var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; People are often surprised when I say or write that safety is our number one responsibility when it comes to our work with young children. After all, human babies are born uniquely vulnerable compared to other species and th … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When those of us in the play-based world think of "risky play" we too often think only of the muscle, bones and blood of the playground, sometimes glamorizing the daredevils we've taught. I know I've often made the mistake o … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I was watching a boy playing around under the swings as a classmate was swinging. It wasn't a particularly risky activity in my view. I mean, I was standing right there, taking pictures, discussing it with him, and it didn't … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Most of the time we refer to it as "risky play," although some have argued that it wold more accurately called "challenging play" or even "safety play." For many of us, it should just be called "play."Whatever we call it, mo … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; While the other children played a game of tea party, she spent her morning painting her hands with tempura paint, then washing them off in the soapy water in the sensory table. As the other children pretended to eat play dou … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Plants tell their stories," writes Robin Wall-Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, "not by what they say but by what they do."Our Western minds tend to object, But plants don't tell stories. Certainly, this is anthromo … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in. ~Derek SiversBack in our pre-preschool days, years before I ever considered becoming a teacher, our daughter J … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; There is a theory within the Theory of Evolution that proposes that when the first living things emerged from the oceans to live on land they had to, almost immediately by evolutionary standards, evolve better eyesight. I me … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Your wish is my command."It's a phrase that originates in the Arabic folk tale Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. It's what the genii said to the boy who conjured him. It is meant as a declaration of gratitude for having been rele … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Both girls wanted to wear the blue princess gown and they both were certain that they had it first. When I arrived on the scene they were in a tug of war that threatened to tear the thin costume fabric to shreds, so I placed … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We set out into a storm. The cold wind blew the rain sideways, under our hoods and into our faces. It was a storm that was blowing across the relatively flat, treeless island of Iceland on its way to mainland Europe where it … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The specific collection of atoms that formed me on the day I was born has not existed for decades, yet I've remained me for 62 years and, if history is any guide, I expect to be me until the day I die. Even through that afte … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; One of the striking things about Icelandic society (from where I've just returned after a week's participation with International Play Iceland) is that on any given day, one sees children who appear to be under 10 years old … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Over the past decade, I've had the opportunity to visit hundreds of outstanding preschools in places as far-flung as Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe, Asia, and North America. I rate these schools as outstanding becaus … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Stella in conversation with grass peopleA man on the street asked me, "Do you talk to your dog?" "All the time," I answered truthfully. "She talks to me, too. And we both try listen as well."He looked satisfied, "That's good … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Geysir, sometimes known as the Great Geysir, is a geyser in southwest Iceland. It was the first one known to Europeans and, as such, is the namesake of all the subsequent geysers discovered around the globe. Last week, I had … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I've spent this past week in Iceland alongside colleagues from the UK, Canada, Germany, and the US as part of the annual Play Iceland early childhood experience. Next week, I intend to share reflections from my time here, bu … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The boy was sitting atop one of our Tonka trucks, poised at the top of the short, but steep concrete slope that bifurcates the playground. It wasn't clear whether he was summoning up courage to take the plunge, carefully ass … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; When I entered the room, the first thing I noticed was a two-year-old I'd never met before clutching a big-eyed spider stuffy, attempting to sooth himself. He wasn't crying, but rather repeatedly catching his breath as he at … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The boy wanted to figure out how to "walk on a ladder." It was one of the three level, step-stool style ladders that live on the playground. After messing around for some time, he figured out that by standing on the middle s … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Awhile back I wrote about meeting a man who was convinced that the Earth is flat. It's an absurdity, but for much of human history, this was considered a fact. If early mariners sailed beyond the sight of land, everyone knew … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "(A)action is character." As has often been the case, this artists was just asserting something that modern scientists are now confirming: not only do our actions reveal who we are, they also becom … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In 2017, the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared loneliness to be a public health epidemic, pointing to data that indicated that half of us report feeling lonely "much of the time." Eighty percent of 18-25 year olds des … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character -- that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to conc … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Our preschool, like most, is equipped with pots and pans, plates and cutlery, cups and saucers, not to mention toy food, which the children use to play meal time. At any given moment someone is baking play dough cupcakes or … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; As a play-based educator, I came to understand that my role with young children was not primarily to "teach" them anything, but rather to create an environment that offered a variety of opportunities for the children explore … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In Doris Lessing’s novel The Four-Gated City, the character Lynda has spent much of her adult life in mental institutions, often against her will, but, over time, she learns how to qualify for release: “Lynda was much improv … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "I'm Anna.""No, I'm Anna!"It wasn't the first time that children argued over who was Anna or Elsa or Batman or one of the Paw Patrol characters. Their bodies were rigid beneath the thin fabric of their princess dresses, the … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; As play-based educators, we are in the business of learning. Many of us interpret that to mean "teaching," but the longer I've been in this profession, the more I've distanced myself from that because I've found that it very … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I first posted on this blog on March 28, 2009 under the title What's So Bad About Ronald McDonald? It took me awhile to get going, but by the end of that year I'd added another 198 posts, which was to be my lowest total for … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The midlife crisis is no doubt different for different people, but at some level, it comes down to people of a certain age looking around and asking themselves, to borrow from the Talking Heads, "My god, what have I done?" T … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Three girls were playing together on the outdoor stage. I approached just as a fourth girl asked them, "Can I play with you?"This is tricky question to ask around a preschool because the knee-jerk answer is most often "No." … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "I'm gonna try this.""You're gonna get hurt.""I can't get on. Everybody hold it.""Was that funny?""My turn.""I want a turn.""You can go after me.""I'm next.""Okay, so guys, after me it's you, then it's you.""Then I'm after y … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; More often than not in our culture, when someone is talking about "success" we assume they are referring to either material wealth or the result of someone having achieved some sort of victory or prize. And often they are. M … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We never had a teeter totter (i.e., seesaw) on our playground, but the children often made their own, usually by pivoting a plank of wood over a log. Sometimes they would put the plank of over one of our swings and call it a … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; My wife and I keep a notepad on the kitchen counter on which we write our grocery list, adding one item at a time as it occurs to us. Even before I eat the last handful of pistachios, I’ll add them to the list lest I forget … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Woodland Park is a first-come-first-served school. This means that the first families in line when registration opens are the ones who get in, the only exception being that our charter allows us to move alumni families to th … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we. ~Fyodor DostoevskyCynicism is generally defined as the belief that our fellow humans are motivated p … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; We were messing around with pipe cleaners and tissue paper circles. It's a craft-ish project that most of the kids know, because I showed them. You can make nifty little flowers by sliding the thin disks of paper onto their … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Karntakuringu JakurrpaI've written before about how, when our daughter was a toddler, we lived within walking distance of the Seattle Art Museum, where we regularly popped in to visit our favorite paintings and sculptures. I … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; The four and five year olds started their days on the playground. Some would take a moment to greet me, but most barely paused to shed their backpacks and jackets before plunging into their play. That might mean manning a po … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I was watching the girl arrange her things, or rather, the things she had made hers by gathering them from around the playground. It was clear from her behavior that she had a plan, but since these were loose parts, anything … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Through others we become ourselves," writes Lev Vygotsky, the Russian psychologist best known for his work on the psychological development of children. He believed that our mental and cognitive abilities, our minds, are no … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; "Oh brother, not again." It was a phrase that a small group of children had decided came with a built in laugh. Over the course of any given day, they would say it a dozen times or more, always cracking one another up. Somet … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Ian was a three-year-old with an older sister named Eleanor who he adored. One day he arrived at school wearing one of his sister's dresses.Even as young as that, he stepped through the door self-consciously. Maybe someone a … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Most of us are aware of the American psychologist Abraham Maslow because of his famous hierarchy of needs, usually portrayed as a pyramid. At the bottom, forming the base of the pyramid are physiological needs, like food, sl … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; Max is sent to his room for making mischief. His walls become the word all around and Max, a young boy, steps out into it, boarding a boat that sails on an ocean that tumbles by, sailing night and day, in and out of weeks, a … | Continue reading
var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true}; I picked up a small stone and performed some slight-of-hand for the children. I then handed the stone to a girl, saying, "I'm giving this to you." Our playground is bestrewn with stones and pebbles. Anyone of them would have … | Continue reading