Pretend You Are Playing...

"Mommy, what did you play when you were little?"
In the recent months, my boys have become particularly interested in hearing about what my own childhood play experiences were like. S in particular loves to hear stories of what types of toys I played with and what topics and stories I played about. Trips to our local thrift shop started to result in a growing collection of original cabbage patch kids (I am one doll away from having more cabbage patch kids than actual kids). I may or may not have begun grooming my boys to play with vintage My Little Ponies. They got the surprise of the summer when two brand new Pound Puppies arrived for adoption at our house in retro 1980s true-to-the-original packaging. And yes, I had to retro-actively order one more for myself, because I'm still jealous that my big sister had a big Pound Puppy, Cinnamon, and I only had a newborn, Fudge. I finally got my big Pound Puppy, a similarly colored breed with different ears and spots unlike the original Cinnamon, and if anyone asks, her name is Nutmeg.

And yes, I felt just a little bit foolish standing in the line to pick up my order from Walmart's Customer Service desk, holding onto my wallet and 30 plus years of little sister toy envy, but you know what? As soon as the grown man standing behind me saw what was inside my box he gleefully shouted
"Is that a Pound Puppy? In original 1980s retro packaging???"
"Yes, sir! And it still comes with the sticker sheet..."

And when I got in the line at the thrift store to buy two more original cabbage patch dolls so the boys would stop fighting over mine, the cashier had her own fond memory of being stationed overseas in Asia when cabbage patch dolls first came out and being able to purchase them at insanely inexpensive prices for the time since she was near the factory where they were manufactured. [Sorry to burst anyone's bubble who thought like I did that they were actually harvested from a garden bed...] Another woman remembered standing in line at midnight outside of the toy store when they first came out to buy one for her then two year old daughter. And when I posted a question to my Facebook page about earliest memories of play, the responses flooded in from favorite toys, games, play scenarios and more. How is it that on a good day, many adults cannot remember what we ate for dinner the night before or why we walked into the kitchen just now, but we can all remember playing as a child?

I believe this speaks volumes to the importance of play in childhood. Truly, child's play is more than just child's play. And the world's greatest pioneers of early childhood spoke to this truth. Voices like those of Fred Rogers, Maria Montessori and Vivian Paley all sang the same glorious tune, albeit in slightly different keys: play is the work of the child. It is where they discover and learn. It is where they feel and grow. It is where they grieve and overcome. It is where they worry and resolve. Play is the foundation upon which all else is built and it is truly the integrity of everything that emerges from it. If the foundation of a building is weak, the building itself will lack integrity. Play is where our children thrive, and yet, it is all but disappearing from childhood (not to mention all the years that follow).

Whereas early childhood classrooms once were a space of fantasy and storytelling, perhaps with some meaningful props offered and opportunity to reflect through various artistic, mathematical, literary, musical and scientific lenses, now there are desks and chairs and bodies made to sit still in them that are no more ready to sit still than a baby who's yet to sit at all is ready to walk. We've got so much. We've got research and data. We've got technology and industry. We've got scores to achieve and standards to maintain. What we don't have is time. There is not time for the luxury of play. What was once seen as the work of the child is now seen as an escape from that work. What once was the rule is now the exception to it.

My father is a psychologist, professor, lecturer, author and advocate. His area of expertise and interest is the world of work. His latest book, The Importance of Work in an Age of Uncertainty: The Eroding Work Experience in America talks about the massive climate change in our country's work and career force and how that has so greatly affected people across the board--from the CEO to the janitor and everyone in between. My father is truly passionate about the world of work and how it shapes who we are. So how did I end up an advocate for play? One might argue we speak from opposite ends of the spectrum, but I would argue that we are likely seeing and saying the very same things, albeit from varied stages of life.

And likely my own passion stems from the fact that two of the greatest advocates for my own childhood play were my parents. My mother also works in the field of early childhood education and greatly valued the role of children's narrative through play both in her classrooms and in our home. We did not have video games, though we did watch TV. We had plenty of toys and they spanned from those that are more open ended to those we craved and coveted as seen on TV. We did not always have someone standing over us and directing our play or dictating the story. We had times when we said "I'm bored." And we were allowed to dwell in that space and discover what could become of it.

We had two of the greatest assets any child can have when it comes to play: TIME and SPACE. We had the opportunity to engage in deep, meaningful and continued play and we had the ownership of that narrative. Certain games continued on and off for months and even years. (Don't get me started on the Barbie Sagas of the Early 1990s.) When something was worrisome or scary, we played about it. My dad played about allergy shots with me more times than I can account for. There were plenty of areas I was not particularly confident in as a child, but play was a safe haven. In play, I could be whoever I wanted to be. In play, the story could end when it stopped being fun. In play, all things were possible in a world that would gradually close in to cross at least a few of those things off the list: I would not be a ballerina, monopoly money does not work in the mall, unicorns are not, in fact real, and husbands do not really sleep in the bathtub (sorry, Ken, but on Barbie's behalf, Jerry Seinfeld said it best: sleep is separate).

This past July, the world lost a powerful voice in play advocacy and early childhood education when pioneering teacher, Vivian Gussin Paley passed away at the age of 90. In one of my favorite books of hers (and really, they are all favorites), A Child's Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play, she writes the following:
"...we discovered that play was indeed work. First there was the business of deciding who to be and who the others must be and what the environment is to look like and when it is time to change the scene. Then there was the even bigger problem of getting of getting others to listen to you and accept your point of view while keeping the integrity of the make-believe, the commitment to the other players, and perhaps the loyalty of a best friend..."

Indeed, the chasm between the cubicle and the playroom is not nearly as wide as we may perceive it to be. Playground politics and office politics are not so different. And the dialogue of play has not changed one bit in the last 100 years although the stage scenery may have. Listen in on any group of 5 year olds and you'll  hear it:
"Pretend you are the mommy and I am the baby. And pretend that the baby wants to play but it's time for bed."
"No, I want to be a puppy! We are all dogs. Pretend you are the mommy dog and I am the baby dog and the baby dog wants to play but it's time for bed."
"Yeah, and the baby dog is really mad. Pretend you run away because you don't want to go to bed."
"And pretend when you're running away you get lost in the woods and it's really scary."
"And there's a witch!"
"And she's got a house made out of candy and cookies and dog treats...."

The characters' names and the plot lines may have changed subtly and significant world events have shaped the stories as they occurred. But one thing always remains the same and it truly fills me with wonder. It always begins with the words "Pretend..."

In "Pretend..." it is safe. Don't get me wrong--it can get dangerous. There are fires and storms and villains and weapons and people get sick and people die and people also come back to life and the plot can also change and the characters can shift and the story can even start over. And in a decade of teaching and working with children and now in 5 plus years of parenthood what has changed? Pedagogues come and go. Tools and technology emerge and just as quickly are replaced by updated versions. Across the board, most children do learn their letters and numbers and will read and write, albeit in their own pace and space. There's not one foolproof method to success, but more often than not the utilization of multiple methods is most successful. What is lacking? For many, it is the ability to "Pretend..." Who knew that was a skill? More and more, the absence of that TIME and SPACE has resulted in the absence of the ability to engage in and maintain that play narrative. And what is lost when we lose the story?

Perhaps we could argue that children don't need to play about being grown up and going to work--they are practically born already doing it, or at least with the expectation that they must be ready to by kindergarten. Blowing bubbles outside has been replaced by filling in bubbles on a Scantron sheet. Children do not lack for lessons on how to do that. They do lack for lessons on how to play--so much so that "play therapy" has become a common resource offered in schools for children displaying a deficit in this area. A deficit in play? How does that even happen? How did the world of "Pretend..." become a world in which children are taught to Pretend they are playing?

And Perhaps the nostalgia we all feel at the sight of a mint condition Care Bear sitting on the thrift store shelf or the vintage toy section displaying replicas of playthings past is not about the toys themselves, but the times that they represent. The days when bedtime always came too soon and even then, the game could always continue again tomorrow--right where it left off. The days when recess was not a privilege to be earned and likewise, taken away, but a standard segment of the daily routine--as necessary as lunch time and using the bathroom. The days when play was not an escape from the task at hand but, rather, was the task at hand. It wasn't a way to pass the time, it was the purpose of the time. And what I truly wonder is this: thirty years from now, what memories will come back to our own children when their little ones ask them "what did you play when you were little?"

Happy Playing!

Photo Friday: Pedagogy, Play and Pooling Your Passion

I came across this quote by Dr. Stuart Brown-- a powerful voice behind the power of play--this morning and it provided one of those rare pre-coffee life affirming moments. It's the second week into the school year. Y has started preschool, three half days a week. S has begun full day kindergarten at our Jewish day school. The boys love school. They come home equal parts enthusiastic and exhausted! And those [not enough] after school hours are the time we have for life's most important work at their age (and arguably also at mine): PLAY. 

When I first began to delve into early childhood education, I would become enamored with particular pedagogues in a way I can only compare to a seventh grade crush. You may or may not find a photo montage of Bev Bos in my locker right now. I would check out every book by Maria Montessori in the entire county library system. I would shift my classrooms from letter a day to handwriting without tears, from wall to wall Waldorf to Reggio real estate only. And now over a decade later, maybe I've become a bit crusty or just a bit more experienced, but there are no pedagogy police hanging out in my home or in my classrooms for that matter. In fact, the Pedagogy Police would probably arrest me on the spot if they saw my Nature Table sitting above a shelf of Montessori style trays just above a shelf of Lego and Duplo toys and Mr. Potato Heads. 

I poked some fun with my sister over the phone that it would be just a matter of time before Y comes home and starts rolling up all our linens like scroll, Montessori style. Lo and behold, the VERY. NEXT. DAY. Y stood at our dry erase easel and Montessori-rolled the rag we have for wiping it clean! I love that his school is Montessori inspired and that one of his two amazing teachers is an accredited Montessori teacher. I also love that he still has time and opportunity for play, for social skill development and for exploring learning in a variety of methods that work for him as an individual. And after spending a year when he was three with an amazingly talented Waldorf trained teacher, I am pleased to report that S has finally begun to draw faces on his pictures of people again! But joking aside, he gained a love for watercolor painting and whimsical fairy tales and nature exploration that he carries with him (along with a needle-felted acorn necklace and copious loose parts collected from the woods) to this day. His classroom this year is full of opportunities to learn through play and I could not be happier to know that his teachers' greatest goal this year is that their young and brilliant minds gain a love for learning. His room is a print rich environment with a visual schedule and Montessori trays for learning how to slice an apple and a kitchen set for playing about Shabbat and a dollhouse and pencils for writing in Primary journals. I am a little bit jealous that his teacher got a Beekeeper Barbie because I really want one, but honestly, I dished out more than I am willing to admit on three Pound Puppies this summer [in original 1980s style packaging, thank you very much).

When it comes to choosing schools and classrooms for my children, I don't have a lot of hard fast rules. I think that children can learn in many ways and adapt to many environments. In fact, I think there is value to stretching just outside of comfort zones and experiencing different styles and personalities. But honestly, what I want the most for my children is that they remain playful and passionate. There are years, G-d willing, for them to sit behind desks and "learn." But for now, just let them play. Let them play. Let them play. There are years, G-d willing, for them to fill the hours between dawn and dusk with clubs, extracurricular activities, talents and study. But for now, let's whisk off to the park, eat dinner to the tune of raindrops pattering on top of the leaves of the oak trees that shield us from getting wet. Let's have a tea party or make stories with puppets and stuffed animals or build a vitamin factory with dollhouse furniture and unit cubes.

When I began teaching, it was all about the pedagogy. And later it became about the passion. For the child who sees wonder in a snail on the sidewalk, the classroom moved outside. For the child who needed to rock a baby doll for hours at a time, the basket was always stocked with plenty of warm blankets because truthfully, he also needed to be rocked for hours at a time. For the child who needed to express herself through art, the shelves were stocked with real oil pastels and real charcoals and chalks. For the child who needed to feel as grown up as her brothers when it was homework time in the evening, there were stacks of intentionally selected worksheets for quietly sticking in her take home folder so she, too, could sit at the family table. Some students left my classrooms writing their names and some were still working on holding a pencil. Some students could read some words and others were still working on moving around the room so they could build the muscles necessary for sitting and hearing a story read to them. But I hope that all my students left my room feeling that their passion was seen, honored and understood. And that, too, is my greatest hope for my children as they embark on this year of learning ahead. I'll just be here fertilizing my brain...

Happy Playing!

For the Love of Learning, Let Them Play!

Earlier this week, my husband and I attended a kindergarten open house (I know...aaaaaah!) at our community Jewish Day School. I have really found a home in the preschool years and I think I harbor some unresolved kindergarten anxiety of my own. I actually vividly recall my first day of kindergarten. As I stood in the line of students waiting to enter the school building, I saw a girl (whose name I can't remember) with a huge scab on her knee. I prayed and prayed to G-d that she wouldn't be in my class. I don't know why. I'm not sure what I had against scabs, I mean, they are fairly functional occurrences when it comes to a badly skinned knee. You do want your blood to clot, no? 

But nonetheless, I did not like that scab one little bit and guess what--not only was Scab Girl in my class, but by the time the day was halfway over, she'd picked it till it bled and already been sent to the school nurse. Oh. My. Word. By the following year, I was picking up frequent flyer miles in that same school nurse's office because my classroom was a wee bit louder than my sound-sensitive-anxious ears could tolerate and I got nauseous from the nerves and more nauseous when I thought about how nervous being nauseous made me feel. 

Yup, I was a Nervous Nellie. I also had great teachers in those early years. My kindergarten day was only half a day. There was a dramatic play space in the room. I played House with Charlie Sullivan. He said I could be his servant. See that? I learned a new vocabulary word through play. Also, Charlie Sullivan was not very nice once I realized what a servant was...and he smelled like pretzels...and I didn't touch a pretzel again for years. Years.

Fast forward to over a decade of teaching in preschool classrooms and seeing children transition to kindergarten. And seeing kindergarten transition! There is no such thing as half day kindergarten anymore. I've visited a lot of kindergarten classrooms and they are full of rows of desks. They are still colorful rooms, whimsical even, sometimes almost magical. But there is no mistaking it--these are classrooms and not playrooms. And often, as a preschool teacher, I run into former students of mine. I always ask them what their favorite thing about kindergarten is. The three most common answers I've received over the years are: "I don't know." "The playground." and "Lunch." The verdict is still out on "I don't know," but it's clear to me that the children who most enjoy the playground and lunch are enthralled by escapes from the classroom, not activities within it. Why is play an exclusion to learning rather than a manifestation of it?

Walking in the hallway of the S's future school, I looked at the walls covered in beautifully illustrated stories and equally beautifully inventive spelling. I saw a huge fish in a tank and wondered how anyone can keep a goldfish alive so long... I looked around, slightly nervously, for Scab Girl. *shudder* And then it was time to walk into the classroom. What's the first thing I saw? A kitchen set, some baby dolls and a neatly set Shabbat table in the corner of the classroom. And I breathed the sigh of relief I've been holding in since 1989 as I watched that kindergarten line file into the building. 

I don't honestly worry that my children will lack for opportunities to play growing up in this house. But I do worry for the message they receive outside of these walls that there is no value in play. That it is what we do when we are done with work or learning rather than a meaningful and relevant part of it. When play is taken out of learning, the joy is lost. And if this is the message we receive as early as kindergarten, how does it affect the remainder of schooling to come? Or our relationships to our work later in life? When children "hate school" by the first grade, it does not leave much hope for their relationship to learning in the many years to follow. 

And as we see this crisis as parents and educators, we look for directions in which to point our finger. It's the standards imposed on teachers--the necessity of "teaching to the test." It's that "today's children are different." It's that we need more of an interest in science, technology, engineering and math. It's that our children must be reading by 7. And there's an app that can do that. Or a toy. Or a television show. Whose responsibility is it to teach our children anyway? The government? Their school teachers? The iPad? Conversations in early childhood education centers have shifted from looking for signs that children are ready to learn to implementing "skills" so children are ready for kindergarten. Where they must prepare to be ready for first grade. And there, middle school...high school...college...the "real world."

When you are little, all you want is to be big. In the beginning, that kitchen set and those baby dolls and that neatly set Shabbat table in the corner of a room are a safe and magical space where you can be big right now, without waiting. But then you begin to intuit that these moments of being big, of being a "real person" in the "real world" are just that--moments. And you are not big, so maybe you are not real. In fact, to be big, to be real, you have to know things. You have to do things. You have to learn things and show that you've learned them, sitting still, filling in bubbles, walking in line, following leaders ever focused on the next thing ahead, never in this moment. And time becomes elusive. If this moment is about next year and next year is about the rest of my life, what is the point of this moment at all? And you start to question. Will this be on the final? When will I need this in "real life?" And we aren't the driver behind our learning, someone, something else is. 

And there is a huge amount of option overload out there. I am someone who struggles with commitment issues on the toilet paper aisle and now I'm supposed to chose my child's elementary school?! Do we want public or private? Montessori inspired or project based learning? This extracurricular or that one? And the noise of options and opinions both sought and unsolicited is loud enough to send me back to the nurse's office feeling nauseous because maybe I have been picking at a 30 year old scab and just now, it's started bleeding. But there, in that little, slightly musty kindergarten classroom, in the corner, is a kitchen set, some baby dolls and a neatly set Shabbat table. There, in that room where my little guy will feel so big and so real is a space where he will know that play is enough. Play is enough. Play is enough.

There is a man who comforted me greatly through the television screen and in books as a child and still does to this day: Fred Rogers. Say what you will about his sweaters, but Mister Rogers calmed and quelled my childhood concerns and curiosities and now, he does the same for me as an adult. When he would speak to parents of young children about early education, he would site 6 signs that children were ready to learn. In what takes up pages upon pages of literature that states and schools must follow, Fred Rogers was able to sum up in 6 simple sentiments. Children are ready to learn when they display:

• self worth
• trust
• curiosity
• the capacity to listen and look carefully
• the capacity to play
• the ability to be in solitude, to be alone with oneself

That's it. Six simple sentiments. To carry you from the womb into the room. From the home into the school yard. From classroom to classroom, kindergarten desk to office desk. Six qualities to guide you through a lifetime of learning and one of those six is the capacity to play. There will be a lot of teachers in our children's lives from crib to cubicle. Some of them will be amazing. Fred Rogers is one of my amazing teachers and I've had (and G-d willing, will have) many others. However, I'd argue that the greatest guide to a life of success is the motivation to achieve it--the love of learning that fuels and drives the desire to continue that into a lifelong endeavor. 

So, Hooked on Phonics or ABC Mouse? BOB Books or Owl Readers? Common CORE or No Child Left Behind? SSR or STEAM? I don't have the answers and honestly, I don't think anyone does. What I do have is a spark of joy left when it comes to learning and a sense of inherent value in that joy that was instilled in me 30 years ago because I sat at a desk for the first time and took my first standardized test and I also played House with Charlie Sullivan. And those were both equally valued parts of my school day. Play was enough. Play is enough. For the love of learning, let the play!

Happy Playing!

In Praise of Play: Play Is Enough

"Play is enough. Play is enough. Play is enough. This should be our educational mantra for the first 5 years." are the powerful words of a preschool director as relayed to author Janet Lansbury in this article I came across last week. The article, posted 5 years ago, is still so relevant today. It asks a question I found myself asking more and more as I worked with young children over the years: have our preschoolers forgotten how to play? And although the article targets that particular age range (from birth until 5), I would say that a major decline in play opportunity and subsequent decline in play skills is a systemic problem that goes way beyond the age of five. Our need to for unguided and unadulterated play is one that certainly is vital to meet in the first five years, but must be maintained throughout life. This belief is one that led me to begin this blog, which certainly has a heavy focus on my home-preschooling adventures with a very curious toddler, but also leans heavily toward the side of doing so through meaningful guided activities and plenty of open-ended play opportunities. My very first post on this blog discusses in more depth my thoughts behind the decline in play opportunities for children both in the early childhood classroom as well as at home. It is a topic near and dear to my own playful heart. In my years of teaching and more recent years of parenting, I have adopted and adapted a lot of models. There are benefits to many styles of teaching and parenting. However, I remain devoted to my own eclectic and ever-changing model: if it works, do it! If and when it stops working, try something different.

This was the scene about 15 minutes before Shabbat last Friday. My husband was busy washing the last few dishes when my son came into the kitchen for several cups of water. He was not nearly as thirsty as my husband had assumed. He just apparently had his own sink of dishes to wash--and now his kitchen set is very clean! It certainly was a soggy surprise to his outsmarted parents, but a towel to dry it up with and a dose of humor got everyone through; play happens!

If you follow this blog at all, you see a lot of posts and photos about our guided learning experiences. I do include in that a portion of our dramatic play opportunities and there is certainly an element of playfulness to even our more "academic" activities. It may look at times like I spend a good chunk of every day engaged in this way with my son and the honest truth is that I do not! We have days on which we do a lot of structured activities. We have days when we are mostly out of the house. And we have days on which I am mostly bound to other tasks or even the couch and my son plays mostly independently with periods of my involvement. We are looking forward as a family to some very big and exciting upcoming changes right now and it is definitely a busy time! Because I love to plan for what I can (especially with so many elements that cannot be planned in advance), I set up our units on Purim and Pesach to be very play-based and toddler-accessible for independent use. The intent and idea behind that is that my son can have an opportunity to learn through hands-on self-directed play whether or not I am available to "formally" direct it or be involved.
I made my home "curriculum" over the summer. We are right now bit "behind" on some of my target goals and you know what? I'm OK with that! Almost every afternoon at naptime and every night before bed, my toddler (like so many of his peers) cries bitterly and protests. Why? Not because he wants to "learn one more letter" or because he has yet to master the skill of one-to-one-correspondence. He is not concerned about whether, at age 2.5, he is ready for kindergarten in the Fall of 2019. He wants to "pway!" "More pway!" He, like so many of his peers, has so much playing to do in a day and there simply is never enough time! With some snuggles and songs and a gentle tuck-in, we remind him that there is always more time to play and our bodies need rest to do it. We kiss him goodnight and his tears subside into a sleepy smile as slumber takes over. He is content. He is safe. He is secure in knowing he will play when he wakes up. But will he? In a world where kindergarten is the new first grade and school days are lengthened as recess times are simultaneously cut, will he have an opportunity to play as he grows up?
I think of a friend of mine who a few months ago mentioned to me that her kindergartner, a former student of mine, complains each day that he hasn't had any time to play with his toys by the time school and carpool, dinner and evening routines are done. I think of the days my own house boasts an eerily tidy playroom because we have hardly had the opportunity to use it! And this is just the beginning--soon enough, home days will be replaced with school days. Extracurricular activities will require a color coded calendar with plenty of options for editing, deleting and rearranging. Evenings will be filled with homework and studying. We will feel the same pride and occasional dread that all parents of school age children feel.  We want our children to learn and to grow and to work hard. And, we also want our children to play. To remember that freedom and wonder not with a distant sense of nostalgia, but to tend to it on a daily basis and nurture it like the fragile seedling that it is. Because childhood is short and it's getting shorter. Because our children do learn through play--they learn social skills, emotional regulation and work through their fears and dilemmas. Because creativity and imagination live in their world of play and cannot be regained by reading about it in a book or researching it on the internet. Because so much of their play-world right now is about pretending to be grown up--but we want them to be children just a little bit longer nonetheless. And because one day they will, G-d willing, have children of their own to raise and worry about and kvell over--and it will be so important that they, too, remember how to play; they may need to teach their children how to do so!
I want to add as well how important I believe it is for children to see the adults in their world playing and being passionate about something. Extracurricular activities are a double-edged sword in our lives these days. Children (and their parents) have full afternoons and evenings of tending to the many family interests and talents. I certainly support children pursuing personal interests and mastery of skills that are meaningful to them. I also see the potential for it to become a delicate balancing act and remind myself constantly of one of the best pieces of parenting (and life) advice I ever heard from a fellow mother and professional: you can have it all and you can do it all, but not all at the same time. That said, we surely need to balance family interests and activities with individual needs for everyone in that family. And as parents, we must make sure that this does not always mean we put our own needs for play and creativity on hold. When we practice and attend to hobbies in front of our children, we teach them the value of self care and nurturing our interests! If it's a hobby they can enjoy as well, great! And if not, great!
So tonight, when it's time to drag our protesting toddler to bed, he will likely be crying that he needs more time to "pway." My living room will probably boast a variety of scenes posing evidence that the opposite is in fact true. He will become suddenly benevolent and want to help clean up every last toy. I will (equally benevolently) take him up on the offer! (One of the joys of a child who cannot yet tell time is that at 6:30, I can tell him it is very late and already well past bedtime as he is quickly and calmly cleaning up his playthings and only I know that I have carved out an entire extra 30 minutes just to ensure we can do this and still have time for snuggles and songs before it really is very late and well past bedtime! Remind me to cross off any activities related to reading clocks from our home preschool curriculum...) If we do happen to spend some times in structured activities to learn core early childhood concepts, great. And if not, I trust my son will not be lacking. I may go to sleep at night with a list of tasks I didn't get to during the day, but at 2.5 years old, he does not need to! In just a handful of years, I will likely be asking him questions at bedtime like "did you finish your homework? Is your backpack ready? Did you pick out your clothes for tomorrow? Did you brush your teeth?" And I will probably also ask him, "did you play today?" I hope that if there are one (or more) things left undone from that last, the latter will not be one of them. And in the meantime--play is enough. Play is enough. Play is enough!

Tu B'Shevat Theme: In Praise of Nature-based Play

 When I have taught in a traditional classroom, I have always been known as the teacher who takes the kids outside NO MATTER WHAT. Rain, shine, snow, as long as we could dress appropriately and play safely, we went outside. I've done art and science in the rain. I've celebrated Tu B'Shevat in the snow as children hung streamers around trees and painted the snow. I've collected bins of hail balls to bring inside and play. And with my son, I've been much the same way. As long as we can dress appropriately and be safe, we get him outside. Fresh air is so important for so many reasons--least of all being adequate Vitamin D consumption. When I was a child of a preschool teacher, my mother was home during the summers and our backyard garden was an instant classroom and play-haven! Our backyard adventures involved hours of free play and exploration that were minimally directed or interrupted by adults. It was in the era of still feeling safe in a fenced in backyard and before helicopter parenting took over even that formerly safe space. Times are changing, but there is still a great value in a child discovering worms in the soil and creepy crawly bugs underneath a rock because of their own self-led curiosity and exploration--not because an adult shows him how to do so. Just as we promote the value to child-led independent play indoors--from dramatic/abstract play to process art--so, too, must we value child-led independent play outdoors, within a safe construct of reasonable adult supervision. 

Bringing the outdoors IN for those times we can't get outside--not only is it a lovely way to seasonally decorate, it's a great way to encourage nature-based play and learning!

A blast from the past and our garden last Spring

I recently came across an article titled "THE UNSAFE CHILD: Less Outdoor Play is Causing More Harm than Good" written by pediatric occupational therapist, Angela Hanscom. She writes on the importance of outdoor play opportunities to all areas of development, in particular siting the increase of sensory deficits in children with less exposure to such opportunities. Outdoor play opportunities have not just decreased in the home venue; schools have also lost a significant amount of open-ended play opportunities outdoors and favor of squeezing in more and more "traditional" academic activities. How are we to teach children to value and appreciate nature from the confines of four walls and a roof? Furthermore, how are they to develop and maintain that natural sense of childhood wonder and curiosity that we as children found by digging holes to China and making mud-pies when they never hold a shovel or are encouraged (let alone allowed) to dig in the dirt?
We do not all live in a house with a white picket fence and a yard. In fact, we happen to live in an apartment complex with shared yard space and no fence! We are fortunate to have areas perfect for digging and planting and even grassy ones for running and playing. We also have some great local parks and nature conservation areas. And we go beyond appreciating it all outdoors. We bring our love of nature indoors as well with opportunities to play, learn and explore natural materials in the home.
If you're looking for some ideas and inspiration to infuse your days with a little more nature-based play and discovery, here are some of my very favorite books (for grownups!) on the topic:

 National Bestseller, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv is a fabulous read and study on the power of outdoor play and the incredible price that is paid by children growing up with fewer opportunities to explore outdoors. It is an intriguing and thought provoking read. When it comes to exploring ideas for nature based play and activity ideas, I particularly like The Kids' Nature Book: 365 Indoor/Outdoor Activities & Experiences by Susan Milord. She takes you through each day of the year and all four seasons with great outdoor and indoor ideas to incorporate science, art, learning and play activities into your home or teaching routine.

I especially love author and blogger, Asia Citro's A Little Bit of Dirt: 55+ Science and Art Activities to Reconnect Children with Nature. It is chock full of great activities to take outdoors or in so your children (and YOU) can explore the unique flora and fauna of your own yard and neighborhood. In addition, she has a fabulous section on planting experiments in her book The Curious Kid's Science Book: 100+ Creative Hands-on Activities for Ages 4-8 and plenty of further nature-based activities in her blog, Fun at Home With Kids. I recommend checking any or all of these great titles out from your local library and taking them along with your favorite lawn chair or picnic blanket outside with the kids next chance you get. We can all use a little more fresh air and Vitamin D!

Happy Playing!

Play Deficit Disorder?

I can remember feeling an incredible sense of relief the first time my now two-year-old son picked up a piece of plastic food from his kitchen set, held it to his ear like a telephone and said, "Hello?" (Admittedly I felt slightly bashful last week when during an action rhyme with scarves at our local library's story time, he held his balled up scarf to his ear to take a quick phone call--but in this day and age of cell phones as attached to our hip as our toddlers are, who can blame him for not silencing his scarf phone before Story Time and taking the call?)  I have worked in the field of early childhood education for about a decade in a variety of venues, and in that time one of the most significant shifts I have seen in children both in the home environment as well as the classroom is what I can only describe as "play deficit disorder." More and more, I see children who do not know how to "play." To clarify, I specifically see a difference in children's ability to engage in creative, abstract and imaginative play and additionally a lack of opportunity for this type of play in many classrooms and homes. Recently I discussed with a friend of mine how different raising children is now as opposed to even a decade ago. A decade ago, she explained, I never sat down and played with my children. Now she is the mother of an infant and exploring ways to play together.  My own parents, I recalled, didn't really "sit down and play" with me. I had ample opportunities to play throughout my day and access to a great deal of materials and toys and space to play in and with. My own mother is an early childhood educator, the daughter of an early childhood educator. My father is a psychologist and professor with an expertise in vocational psychology. To say that it was embraced that my "work" as a child was "play" is an understatement, and yet, no one showed me how to do it.  

Teaching play skills such as creative plot development, conflict resolution and concept expansion used to be something that was reserved for students who struggled with learning differences, social/emotional challenges, language and speech delays, communication barriers, etc. Now, more and more, I have seen it as a skill that "typical" learners require support with as well. While I have taught in a variety of models including Montessori, Play Based, Jewish curriculum as well as secular curricula, across the board I have seen a growing population of children for whom that scarf is always a scarf. More and more, I see students struggle in less structured activities and times with difficulty in navigating what they wish to do, difficulty maintaining attention to one activity for a length of time, boredom, hesitance to begin, rigidity and inability to adapt...so what has happened? What has changed in our environment that has changed our children's play?

• Lack of Opportunity: The early childhood classroom and elementary school structure used to automatically include some length of "free time," whether it was referred to as Center Time, Work Time, Play Time, Recess, etc. In more and more classrooms and schools, this is dwindling. This shift was supported by some educational models under the belief that home was where children played and school was where they came to learn and practice skills. Meanwhile, home life has come to include more and more extracurricular activities and structured events nearly every day of the week. Less structured "free time" is often spent in front of screens that merely didn't exist in most homes a decade or two ago. The pressure is on from a very young age to achieve academically, and even the nature of homework--a task that when developed was intended to bridge the gap between home and school, connect families and also facilitate learning, has now become a daunting task for students and parents alike. There is simply not an opportunity for play to happen in the way it once did.
• Toys are Different: So many children's toys come with batteries, making sounds, playing music, talking, ringing, beeping, moving--children don't need to do any of that anymore. Furthermore, many toys are so function and gender specific that there is little room to expand on those concepts. While I feel that "girls'" toys have made a progressive shift to include (albeit pink and sparkly versions) of science sets, big wheels cars, building materials and doctors' kits, it is the boys I often feel who suffer the most. Aisles of toy departments targeted at boys rarely seem to contain tea sets or baby dolls or much of anything outside cartoon characters, superheros, movie paraphernalia and a variety of weaponry.  There is no need and no room with many of the toys marketed today for children to use their imagination.
• The "Village" is Different: I grew up in suburbia playing outside. I was not allowed to play alone in the front yard, but I was allowed to play alone in the back while my parents were home. My parents were in many ways considered neurotic for only allowing us this freedom in the backyard, but my husband and I are now uncomfortable even with that scenario for our son even as he gets older. Our communities and neighborhoods are different. The idea of helicopter parenting is prevalent and at the same time, our sense of the Village has changed. On the one hand, being out there with our kids is an opportunity to connect and slow down our family life. On the other hand, lost are many of the opportunities for children to discover and explore the way I did. Instead of independently picking up the rock and discovering the creepy crawlies underneath it, we show them, "hey look, pick up this rock and you'll see all kinds of bugs and worms!" 
• And I have to mention screens... because I would be remiss not to. I did grow up in a house that had a computer. Video games were not something that was forbidden but they were not something we wanted to have either. Both my husband and I grew up watching a fair amount of television and movies. He played a lot of video games as well. We do not have a TV in our house, but we do watch a few shows on Netflix and allow our son to watch certain shows as well on occasion. Beyond that, I think there is a great deal of wonderful things that can come from many of the new educational apps that are out there for students of all ages. We have many friends who home-school their children in "online classrooms," and the ability to Skype and FaceTime have allowed our son to have familiarity with and recognition of family members who don't live close by. As a parent and educator I benefit continually from access to fellow parents' and educators' ideas and resources online. I definitely think there is a place for screens in our lives and our children's lives and I concurrently believe they play a role in the shift of children's play. 

So what is the answer? Is there an answer? I'm not entirely sure what it is for the big picture, but for me personally, for my son and for my family, the answer has been to get down and play. I live in an era of toys that could do it for me and screens that do captivate enough attention to allow me to pop dinner in the oven without the toddler underfoot. There's a comfortable couch in my living room and if that doesn't float my boat, I could sit in any number of chairs. Have I mentioned my horribly achy knees?  But I get down and play and so does my husband. In fact, so do all of my son's grandparents. And it's not always convenient or easy. I went back to teaching when my son was five week's old. My husband works full time with an hour and a half commute each way--and this schedule begins for him before the crack of dawn so he can be home with us by 5:30P.M. Admittedly, in that first year, many of my play times with my son were what I'd call "horizontal mommy time," and thankfully he enjoyed the snuggles and cuddles. Additionally, we live on a tight budget and we really didn't buy him any toys until his first birthday. Everything we played with was a household object (i.e. pots, pans, measuring spoons and cups), homemade (sensory bottles, laminated magazine photos, coffee canister drums) or purchased secondhand or from the dollar store (don't tell my mother it may have been made in China and contain lead). As my son became more mobile and active, my world had to move with him. I felt like I got my life back when he could sit in the kitchen on a quilt and bang away at the Tupperware containers. Then he figured out how to move off the mat...and climb...and...oy vey!

And so it takes an amount of effort and planning on my part. It requires that I weigh options and organize my schedule. And then re-weigh those options and re-organize. Because I could put his favorite show on the laptop and let him watch it while I get the dishes done (and sometimes I do) or I could throw the towels I need to wash down on the floor that needs to be mopped, give him a small basin of soapy water and some plastic dishes and sponges and let him have at it while I get the dishes done. The floor is now soapy and wet, I dry it with the towels that needed to be washed anyway, toss those in the washing machine, toss the soggy toddler in some dry pajamas and call it good. And hey, I got the dishes done. And this year as I transition from teaching in a classroom to teaching my son in my own home, I feel just as challenged and eager to explore the work of my own child's play as I do in nurturing my students' play. Furthermore, as a "play at home mom," I see the need my fellow parents have for support and ideas in this area. My hope is to capture a variety of play ideas here that span and can be adapted to a variety of ages. Some activities may require little to no preparation, and others a bit more. Some may be messy and complex while others will be simple and serene. 

Playing with my son and playing with my students is something I have seen as an investment plan. Kind of a teach a man to fish sort of idea. Even at just two, I can see some of the fruits of my labor developing as my son begins to engage in play on his own without needing or wanting my input or suggestions. Many times, he even takes the lead and tells me what to do! I beam with pride when he invites me with a command of "Mommy, sit!" to hop in his car (a climbing structure at a playground) and go on a trip. We've all heard the popular adage about all work and no play. I have loved my work over the years and, G-d willing, will continue to develop that love. I hope my son will find work that feeds his soul just as much. I also feel that his most important work at two years old is play and through our experience of fostering and facilitating this skill, my hope for my husband and myself is that we also reconnect with that joy and wonder. After all, play is important for grown ups, too!