Play IS Important for Learning

A group of kids playing outside in the water. To the untrained eye the scene portraits kids just having fun, but to an educator the scene is filled with a plethora of skills the children are learning and mastering.  Cooperation, sharing, confidence, inquiry, cause and effect, how to manipulate objects, the list is endless.  Play is very important for children and adolescence.  According to the American Academy of Pediatrics:

Play is important for child development. Through play, children explore the world, practice decision-making skills and discover interests. They also learn to work in groups, negotiate and share. Play prepares children for navigating a complicated world — and for future leadership.

Play in schools is important. It encourages students' academic, social and emotional development. Play also helps children learn. Studies have shown that children learn better and adjust to school better when they have breaks with time to play.

If play is so important to the wellbeing and development of children then why is it being cut short in our schools?

Where is play time going?

After the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 many schools have had to cut back on recess and the time spent in free play and creative activities to make way for more time spent on reading and math to increase academic scores to meet the new standards of NCLB.  According to a report from the Alliance for Childhood:

*Research shows that many kindergartens spend 2 to 3 hours per day instructing and testing children in literacy and math—with only 30 minutes per day or less for play.*

This is a reality that many teachers are facing these days.  They have to devote more time to instructing the children and less time to creative activities that get the students interests piqued and minds working.

 

 

 

Incorporating SS into Reading Curriculum

How to incorporate Social Studies into your

reading curriculum.

 

 

 

 

One way to have students share current events is to have them write a news limerick after reading the Weekly Reader or Time for Kids. Here is an example of a news limerick that was created by me.

The price of corn is too high to feed a pig,

The restaurant has to buy it when the price is so big.

So the chef  jacks the price up and just starts makin'.

All the people won't cry cuz they love their -------------

 

Bacon!!!

 

 

 

This limerick was created in relationship with a report from Britain's National Pig Association that was published on September 20th about the warning of a global pork shortage for the up coming year.  Having the students find a news report that they like and make up a limerick is a great way to mesh Social Studies into your reading curriculum.

 

Brown Bear Brown Bear Resources

One of many kids' all time favorite books



 

This book is a favorite of every age group I have worked with, birth to 2nd grade.  I has wonderful illustrations, awesome reading rhythms and patterns, and great rhyming.  This book can be acted out by students, used with flannel peices, help kids learn their colors and new vocabulary, encourage rhyming, and so much more.  This book will always be in my curriculum. 

Below I have a link for the flannel board patterns to this book.
http://www.kizclub.com/storypatterns/brownbear(C).pdf


The Eric Carle official website, which has a great bulletin for teachers to share ideas related to each one of his books.
http://www.eric-carle.com/bb-bb.html

This website has great ideas and links to more Brown Bear resources.
http://homeschoolparent.blogspot.com/2011/07/brown-bear-brown-bear-what-do-you-see.html

The Commercialization of Children

I am posting a link to a documentary on the commercialization of children.  It is a growing epidemic and I found this film to be eye opening for any parent and teacher.  I have also included a reflection of the film.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/consuming-kids/

 

 

Consuming Kids:  The Commercialization of Children

Reflection

 

Marketing and Advertising are billion dollar industries.  Their job is to make us as Americans spend our money and buy the things that they are selling.  We consume or buy things we don’t need to survive.  We buy them because we are conned by marketing and advertising into thinking we cannot live without them.  We are the consumer.  But the marketing and advertising firms don’t gear their ploy to us as adults; they set their sights on the one weakness that we have our children.  Children have the influence when it comes to purchasing.  Marketing executives deliberately market to children.  Their sole purpose for this is to turn them into lifelong consumers.  The younger the child is sucked into the marketing ploy the greater chance they will be a loyal consumer for life.  <marketing execs also use what is called the Nag Factor – it’s sole purpose is to maximize the number of times a child will ask for something in order for their parent to give in.

            Children today are buried in Multimedia, using more than one medium at a time.  The marketing firm’s purpose is to mold children into thinking that life is about buying and getting things.  This way they become lifelong consumers.  In the 1980’s Reagan’s war on regulation fueled the FTC Improvement Act which took away the right of the government to regulate children’s advertising.  It opened the flood gates to marketing to children.  Through this era the thoughts of how to advertise to children changed.  There were no boundaries to dissecting children to figure out what type of marketing would work on them and how to implement it.  Now it was ok to create a cartoon for the sole purpose of selling a toy and the products that could go along with it.  In a Kid Power Conference – Youth Marketing Seminar the speaker was quoted as saying “Kids love advertising, it’s a gift, something they want”….. “Antisocial behavior in pursuit of a product is a good thing”….  “Brand them young” These marketers are child experts just like a child pedophile; they feed off of the insecurities of children. 

            The marketers have moved away from selling the product based on its characteristics to selling it with its social meaning.  What you buy is who you are.  You are shat you buy.  Values are being sold and the mentality that brands will make you happy.  A marketing company called Girls Intelligence Agency has created a focus group party for teenage girls, Slumber party in a box.  Girls are exploiting their friends without even knowing it.  There is also Nuero-marketing with a stimulus and an MRI of the brain done and a blink test where the number of times a child blinks is recorded when the child is watching the program.  The precise color, character, and music is used to engage and stimulate the child.  We are doing a disservice to our children.  The marketing world has also created the idea of what a tween is.  They have year after year defined this age group as younger and younger, gearing things that should be for 15 years old to 6 year olds.  Through marketing girls are manipulated into thinking that how you look is the only thing that matters and the things that you have make you who you are.  Boys are taught that toughness and violence is fun and necessary and that in a conflict you must fight.  The things that are geared towards children are inappropriate.  In the movie rating scale a once R rated movie in the 80’s is now a PG-13.  There is more sexy, language, and violence in things children watch than ever before.  Marketing companies routinely target 17 and under kids for movies, music, and games that their own rating and labeling system says are inappropriate.  Dreamworks Production Company used 9 yr olds to test for R-rated movies.  PG-13 movies almost always have toys that are marketed to 3, 4, and 5 yr olds.  The marketing industry is stealing the childhood of children.  Not only does this industry exploit children they have started to exploit infant and toddlers as well.

            The new age of marketing is the Toddler Industry.  The motto for this industry is Cradle to Grave Branding, owning them for life and getting the child as soon as possible.  This new way of marketing to parents is through educational advertising and marketing.  They prey on a parents wish to have a healthy intelligent child.  If the child doesn’t have this toy, watch this educational show, and such they will be behind in their development.  This billion dollar industry is a scam.  In actuality children 0 – 2 years who watch television have poor vocabulary skills.  It has been proven through research that TV can hurt an infant’s learning.  It is actually suggested that children 2 ½ and young have no screen media.  They need face to face interaction and problem solving play to develop properly.  We are transforming how children play by utilizing media.  Children have lost their ability to use their imagination.  The toys have been marketed and created for the child to imitate what they have seen on TV to play with the toys.  They have been taught that their imagination is not good enough.  Not only is this lack of imagination and problem solving play hurting the child’s creativity but there is a drastic rise in bi-polar disorders, anxiety, depression, ADHD, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity that can be linked to media and our countries addiction to it.  The correlation between the increase in the amount of media we are bombarded with everyday and the rise of Depression and Anxiety.  But despite all this research and concern the government does not think it is because of advertising to children. 

            The thought of government is that is the parents job to shelter and monitor what their children are exposed to.  We are the only developed country that does not regulate marketing to children.  The marketing industry is trying very hard to under mind the parents and it should be government’s job to help the parents out and hold the marketing industry accountable for the harm they are doing to our children.  What about the rights of our children.  There needs to be a swing in the support of our children.  There needs to be a beginning of a movement to protect our children from marketing.

Stop Bullying in your Classroom

 

 

http://www.bucketfillers101.com/index.php

 

The biggest social push in our education system today is to prevent and stop Bullying.  This book above is a great book to read to younger students pre-k to second grade to explain to them what bullying is, how it effects people, and how to help them understand if they are acting like a bully.  The book talks about everyone having a bucket that represents their confidence and sense of self worth.  When someone does something or acts positive towards someone else they are filling their bucket and when someone belittles or make fun of someone they are dipping into the persons bucket.  It also explains how a full bucket and empty bucket feel like.  Along with this book there is a website full of resources to go along with the book/movement.  If you google Bucket Fillers you will find a plethora of teachers and activities to use in a classroom.  My child did this in his first grade classroom and it helped him understand how his actions effected others.  We also continued the philosophy at home.

 

1:1 Counting Game

Rain Drop Counting Game

 

 

 

 

This can be played at a station of four students.  Each student gets their own umbrella and picks a number to put in the square, then the student places the correct amount of rain drops below their umbrella.  Have the students self check or check their peers and then move on to the next number.  This could be done with 2's, 5's, and 10's.  Just have the raindrops represent a 2, 5, or 10 for the older students.

Fine Motor and counting game

 

Sunflower Game

All pieces for this can be found at the link below

http://makinglearningfun.com/themepages/SunflowerKetchupMathGame.htm

 

 

 

 

To play the game each student gets a small cup of 15 sunflower seeds, a flower card, and a small tweezers.  The cup is to be placed in the middle of the flower, the student picks a card and depending on what is drawn, picks up the seeds with the tweezers one at a time and places them into the crow's mouth.  The first person to get rid of all their seeds wins.  The skills practiced for this game are taking turns, counting 1:1, and using fine motor skills to strengthen fingers for writing skills.  Great Fall game because the sunflowers are all out.

Food Pyramid Game for kids

The wonderful food pyramid.  Here is a great way to help your students learn the food pyramid.  The food is cut out from magazines and gles to construction paper with the coordinating color to the group they belong to, laminate the pieces and the board, place sticky tac to the back of the food cards, and have the students place the card in the correct spot.  They may not realize that they are color coded and can check their answers.  I also have taken and used the pyramid each day for the week and graphed were the lunch foods we ate go on the pyramid.  You can pre-make these, but that is a lot of prep.  I just wrote on the chart with a wipe-off marker.  The kids love to use this chart and the sticky cards.

How to Encourage Reading in Preschool

 

How to Ecourage Preschoolers to Read!

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a great example of how to lure a child into reading.  In the tent is soft pillows, stuffies to read to and cuddle, and tons of books.  Making this space cozy helps the children to feel safe and secure.  It promotes quiet voices, relaxing, and sharing.

 

 

Other Library area ideas are:

 

Making a fridge box into a bat cave or castle or cottage, use the theme you have to pull in what you could make the library into.  Such as if you are Reading the 3 little bears have the box become the cottage that the bears live in.

 

Put several large bean bags in the area with book shelves and baskets of books.

 

Use pillows and blankets, an old pea pod chair.

 

Leave clothes pins and light blankets in the library and have a few clothes lines running through where they could make a fort to read in.

 

The ideas are endless.  It is just important to make them comfortable and excited about reading.

Turkey Math by 5's

 

Turkey Math Activity

 

 

 

This is a great way to get kids to learn their numbers by fives.

 

This could be done at a station with four turkeys at the station.  This template used to be at making learning fun, but I could not find it.  There is a template for the turkey with shapes on the feathers that u could replace with numbers.

1:1 Counting and Number Recognition Activity

What child doesn't love the song "5 little monkeys jumping on the bed".  Well if your Kindergarten class loves the song and stories and they are working on counting to 20 and number recognition here is a great station activity to share with them!

The student counts how many monkeys are on the bed and then places the clothes pin over the correct number.  Not only does this help with 1:1 counting and number recognition, but it also works fine motor skills for writing.  This activity can also be used in preschool classrooms.  I have posted the link to get the printables to make this activity.  Yet again it is from my favorite web site Making Learning Fun! 

http://makinglearningfun.com/images/Activities/MonkMonkeysOnBedCount.pdf

Lap books

This is what a lap book
looks like.

    A  Lap book is two file folders glued together to make a large book that children can place in their laps.  The book can be any theme or concept the teacher chooses.  Then you just find some fun vibrant games to put into the book.  Envelops can be used for pockets to store the game pieces.  I would recommend laminating the pieces and the book to make it last longer.  For the lap book example I chose the author Eric Carle.  I love the vibrancy of his illustrations and the great way he uses words to teach numbers, animals, body parts, and much more.  Each story not only tells a story, but it is easy to teach a concept along with it.  I decided to choose a book of his and show how easily a teacher could expand on his stories.  I created a lap book that has many concepts all in one.  It folds up and has pockets and compartments. I aquired most of the games from the website Making Learning Fun - makinglearningfun.com   

 

Everything a young child would love.  It is a great way to expand on learning.  This can be done with many different themes or books.