Blocks, Building, and Beyond!

The right accessories can add so much depth to block play.

There are nearly six weeks between my last day working with K in Hawaii and my first day working with my new group of sweet little munchkins at the Battenkill Summer Camp starting July 8th. That is a long time for me to go without hanging out with little ones, but it has given me a wonderful (and rare) opportunity to catch up on all those projects I've been meaning to do but never have enough time to work on. I get to hang out in the children's section at the Northshire Bookstore, one of my favorite places in Manchester, VT to check out some new children's books and look over a few classics to provide inspiration for a few aforementioned projects, which I'm sure I'll tell you about later this summer. While I was there, I found this awesome block play set which I couldn't not share because it inspired me to get on Pinterest and pull together an entire board dedicated to block play which I have titled, Blocks, Building, and Beyond.

Plain wood blocks of varying shapes and sizes inspire creative, innovative play

There are so many different kinds of blocks and building toys and accessories to accompany them and they are so important to play and the development of creativity, innovation, and provoking children's interest in concepts of mechanics, engineering, physics, and design, among other things. If you don't have a block & building station in your classroom and/or playroom, then check out my pinboard immediately for inspiration to create one today. There are so many benefits to playing with blocks, and though they are often marketed to boys, girls get just as into them and get just as much out of them. When it comes to blocks and accessories, I say the simpler the better. The simpler the blocks the less restricted kids will feel when deciding how to use them. Too much detail and too specific of design means fewer ways they can be used and the more parts are needed to reach the same level of creativity and really, who has the space and money to fill an entire room with different blocks and accessories?

Set up a track with the kiddos and watch story after beautiful story unfold.

Building isn't limited to just blocks either, when I was a kid I loved playing with Lincoln Logs and Brio Trains as well. When I was in college I used to nanny for a family down the road and their son, little Ray, who was a toddler at the time, had a near-obsessive love of Thomas the Tank Engine, like so many other little ones have and probably still do. Ray and I used to play trains for hours together and when we weren't playing with his train table and set, we were watching train movies and reading Thomas books. He knew the stories so well that he would set up the scene on his table just as it happened in the stories and then point, shouting at me to "read it!" I did not know the stories as well as he and so often when I would try to "read" the story to him he would correct me and tell me what really happened. This was my first experience narrating a child's play and from little Ray I learned just how powerful this practice can be. Together we brought his favorite stories to life and after a while, it didn't matter as much how well I knew the story because I could simply watch him move the trains and narrate the scene as he unfolded the action. I would put a train table, or something like it in every classroom and home if I could. If only I had a picture of that sweet boy playing at his trains to share.

Posters and photos in the block station are a must.

Block play has more benefits than simply provoking interest in an array of scientific concepts, though I'd be perfectly happy if that was the only one. Little Ray build his vocabulary from playing with trains, he worked his memory and learned the literary concepts of storytelling, and he brought something from his imagination to life in a way that left his filled with joy and satisfaction. Block play builds motor skills, dexterity, balance, and concentration and it teaches kids to think outside the box and pay attention and care to their surroundings else they might knock over their creations. Building together with friends creates invaluable opportunities to practice social skills, problem-solving, out-side-of-the-box thinking, cooperation and teamwork, and so much more. I really cannot say enough about this kind of play, which is why I finally created a pinboard on which to showcase all the exciting block and building related materials I come across in my research, including complementary books, accessories, building materials, organizational tips, and so much more. I have seen so many projects and extended learning evolve from block and building play over the years, there is no limit to the benefits that come from these kinds of open-ended, child-directed activities. If you have any stories to share about blocks and building with kids, please share you experiences in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you!

Children in the Garden

K tests her strength as she attempts to pull up an old kale stump

Ever since I got back from Hawaii, I have been unable to get the idea of school gardens off my mind. Having the farm as my classroom with little K opened my eyes to just how beneficial and even essential gardening is as a teaching tool and now I am an advocate for life. There is just so much to learn from regularly spending time in a garden and the materials is so alive (literally), provoking many questions, discussions and explorations that I never want to teach without a garden again. In fact, I never want to be without a garden again, because not only did it help me teach K, I learned nearly as much as she did from our time together out among the crops.

Over our four months together, we learned more than I ever could have taught her in a classroom, especially a kid like K who is such a hands on learner, craving physical experiences. She wanted to touch, feel, taste, smell, and listen to the world around her, that's how she gathered information. Simply telling her about it would have left her completely unsatisfied, and although she loved reading stories together, she needed the physical experiences to pull all the information together. Stories made the perfect way to build on our experiences or provoke new explorations outside, but they alone only made up one piece of the puzzle.

As soon as our eggplants popped flowers, K and I went out to the garden to monitor their progress daily, watching them grow

While the gardening with older kids becomes more about the actual food and the production and process of their growth, including complex concepts such as soil composition, permaculture, etc. gardening with young children is about "being in the garden, breathing the garden, being with the garden," as Teacher Tom points out in a recent post about gardening with his preschoolers. Just being around the plants, admiring the life in a garden, the butterflies, the beetles, the bees, being present in the moment and learning to respect each and every member of the garden's mini-ecosystem (including fellow gardeners) is where the focus lies with the little ones. The garden created real life opportunities for K and I to work on things like responsibility, respect, gentle care, paying attention to and being mindful of our surroundings.

K & C selected the ripest limes on the tree for Dylan to use for salad dressing

K tested her limits with me and because I cared so much about the plants, it was easier to be firm with my boundaries which helped her grow into the wise little gardener she now is, despite being only two years old. When we first started together, she grabbed at whatever she wanted and pulled, without regard. After just a few months, she learned the names of each plant in the garden and had developed the necessary respect and restraint to check in with me before grabbing to find out if certain veggies were ripe enough for harvest. K learned not only how plants grow, but what to do with them after harvest since we often brought our bounty back to the kitchen to wash and prep for cooking. Though K and I didn't do much actual cooking together, aside from making tortilla wraps, slicing up radishes and green peppers, and frying eggs, K often watched Dylan and I, and her mother prepare our dishes for the weekly farm potluck where she got to enjoy the fruit of all of our labor in the garden, sampling and enjoying every last dish.

There is so much to learn from the garden and so much wisdom to be gained simply by spending time surrounded by the plant and wildlife there within. I really cannot say enough how much I have learned about teaching, about life, about children, and about myself from having the opportunity to use a garden as a major part of my classroom in Hawaii. It was an experience I will certainly never forget and will forever be devoted to replicating as best as I can in every school and with every child I work. Gardening, despite the amount of food I grow, will always be a part of who I am and what I do. Check out my new Pinboard, The Children's Garden dedicated to gardening with kids for tons of ideas and inspiration. Now get your kids into the garden and prepare to be astonished!

Both kids wanted to be held as we headed out to harvest the last of the lima beans but my hands were busy holding our harvest bucket and bench which I tossed to the side to snap this picture as C & K decided that holding hands together was the next best way to get the support and closeness they both were craving and it was just what they needed :)

Get Out and Play!

My mom's garden in Dorset, my playground for the summer :)

In the past two weeks I have been in Hawaii, Seattle, Boston, Connecticut, and Vermont. My baby sister graduated high school (making me feel quite old), my hang-gliding instructor brother whom I hadn't seen in two and a half years (insanely too long) visited from Santa Barbara, CA with his girlfriend, and my fiance Dylan went out of town to visit family and friends without me for the first time in years. It has been a crazy fourteen days and I've been a bit overwhelmed, which is why I've been so absent lately. I am still settling in here in Vermont, a place I haven't called home in years, so my brain is a bit jumbled, making it hard to come up with anything new. So instead, I've decided to share a gem of a video that has been on my mind lately. I can't believe I haven't shared Stuart Brown anywhere on the Sparks site yet, but now is as good a time as any right?

Sad to leave the many playgrounds of Hawaii

Dr. Stuart Brown is the founder of the National Institute for Play, a non-profit dedicated to "bringing the unrealized knowledge, practices and benefits of play into public life." His research is astounding and inspiring, putting scientific data and articulate explanations behind all my thoughts and feelings about the importance of play, not only in early childhood education, but in life as a whole for human beings of all ages. When I stumbled upon the Dr. Brown's TedTalk titled "Serious Play" (shown below) which he presented at the 2008 Art Center Design Conference, I was absolutely ecstatic. I've always know that play was important, I've heard Teacher Tom talk about it on his blog time and again, Lauren and I discussed it time and again at Bella Mente, and I've felt it in my own experience as a teacher, student, and human being, but I've never been able to back up how I felt with much more than my own opinion and anecdotal evidence.

This is fine for some people, but many are skeptical of the role of play in education, thanks to rote learning and an over emphasis of standardization and testing being the norm in traditional schooling. And before I am a teacher, I am a researcher at heart, it's where I got my start in education as a serious career and it is an important part of who I am, how I learn, and how I share my information. So needless to say, discovering Dr. Brown's work and the Institute for Play was like striking gold for me. Enough of me ranting, I'll let you check it out for yourself. Here's the talk, and definitely check out the website for the Institute linked above and learn more about the importance of play for your children, the children you work with, and everyone else in the world. Dr. Brown says, "the opposite of play is not work, it's depression," so for your own mental health, get outside and play around for a while, whatever you love doing, take some time today and go do it! I'm going to head out to work in the garden with my sister, and then maybe dance around shamelessly to some guilty pleasure music while I design and organize my new living space. It feels good to be home.