message, which might initially seem specific to gaming/interactive media, lift it up and take from it a reminder of the value and importance of play, discovery, intrinsic motivation & self-regulation.  #play #teaching #learning #technology #screens

Mixed-age classrooms might also have the benefit of muddying age-based comparisons and competition between children.  #mixedages #teaching #learning #parenting #DAP

Most of this essay is about defining the characteristics of play, but before listing them, author Peter Gray offers three general points that are worth keeping in mind.  #play #teaching #learning 

I still believe it all comes back to either Love or Fear (meaning anything other than "love" has it's origin in "fear") but this might assist as we identify how fear might be manifesting. #DAP #teaching #learning 

When I first read this article in the margins I simply wrote, "This is beautiful." #DAP #play #teaching #learning #mixedages

It's only October, but already Nicky is exhibiting symptoms of student ennui. The other day, when his mother asked him the best thing about school, he said lunch. Most boring? Art history.  Sound typical?  Perhaps.  Except Nicky isn't a moody adolescent - Nicky is only 5.  #pushdown #DAP #play #teaching #learning

The American Academy of Pediatrics reminds us that the critical factor as to how a student will learn to read “is not how aggressively,” the child is given instruction, but rather their “own enthusiasm for learning” yet still, we push.  #DAP #reading #teaching #learning #pushdown #play #parenting