play is a child's work

May 20, 2023May 16, 2023

Child-Led Learning is Beautiful. And It Works.

Did you know that crocodiles don’t sweat? This is why you can oftentimes see pictures and videos of them with their mouths wide open, to cool them down.

Did you also know that they can hold their breath for over an hour while they are underwater?!

Another fun fact: crocodiles and hippos do not get along and will fight to the death if they come upon each other.

Why the random crocodile facts? Because these are all things I’ve learned about crocodiles over the last several weeks while my son has taken a particular interest in them. It started with the National Geographic Croc vs. Hippo documentary on TV and has since escalated into YouTube videos, Googling random questions he throws my way, and many checked-out books from the library on crocodiles.

It has reminded me that child-led learning is beautiful, and it works. I could have thrown together a crocodile unit for our at-home preschool at any point this school year, but his interest level would have never been as high had I brought forward the information. He saw something he was interested in and ready to learn about, so I followed his lead.

A small handful of learning that I’ve witnessed from these last few weeks of crocodile learning:

His ability to spout off random crocodile facts for anyone that will listen.
His recognition of the letter C has solidified. Because… C is for Crocodile!
He learned about different habitats and the difference between salt vs. fresh water.
His geographic knowledge of the globe has expanded.
His awareness of different cultures has grown.
His knowledge of technology and how it can be used for learning has been practiced.

Child-led learning is beautiful, and it works. I can’t say how his learning would compare had I chosen a week to focus on the letter C and Cookie, but I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t have sparked as much excitement in him as learning about crocs did.

Oh, and did you know? There are 14 different species of crocodiles on our Earth! How cool!

Photo by Rene Ferrer

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023

Buying Into Kinder Readiness: It Needs to Stop

It was a very innocent Thursday. I was casually scrolling through social media catching up on what was going on in my friends’ lives. There was a video of Cindy’s four-year-old swinging independently for the very first time, a huge win for that little guy! Carly went to the water park with her littles. Sarah posted a video of her 3-year-old naming every shape, even a rhombus! Clark had a picture of him and his daughter sitting in their rocking chair enjoying a chapter book together.

“My daughter can’t name that many shapes, and she’s 4.”

It was an intrusive thought, but it still felt very real.

“She’s starting kindergarten soon, should I be reading chapter books to her?”

These thoughts are coming into my mind even after I’ve written countless articles on this very platform about not stressing over kindergarten readiness and really trying to hit home that what kids that age really need is copious amounts of freedom and play. I’ve scoured research articles, and other online posts, and I’ve even watched my own kids grow and develop. Yet somehow, I’m still here in this position. I’m seeing friends post about their 5-year-old reading entire sentences and writing his own Christmas list phonetically, wondering if I should work harder with my 4-year-old because there is no way she would be doing the same thing at his age. She’s still hit or miss on knowing all 26 letters. Never mind capital versus lowercase.

Even with my background in education and the years of research I’ve done for this blog, I’m still falling hard for buying into the fast track of kinder readiness. I cannot even imagine the amount of pressure parents feel to make sure their kids are doing everything and anything they can to read in preschool and get ahead so they can be the smartest and the best by kindergarten.

So here’s my reminder, to you and to myself.

Your child is doing great.

You can drop the expensive, intensive preschools and they are going to be just fine. Better off, probably.

If together you are talking, singing, reading, writing (drawing, coloring), and playing, then you’re doing everything they need you to do.

Play is a child’s work. Play is not a worksheet or studying magnets shaped like letters or shapes.

If your child is not reading before kindergarten, they are not behind. If your child isn’t reading by the end of kindergarten, they still aren’t behind!

Kids who learn to read at their own pace show a greater love and appreciation for reading later in life.

You are doing a really good job.

I know how stressful the push for kindergarten readiness is, I’ve fallen victim to it as well. It’s made me question if I’m not teaching my kids enough at times! Are they going to be smart enough to hold up in public school someday?

Don’t trust society’s push for your kid to cram everything into their little brains as fast as possible. Trust yourself. Trust your kids. That’s how you’re going to have the best shot at getting ready for kindergarten.

Real Life Risky Play

On a fall afternoon, I was outside supervising a group of neighborhood kids playing in my yard and neighboring yards. I am a big fan of risky play, so watching them scale apple trees and climb up our rope swing was bringing me so much joy! (And yes, some anxiety. But I do trust them and their ability to know when it’s too much for their body.)

At one point they found a ladder lying on the ground that they worked together to prop up onto a stump in the yard- yay for teamwork! They were using this ramp to climb up and down and hang on and jump off of it, it was great to watch. However, upon closer inspection, I realized that right under the propped-up ladder were several 2×4 boards that were full of rusty screws and nails.

Instantly their risky play turned to dangerous play.

I was able to take a second to gather my thoughts and plan my next move, how I reacted could drastically change the outcome of their work.

There was danger, but nothing was immediate. Courses needed to be changed, but it wasn’t a life-or-death situation at the moment that I needed to swoop in right away.

I offered them some awareness of the situation,
“Hey guys, let’s look around really quick. What do you see on the ground? Boards with nails in them? Yeah, that can be dangerous if we fall on them! What can we do to make this a little safer?”

Their first solution was to move the boards away from where they were playing, but with the number of children and only myself there to supervise them, I didn’t feel like this would be a safe option to make sure all of the boards were picked up and moved without a nail going through someone’s hand or foot, so I had to tell them we needed to find a new option.

After some more deliberation, they decided to work together to pick up the ladder and move it to a different area to prop up and play on again. After moving it, the ladder was taller and in a more risky position to play on, but the danger of it was gone because it was a safer landing than the alternative.

They played with their setup for hours and hours with no incident! And maybe they would have played in their first location for that long with no harm to anyone either, but the danger there was not something I could ignore.

Risky play is important and good and needed, but as a caregiver, it’s my job to determine when risky play turns into dangerous play.

There was so much learning in this situation, both for the children, and myself! I am not perfect and every situation isn’t handled this well every time. But with practice and time, I’ve learned more and more how to differentiate between risky and dangerous play and the best way to approach the changes we need to make in order to keep everyone safe, while still giving them opportunities to learn through risk.

When Does Risky Play Become Dangerous Play? How to Find the Balance

I posted earlier this week about the importance of risky play for children, but now I want to expand on one specific aspect of risky play that I feel is one of the biggest struggles caregivers have regarding risky play.

When does risky play become dangerous play?

I wish I could give you a straightforward answer, I really do. Because I would love a straightforward answer myself! But there is a lot to this question that we have to analyze ourselves to answer it.

The first question is- what is the experience level of the child performing the task? Age is irrelevant here. Child A can be an expert at climbing a ladder at 18 months and child B can still be learning the concept at 3 years old.

Next, you need to analyze the situation. If they fall or fail at what they are doing, what’s below them? Cement or grass? Hardwood floors or carpet? Is there a corner of a table nearby that you need to be aware of?

My son loves jumping from our couch onto a crash pad on the floor, which is typically an okay activity for him. However, one particular day I noticed a wooden kitchen table chair positioned perfectly next to the crash pad that if he jumped just right, it could harm him. It was a simple conversation, “Hey buddy, do you see this chair next to your crash pad? That might be a problem if you accidentally jump into it! Let’s put it back into the kitchen so we don’t have to worry about it being a problem!” Dangerous play went right back to risky play.

How much and how close supervision does the child need for the specific activity? And how much supervision can you realistically give them at the moment?

My 6-year-old loves climbing our ladder to pick apricots off our tree from the tallest branches. However, she is still fairly new at ladders and it’s well above 6 feet off the ground. This task requires closer supervision and most likely some coaching to get her through it, and if I can’t give her that for some reason, then this risky play just turned into dangerous play and should be avoided. With enough time and practice, she will be more confident and able to climb a ladder by herself, making less supervision not dangerous anymore.

Safe, risky, and dangerous play is always ebbing and flowing. It can change day to day and even hour to hour as children work hard at their play, fail and falter a few times, analyze how they can do better, and try again. And as time goes on, you also become more experienced and better at determining what is risky and what is dangerous for your child.

Really, risky play is just one big science experiment for them to do over and over, analyze, and then learn from. I think if you can allow yourself to step back and foster their risky play, you might be amazed at how much they really can accomplish on their own.

December 29, 2022December 28, 2022

Anna Crabb- Advocacy For Childhood

This post is part of a series where we interview real educators and tell their direct stories. All words are their own. You can see the entire series here.

“My degree is in human development, but I knew I wanted to be in education. I was hesitant to go down the education route because there were some things in public schools that I didn’t enjoy as a child. So I ultimately decided not to get an education degree, but hoped somehow, some way I could still be involved in education, but I truly did not know what that would look like.”

“My first glimpse into alternative education was Montessori. I had randomly heard about it and looked up jobs while I was still in undergrad and ended up finding somewhere that was hiring. I was loosely trained by the owner and I loved it, so I dove really deep into the Montessori world for a few years and finished my degree in human development. I thought I was going to go full-blown Montessori, but then we moved and I didn’t like any of the Montessori schools in our new area. They seemed too aggressive and rigid.”

“I stumbled on an ad for an alternative education school opening up in the fall that was still looking for guides, so I applied and got the job. I ended up using Montessori a lot there, but they wanted me to also keep it more open-ended. I worked there for a year and started their early childhood center, which was a pivotal experience for the school I eventually opened myself.”

“We moved again and I was very much missing teaching. When it came time for my oldest to start school, I could not find a school that felt like my style. It felt like the only thing they were talking about and advocating for was kindergarten readiness, they weren’t talking about anything else other than kindergarten readiness, and it felt very braggy, like, “look how fast we can get your kids to read!” and, “look how fast we can get your kids to count to twenty!”

“That just says to me that they don’t see or appreciate or value childhood. What pushed me over the edge was when I watched a documentary that was all about how education can look different. After that, I had a whole moment where I thought, “I have to start a school! I have to do this myself!”

“I had nine months to get my school ready, so I just dove right in. I ended up combining my experience with Montessori and the curriculum of a previous school I was working at, as well as some training I had started with Reggio Emilia. I’ve blended all of these resources as well as my background in human development to give my school its foundation.”

“The beauty of it is in the environment. It’s in the way I set up the space. It’s all free choice and child-directed, there is minimal direct teacher instruction. That enables them to work at their own pace and choose to work on things that they’re interested in, and allows me to float around and help as needed. All of the materials are child-directed with a control of error built in so they can teach themselves. There is a clear right or wrong and they don’t need me to tell them, which is nice because then they don’t develop that dependency on another person to tell them if they’re good or not, they can have their own experience. It’s this personal, intrinsic experience versus a co-dependency on other people to validate them.”

“It’s definitely a lot of trusting the process and if they’re really into one thing for many weeks and they don’t even touch math, you let them do that and trust that eventually you can integrate those math scenarios into real-life situations so they can see how that skill might benefit them. They work with these materials independently and they might work with me, and I give them these real-life experiences to help them get excited about learning whatever skill they need to learn. Or maybe I would work in small groups as well to help give them the social keys needed. It is fluid, it’s child-directed, it’s play-based, and it’s all hands-on.”

“It really does come from this place where I want to advocate for kids. Now that I’m in this space I can never go back. Whenever I see things that are common in other schools that are dismissive of childhood, I want to fight for them and fight for the kids, the parents, and the teachers. I just want to tell them, “It doesn’t have to be this way! It can be easier, happier, and more natural, and the kids can actually enjoy learning!” That really is the underlying theme of all of it- advocacy for childhood.”

A day in the life at Stoneybrook Hollow

November 28, 2022November 28, 2022

Sight Word Games For the Early Reader in Your Life

With my oldest in kindergarten this year, sight words have become a big part of our daily life. She’s practicing them at school and then we have a list at home that we can work on as well. And as I’ve written time and time again, “Play is a child’s work.” So we don’t just buzz through sight word flashcards as fast as we can, we use sight words in our play. Here are a few games we’ve come up with together to help along the way.

Sight word board game: My daughter and I made this game together in a similar way to how you would play Candyland. There are two ways you can play it- make your own cards with sight words written on them to indicate where your next square is. Or, roll the dice, move forward that many spaces, and read the words as you move. For pieces, we use Bingo tokens, various board game pieces, or small toys. Yes, Skye and Chase help us play this game! If you know, you know!

Sight word Jenga: We bought a few of these tiny tumbling tower sets from Dollar Tree and wrote various sight words on them. Once we pull a brick out, we read the word, and once the tower has tumbled, we take turns making sentences with the words we pulled. We did multiple sets so we could add in more sight words as they learn them in class. I plan to do CVC and CVC-e words someday when she’s ready for that.

Sight word sentence builder: I bought a pack of sight word flash cards for cheap on Amazon to save me the time and effort of making my own. We use these cards, plus a few index cards with words we decide to add, to create fun sentences. We also use our Jenga blocks for this as well! This one is my daughter’s favorite way to play with sight words!

Sight word seek and find: For this, we use our sight word flashcards, or sometimes I’ll write them out on sticky notes and use those instead. One of us hides the sight words and then the other one finds them while reading out which word they found. Pictured here is your classic “hide it in the Christmas tree” move. The amount of random toys I pull out of our Christmas tree at the end of the holiday from various hide-and-seek games is unreal!

Sight word seek and find + builder: This game is a two-part game! I place sticky notes with letters throughout our family room, then she is required to find the letters and build the sight words out of the letters. This one took some scaffolding. In the beginning, it was just a letter here or there omitted in sight words that she had to find, but as she got better and better at it, she started spelling her own words with less prompting.

Sight word hopscotch: This one can be as intricate or as easy as your time and energy allow. We’ve done this quickly outside with sidewalk chalk, quickly inside with our flashcards, or intricately with painter’s tape boxes taped out on the floor or full sheets of paper with the words written on them taped to the floor. SO many different ways to do this one! While jumping from square to square, we read the words.

Sight word beanbag toss: This one is a simple one we like to do in addition to the other games we’ve been playing. I simply just lay the flashcards out on the floor and my daughter takes a beanbag (or a soft toy, stuffed animal, etc.), tosses it at a card, and if it’s touching the card she reads the word, then she is handed the card. If she doesn’t read the word correctly, she tries again!

Not only are these sight word games building awareness of words, but they are also utilizing fine and gross motor skills, moving around the room, and using, deconstructing, and building these words in ways they haven’t before. Learning sight words isn’t reading. It’s memorizing. And play is a child’s work, so in order to work through memorizing these words, they must play.

What sight word games would you add to this list?

February 3, 2021February 3, 2021

Look Past The Mess And See The Learning: Messy Play For Kids

Let’s have some real talk for a minute.

Kids are messy. And that can be incredibly stressful.

Messes mean things are out of control and someone has to clean it up (and it’s probably going to be YOU.)

Messy activities can be unpredictable and scary.

But there’s a method to the madness when kids are building endless forts, dumping out all of the legos, and spreading paint in every corner.

If you look past the mess, that’s where the learning lies.

Take a second to look at the blocks scattered to every corner to notice the tiny houses built high, and the toy cars driving between them. Realize that this means they are practicing and learning about their own sense of community, using their fine motor skills AND gross motor skills as they move blocks and cars while also crawling around from home to home.

When the paint is dripping from the paper take a second to remember that your child just learned important spatial awareness skills, got in some practice holding a paintbrush (which can later translate into holding a pencil), took in information on colors and the reaction they’ll get when colors are mixed, and more.

In all of the messy play, there is learning buried deep under it, essential learning they will need for the rest of their life.

Sometimes the learning includes boundaries, such as keeping the blocks in a certain room and not throwing them. Sometimes the learning means how to be responsible with the paint and not get it all over the walls and doors. Read more about setting up kids for success here.

And part of messy play is the aspect of learning to be clean. Kids cannot learn the responsibility of being clean until they are given the chance to be messy. Kids are smart! When you have an ice bin full of paints and paintbrushes and the activity comes to a close, they are going to learn that the paint tray needs to be put in the sink and rinsed out. That their paintbrushes need to be washed, and the ice needs to be properly disposed of, with the bin wiped clean, before any more play can happen.

If clean up also includes changing their clothes because they got them wet or covered in paint, that adds time. If they also need to wipe up the floor because they spilled so much, that adds time.

They want to be able to go from painting an ice bin to playing on the slide as fast as possible, to they will learn how to be responsible playing with messy activities. And they will learn how to clean up and handle a mess when it inevitably happens. It takes time and practice, but it comes eventually.

You’ll see this translate to real-life applicable skills when your child spills their water and instinctively grabs a rag to clean up the mess, without you asking! Because they know what it means to clean up after themselves, and they learned how they learn best- through play!

Did you catch how many times I mentioned the words “mess” and “learn” in this article? About the same amount of times! Because those two go hand in hand! Let the kids be messy, they are learning.