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We’re honoured to share our perspective about craft time and why it’s important on Tim Elmore’s Growing Leaders Blog. Visit his sight to see how to facilitate open-ended craft time at home, and be sure to check his blog often, as shares great information on how we can foster positive growth in our kids. |
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On a recent trip to the Library, I stumbled across the book ‘Play – How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul’ by Stuart Brown, M.D. I was intrigued and picked up the book. In an era when it seems like kids have less and less time to just play, I was curious to read an expert opinion about how important (or not) play really is. |
All of my reading so far, and my instincts and experience with my own kids have reinforced the feeling that free play is essential to early childhood development. This book discusses not only the impact of play during childhood, but its effects throughout childhood and into adulthood. It turns out that many of us adults have simply forgotten how to enjoy guilt-free playtime. And worse; we keep taking free play time away from our kids in favour of more structured activities. The book talks about how play influences our well-being throughout life, including our work, our relationships, and our satisfaction with life in general.
Brown explains the reasons why we play, colouring his scientific analysis with stories of play in the animal kingdom, in children, and in adults. He relates how play impacts brain development, and describes ‘play personalities’ for those of us who have forgotten how to play and need help figuring out what makes us tick.
The book goes into ways we play from infancy into adulthood. Brown discusses the benefits of play in the workplace, including innovation and mastery. He also talks about play in relationships, and what happens when we lose our sense of playfulness.
i enjoyed reading this book. The anecdotes and analysis reinforced my belief in the importance of free play, and the book served as a good reminder to integrate play into my parenting. I feel like I started out with a playful approach to parenting, but as my kids get older, their schedules busier, and my expectations of them higher, I’ve slipped a little. Since reading the book I’ve been making a conscious effort to maintain a playful attitude within my parenting, and I can see the results. Through using a playful approach, I have diffused several conflicts that would have easily gone sour otherwise. The book also served as a good reminder that it’s important – even essential – to make time for my relationship, myself and my interests – in other words, to find more time to just play!
Find more information on Stuart Brown and the National Institute for Play that he founded, or watch his talk on play.
We’re pleased to post this article by guest blogger Emily Patterson (@epatt1062), on behalf of Primrose schools. Read her suggestions for family friendly fun that will get everyone active, creative, and enjoying the outdoors! Thanks Emily for sharing your great ideas!
Though the temperatures are falling and the leaves are changing, families do not have to remain confined to the house in perpetual boredom. Budget-friendly activities are abundantly available that will keep kids’ mind and body active, until it is time to retire into deep slumber.
Activity helps kids apply and retain the knowledge learned during the school year. Events may also serve as an incentive to motivate kids to learn. Kids that can apply the knowledge they learn are often more successful in the classroom and in their lives. Use creativity to engage their minds, keep their bodies active and fight boredom.
Here are ten wallet friendly boredom busters that are easy to implement in the fall months:
Bike rides are a relaxing and fun ways to keep the body active and the mind focused. Exercise increases blood flow and energizes the body to help kids focus and study in school. Bike rides may also help kids learn about inclines, resistance, velocity and other scientific concepts that may be difficult to understand in an abstract form. Take your kids on a bike ride and surreptitiously introduce these concepts in a way that they are not even aware they are learning.
Raking leaves may seem like a chore, but it can be great exercise, educational and incredibly fun. While raking leaves, encourage kids to select a few interesting leaves of various colors that may be later used in an indoor project. While raking leaves, parents may discuss the process of leaf change and why it occurs in nature. The collected leaves may be arranged into an autumn collage, framed and hung on the wall for many months of enjoyment. Parents will complete a household chore while spending time educating their kids.
Apple picking is fun for the entire family. If your home is located near an orchard, simply load the kids into the car and head to the orchard for a couple of hours. Many orchards will also host apple bobbing events, hay rides and offer recipes for apples. Kids may learn about the different apples that are grown on the orchard and the maturation process. Families may also learn historical information about the area where the orchard is located. Apple picking is an affordable outing that also provides the household with a healthy snack.
Create teams and have the kids make up a story to reenact for other family members. The kids may select to be the actor, director or the producer of the show. Costumes may be made from old clothes or use old Halloween costumes to bring their stories to life. Music may be created by using wooden spoons, pots, pans and other empty canisters lying around the house. The performances may be recorded for future enjoyment. This is a great way to make family memories and encourage musical and artistic talents.
Scavenger hunts can easily be combined with educational concepts to help kids understand science, math or other challenging subjects. Kids may be challenged by the clues that may include riddles to help them understand strategy and English concepts.
The clues may also incorporate simple math by asking kids to walk a number of steps, then subtract a number of steps to reach their destination. The clue may also incorporate geometry by asking kids to follow the path of an isosceles triangle or a rectangle. This helps kids retain the information is a fun and engaging way.
Nurture the artist in your kids, by encouraging them to create a special Art Treasure Chest especially for them. In the treasure chest, kids will keep their art supplies which may include: glue, child safe scissors, tape, markers, construction paper, paper towel rolls, magazines and aluminum foil. The exterior of the box may be decorated by each child. When kids are ready to create, they may go directly to their own personal treasure chest with their supplies. This avoids arguments over scissors, crayons, markers and other supplies.
Some parents may not enjoy the great outdoors, but camping out on a freshly cut or perfectly manicured lawn in the backyard may be more appealing to the non-outdoorsy types. Parents may purchase a tent, sleeping bag, flashlights and candles from a discount store to get them through the event.
Plan a meal that may consist of roasting hotdogs or hamburgers on a hibachi grill. Smores are also popular camping food that kids will enjoy. For those that are unfamiliar, smores consist of a roasted marshmallow and a bar of Hershey’s chocolate sandwiched between graham crackers. Kids enjoy the sweet treats. Who knows, they may even learn some basic survival skills.
Perhaps camping is not necessarily your family’s interest. Try building a fort instead. The forts can be simple made of sheets and chairs or they can be more elaborate construction. The fort style will depend on the skill level of the fort builders and the patience of those involved. Kids may keep focused on this event for hours. From the building stages to the actual occupation, kids will learn mathematical skills.
Math skills can be tested in the kitchen. Have your children select their favorite recipe and participate in the preparation. During the process teach them about tablespoons, teaspoons, cups and fractions. This is a fun way to test math skills while keep the mind fresh and engaged.
Memories are an excellent way to build family bonds and help kids remain social. Encourage kids to take pictures and create a scrapbook of their memories. The scrapbook may be made from construction paper bound with yarn or a spiral bound notebook.
While these are some fun and engaging activities, use your imagination and devise your own affordable fun. As long as the activities are challenging without being boring, the kids should remain engaged for hours.
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Emily Patterson (@epatt1062) is communications coordinator for Primrose Schools providing written work to the blogosphere which highlights the importance, and some of the specific aspects, of a quality, early childhood, education.
I’ve always made halloween costumes for the kids, labouring at my sewing machine into the wee hours of the night long after they have fallen asleep. It’s usually a rush job to get everything done for the big day, but to me Halloween has always been about coming up with a unique costume idea and then making it come true to life. Last year the kids were ‘Queen of the Eagles’ and ‘Superhero Baby Puppy’ (their ideas). This year, however, we’ll be buying costumes for the first time.
Turns out that the year-of-buying-halloween-costumes was timed perfectly, because both kids decided they wanted to be vampires. I’ve never shopped for costumes before but I assumed vampire costumes are a dime a dozen. I heard that a particular store had some great costumes, so I went to investigate. Of course, there were no vampires to be had. I ended up finding an elaborate queen costume with velvet, satin, and lace, and a giant hoop at the bottom, topped with a velvet and jewel crown. I found a costume that would work for my son too – a skeleton with a ripped up shirt, pants, and boots. I’m guessing this one was meant to be some sort of zombie pirate.
I spent way too much money on the costumes, deciding i could probably convince the kids that they really wanted to be a queen and a zombie pirate. Then I moved on to my next errand. What should I find? Right at the front of the store, two perfectly black, decent quality vampire capes. So, I retraced my steps, returned the elaborate costumes, and went home with the capes.
I wasn’t quite sure what sort of reaction to expect out of the kids. After all, these were just plain capes – no embelishments, nothing fancy, nothing that really screams vampire, and certainly low-end compared to the costumes I had just returned. But the kids were immediately excited and put the capes on and suddenly, without me having to explain what to do, how to act, or what to say, they just fell into role play and immediately BECAME vampires. I quickly remembered that when you’re small, all you need is just a small spark of an idea, and you’ll transform that idea into exactly what you want it to be….without anyone telling you what to do.
I met with Madeleine Shaw of Lunapads yesterday, for lunch and some inspiration. While we were chatting, I mentioned something about my sense of logic, tying it to my right-brain functioning. Madeleine, a very creative person, told me that right brain is actually tied to creativity, not logic, so of course when I got home, I had to look it up.
It turns out that Madeleine was right about being right, leaving me ‘left’ a little confused. Some of the most logical people I know are also some of the most creative, so now I thought perhaps the right brain was tied to both logic and creativity??….definitely worthy of an investigation. What I learned is that:
Right Brain functioning includes creative tasks such as art & music, holistic (big picture) thoughts, imagination, and intuition, while Left Brain functioning is detail oriented and includes language, science and math, logic, and analysis. Also, your right brain controls the left side of your body while your left brain controls your right body.
Of course there are two sides to every brain, and we all use both, but generally we tend more towards one than the other. Education systems certainly favour left-brain activities such as math and science, and are placing less and less emphasis on creativity (example: band and other music programs in the Vancouver School Board are currently at risk). But research has shown that we need to exercise both parts of our brain, and increase the communication path between these two parts.
To be well rounded, we need to strive toward whole brain functioning, which means emphasis on activities that are both right and left brain oriented. So how can we help our kids exercise both sides of their brain muscles?
By the way, I took this cool test at http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/right-brain-v-left-brain/story-e6frf7jo-1111114603615, and the dancer is spinning clockwise, no matter what you say. I could NOT get her to go counter clockwise! Hmm, guess I’m ‘right-brain’ after all. (Note – my husband had her going counter clockwise, then clockwise – I’ll ask the kids what they see when they come home from school – what do you see?)