For Your Binder

Children's later school success appears to have been enhanced by more active, child-initiated early learning experiences.  This link will let you access the full article; and it's a good one!  #play #DAP #teaching #learning #pushdown

This was one of the articles that emerged after the 2015 release of the preliminary results of the (now) oft quoted Vanderbilt Study. #teaching #learning #play #DAP #Tennessee #Vanderbilt

Originally entitled, BEYOND PINTEREST! Amen! #art #creativity #teaching #play #learning

This link will bring you to a Master's Thesis from a Bank Street student. In it she explores (the lack of) play as a social justice issue. "Helping low income kids" often gets translated into "eliminating play" and we know this flies smack in the face of what the research (which she does a fantastic job reviewing!) tells us should be happening for all children regardless of socio-economic status. The paper is informative; her references are invaluable.  #DAP #play #equity #teaching #learning

Can you just see it? A young Einstein, wild hair flying, throwing his mother’s quilt over a couple of chairs and crawling underneath!?!?!  #nature #play #forts #dens #looseparts #outside

Play in a mixed age group is more creative than competitive.  #mixedages #play #learning #teaching #DAP

If consensual control is embedded in the design, maybe Disney order might be so Mickey Mouse after all!  #panopticon 

I bet you are familiar with some of the gifts even if you aren't familiar with Froebel! This was one of the supplementary handouts to the "Masters" workshop which is currently being revised to be more diverse so it's not just a parade of dead white guys. #theorists #handouts 

Missed the older version of the workshop? (It's still accurate, just not as inclusive as it needs to be) Want to watch it again? Got a DVD player? Lisa has DVDs of all her workshops! #oldschool  

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

Part I in a series by Peter Gray.   He says his goal for the series is to examine teaching from the ground up. He starts here by defining teaching and presents evidence that teaching occurs in at least some non-human animals. An examination of teaching in other species may lead to insights that will be useful for understanding teaching in our species. #teaching #learning #DAP #play

This link will bring you to a very generous "snippets of the paper" page, it includes more than just the abstract though and some of you might have institutional access to the full study.   There has been little exploration into risky play in the context of urban neighborhoods so this study does just that. Not surprisingly, the study finds that there are enormous inequities in the distribution of wealth within cities which directly and indirectly impact outdoor play and hoe play spaces are maintained.  #play #outside #risk #environment #equity

I happened upon this article while reading a newsletter that covers the happenings of the toy industry. The part that caught my eye was this: research found children talked more about others’ thoughts and emotions, a concept known as internal state language (ISL), when playing with dolls than while playing tablet games.  I mean we know this, right?!?  But I just love love love when someone does the math to prove it.  Access the full study here.   More fuel for our #play fire!  #toys #learning #DAP #screens #technology