Tag Archives: outdoor play

Your Family Culture Can Be a Shining Star!

February 10, 2015

Your Family Culture can be imagined as a five-pointed star: the first four points ( the arms and legs of the star ) make a foundation for Discipline, the “head” of the star.  Think about it like this:

Point One:  Family Rhythm ~~   Create daily and weekly rhythms that are simple, slow and nourishing.  Slow down and let your whole family b-r-e-a-t-h-e!  Set your goal to  celebrate yearly festivals in a conscious, non-rushed or media-influenced way.

Point Two: Family Work and Family Play ~~ Model for your child work-sharing:  show them the “how-tos”  in accomplishing the work-load a family requires.  Remember:  slowly over the years,  hand more and more responsibility to them, as they develop more capacity.   But don’t forget that families need to Play!  Think of weekly play-together days and yearly get-aways for play!

Point Three: Children’s Art and Stories ~~ Give your child plenty of time and space for artistic exploration.  No, you don’t need to enroll her in art classes, just make simple open-ended art materials available for her self expression: crayons ( buy 100% organic beeswax Filana crayons! ) paper, watercolor paint, modeling material, scissors, tissue paper, glue; you get the idea?   And remember good stories are nourishment for the imagination, just like good food nourishes the body!

Point Four:  Child’s Play ~~ Be sure your indoor play-space is full of imaginative possibilities.  Choose toys and play materials that are open-ended.  If the toy “plays itself” or talks to your child, it is not open-ended enough.  Think of old-fashioned toys:  wooden blocks, simple soft dolls, child sized kitchen toys, dress-ups, wooden wagons and plenty of empty baskets.  Empty boxes, as we all know, are the very best!  Be sure your outdoor space has plenty of exploratory possibilities!

Point Five: Discipline ~~  When all of the above are well taken care of, many discipline problems disappear.  What to do when all is in-order and discipline is still needed? The watchwords here are Firm and Kind!  Use simple non-emotional statements.  Breathe slowly, settle into your heart-space, speak slowly.  Allow yourself to “slip inside your child’s skin”, to understand the situation from their point of view.  With this insight, firmly and kindly insist.  You can do this, and you will love it!

I will be at The River Valley Waldorf School in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania this Friday night talking about Family Culture.  Join us there!    www.rivervalleyschool.org  610-982-5606

 

SO-Postcard-Front-Feb-2015

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“Green Space” and Winter Games

January 19, 2011

Virginia has had a very cold winter so far:  many, many days the temperature is below freezing, and plenty of days in the 20’s.  This has not phased The Rose Garden children, as we play in the woods!  As Helle Heckman says:  “There is no such thing as bad weather, there is only bad clothing!”   Equipped with woolie long johns, plenty of layers, snow suits even with no snow, and snug hats and mittens, the children have flourished in the cold.  “But why,” you ask, “send them out in such weather?”  It is hard to convey the importance of Nature, in the development of young children.

I wrote an article that was recently published in the Winter edition of Rhythm of The Home (click on Connections) a beautiful on-line magazine that you will want to visit.  These are beginning thoughts on outdoor play:   ” Outdoor play offers the child the opportunity to step into the long slow rhythms of the earth. The child readily comes to know their own bodied-ness when in intimate connection to the body of the earth. Running, swinging, jumping, creeping, sliding, kneeling, splashing, digging…all of this develops familiarity with and fullness “in the body.” The child develops strength, balance, agility, grace, flexibility, competence and confidence. This kind of “body-knowing” lays a foundation for all of these qualities to permeate the child’s whole being. Years later, the young person steps into the world with these capacities intact and readily available for the challenges and joys of adult life”

Here is a little more from an article of mine to be published in the Rhythm of the Home spring issue:

“Much research has been done, observing children’s play in both natural spaces, and in “built spaces” Studies show that children engage in more creative play in green areas than in built spaces. One study observed children playing in both “vegetative rooms”, (little forts and such that he children had built themselves) and in playgrounds dominated by play structures. They observed that children playing on the formal play structures grouped themselves in hierarchical subsets, dependent upon physical abilities. Whereas the children playing in the natural vegetative rooms used more fantasy play and their social standing was based more on language skills, creativity and inventiveness”.

Language skills, creativity and inventiveness abound when children are given plenty of creative play time;  time to run and frolic held in the arms of our Mother, the Earth!

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Winter Fun!

January 10, 2011

Winter has arrived on The Rose Garden playground and the children are ready to play!  But what you see here is not all fun and games: according to a CNN article yesterday, the learning that takes place in childhood through the magic of creative play serves them not only on the playground, but in their Harvard classrooms.  The following article by Erika and Nicholas Kristakis, of Harvard, highlights how the ability to control impulses, which is learned in  play, serves the young adult in their future endeavors.  The operant words in the article are “constructive, teacher (adult) moderated play”.  Children certainly learn from their interactions with each other, but they need an adult close by to help them know how to move through the rough spots.  Here is an excerpt from the article; you’ll see your child’s play in a new light!

“One of the best predictors of school success is the ability to control impulses. Children who can control their impulse to be the center of the universe, and — relatedly — who can assume the perspective of another person, are better equipped to learn.

Psychologists calls this the “theory of mind”: the ability to recognize that our own ideas, beliefs, and desires are distinct from those of the people around us. When a four-year-old destroys someone’s carefully constructed block castle or a 20-year-old belligerently monopolizes the class discussion on a routine basis, we might conclude that they are unaware of the feelings of the people around them.

The beauty of a play-based curriculum is that very young children can routinely observe and learn from others’ emotions and experiences. Skills-based curricula, on the other hand, are sometimes derisively known as “drill and kill” programs because most teachers understand that young children can’t learn meaningfully in the social isolation required for such an approach.

How do these approaches look different in a classroom? Preschoolers in both kinds of programs might learn about hibernating squirrels, for example, but in the skills-based program, the child could be asked to fill out a worksheet, counting (or guessing) the number of nuts in a basket and coloring the squirrel’s fur.

In a play-based curriculum, by contrast, a child might hear stories about squirrels and be asked why a squirrel accumulates nuts or has fur. The child might then collaborate with peers in the construction of a squirrel habitat, learning not only about number sense, measurement, and other principles needed for engineering, but also about how to listen to, and express, ideas.

The child filling out the worksheet is engaged in a more one-dimensional task, but the child in the play-based program interacts meaningfully with peers, materials, and ideas.

Programs centered around constructive, teacher-moderated play are very effective. For instance, one randomized, controlled trial had 4- and 5-year-olds engage in make-believe play with adults and found substantial and durable gains in the ability of children to show self-control and to delay gratification. Countless other studies support the association between dramatic play and self-regulation.

Through play, children learn to take turns, delay gratification, negotiate conflicts, solve problems, share goals, acquire flexibility, and live with disappointment. By allowing children to imagine walking in another person’s shoes, imaginative play also seeds the development of empathy, a key ingredient for intellectual and social-emotional success.

The real “readiness” skills that make for an academically successful kindergartener or college student have as much to do with emotional intelligence as they do with academic preparation. Kindergartners need to know not just sight words and lower case letters, but how to search for meaning. The same is true of 18-year-olds.

As admissions officers at selective colleges like to say, an entire freshman class could be filled with students with perfect grades and test scores. But academic achievement in college requires readiness skills that transcend mere book learning. It requires the ability to engage actively with people and ideas. In short, it requires a deep connection with the world.

For a five year-old, this connection begins and ends with the creating, questioning, imitating, dreaming, and sharing that characterize play. When we deny young children play, we are denying them the right to understand the world. By the time they get to college, we will have denied them the opportunity to fix the world too.”

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