Category — Play

Why is it difficult for us to understand the value of play?

• Parents perspectives on play vary and are largely based on their own educational experience
• Skeptical of educational innovations that appear trendy or lacking in substance.
  • School is for work; and if you work hard, it can help you get ahead
  • School, in this value system is not for playing around it isn’t viewed as part of the learning process
• In an increasing hostile nations, parents are suspicious of anything that may reduce their child’s competitiveness in the job market.
• Parents have difficulty trusting a teacher from a different background (that they may not have their child’s best interest at heart.

Play contributes to advances in:

• Verbalization
• Vocabulary
• Language comprehension
• Attention span
• Imagination
• Concentration
• Impulse control
• Curiosity
• Problem-solving strategies, cooperation, empathy
• Group participation
• Recent research provides additional evidence of the strong connections between quality of play in preschool years and children’s readiness for school instruction (bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2000; Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, 2002; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000).
• Research directly links play to children’s ability to master such academic content as literacy and numeracy. Fore example children’s engagement in pretend pay was found to be positively and significantly correlated with such competencies as text comprehension an understanding of the purpose of reading and writing (Roskos & Christie, 2000)

How Play Evolves

1. initially, children are more focused on the actual objects
2. then they focus on the people who use the objects
3. then they develop more complex play with multiple roles and symbolic use of props

Characteristics of mature play

• Imaginary situations
• Multiple role plays
• Clearly defined rules
• Flexible themes
• Language development
• Length of play

I would like to invite you all to our annual Open House and Kindergarten Roundup.  It will be held on Thursday, January 21.  The entire open house is open to all, so even if you have a two-year old, please feel free to visit in our preschool rooms!  This event is open to the public, so we encourage you to invite your friends and families to come out and have some fun!

For more information please download our flier or even call us at 328-ABCD!
http://www.smallblessingsinc.com/news/openhouse2010.pdf

Over the past decade there has been a raging debate in the early childhood field between those who favor accelerated academic instruction and those who favor free play for three, four, and five year olds.  The New York Times Magazine (September 27, 2009) joined in on this debate with an article, “The Make-Believe Solution,” which described a curriculum of organized make-believe play called “Tools of the Mind.”  This curriculum is said to be based on these concepts proposed by Lev Vigotsky in the first quarter of the 20th century:

• At 4 or 5, a child’s ability to play creatively with other children is a better indicator of her future academic success than any other indicator, including her vocabulary, her counting skills, or her knowledge of the alphabet.
• Dramatic play is the training ground where children learn to regulate themselves, to conquer their own unruly minds.
• In dramatic play children are guided by the basic principles of play. Make-believe isn’t as stimulating and satisfying if players don’t stick to their roles. When children follow the rules of make-believe and push one another to follow those rules, they develop important habits of self control.

Time for play in most public kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing, according to three new studies released today by the Alliance for Childhood. Classic play materials like blocks, sand and water tables, and props for dramatic play have largely disappeared from the 268 full-day kindergarten classrooms studied. The studies were conducted by researchers from U.C.L.A., Long Island University, and Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Their findings are documented in Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School. The researchers found that:

• On a typical day, kindergartners in Los Angeles and New York City spend four to six times as long being instructed and tested in literacy and math (two to three hours per day) as in free play or “choice time” (30 minutes or less).
• Standardized testing and preparation for tests are now a daily activity in most of the kindergartens studied, despite the fact that the use of most such tests with children under age eight is scientifically invalid and leads to harmful labeling.
• In many kindergarten classrooms there is no playtime at all. Teachers say the curriculum does not incorporate play, there isn’t time for it, and many school administrators do not value it.

Child development experts have been raising alarms about the increasingly didactic, test-driven, and joyless course of early childhood education. “These practices, which are not well grounded in research, violate long-established principles of child development and good teaching,” states the Alliance’s report. “It is increasingly clear that they are compromi sing both children’s health and their long-term prospects for success in school.”

In the Q & A portion of his new Exchange book, Natural Playscapes: Creating Outdoor Play Environments for the Soul, Rusty Keeler talks about how messiness in outdoor play is important to learning and how to explain that to parents:

“Childhood is supposed to be messy and and natural playscapes [outdoor play areas] offer a kind of messiness that inspires learning and creativity. Children make mud pies out of mud; they pile up leaves and carry them around; sand and dirt are good for digging in. Two vital tricks are: having an extra set of ‘messy clothes’ on hand to change into and reminding parents to dress their children appropriately for play. If parents feel uncomfortable with the mess, tell them ‘the dirtier your child gets at school, the better reader they will become.’ When they scratch their heads, and look doubtful, explain that the experiences a young child has playing set up the foundation for future learning. The skills they learn on the playscape, such as having the confidence to try things they’ve never done before, will later translate to the school setting. For example, the world of reading — sounding out letters and words they’ve never seen — could seem daunting unless children have had positive experiences stretching themselves, gaining confidence, and growing through play. A natural playscape makes it easy for children to find challenging ways to dig, jump, stomp, and splash — and yes, get messy in the process — all on their way to becoming better readers.”

Apostle’s Song
To the tune of Jesus Loves Me.

Jesus called them one by one
Peter, Andrew, James and John

Next came Philip, Thomas too
Matthew and Bartholomew

Yes, Jesus called them
Yes, Jesus called them
Yes, Jesus called them
And they all followed him

James the one they called the less
Simon, also Thaddeus

The twelfth apostle Judas made
Jesus was by him betrayed

Yes, Jesus called them
Yes, Jesus called them
Yes, Jesus called them
And they all followed him

Love is Something if You Give it Away

Love is something if you give it away [clap, clap]
You’ve got to give it away
Give it away
Love is something if you give it away [clap, clap]
You’ll end up having more

Love is like a lucky penny
Hold it tight and you won’t have any
But, give it away
And you’ll have plenty
You’ll end up having more