Category: All posts

An Invitation to Independently Explore

By Mariah Bruehl, 9th June 2014

Joey from Made by Joey is with us today to share some great tips on encouraging independent explorations with your children.

In an age where more and more of children’s play is based on following instructions, it is important to provide your child with lots of opportunities to lead their own play with independent exploration.

One thing that I loved doing for my kids when they were between 3-9 years old was to put together collections of materials for them to explore on their own first thing in the morning*. I remember waking up to hearing the squeals of delight whenever they discovered that I had left out a collection for them to explore on their own. Part of the thrill stemmed from the surprise of discovering it first thing in the morning!

*only include items that your child can use safely without adult supervision.

Putting together an invitation to independently explore is as simple as going through your home collecting items that have a common theme.

For example: for this little activity I paired up our wooden oranges, pears and apples from our play kitchen with the library book Orange Pear Apple Bear.

– A collection of shells, driftwood and plants that we found on the beach was artistically arranged on this tray.

– A collection of smooth gemstones and an identification book for older children.

The holidays are a great time to make up a basket of materials to be experimented with. The possibilities for playful learning are endless…

This was one of my favorite collections to leave out! Simple raw wood pieces and some colorful sheets of felt turned into some beautiful creations!

The idea behind this concept is that there are absolutely no expectations of the child. They are left alone to freely touch the items, read the book, create some art, play a game, or make their own discoveries. Other items may be brought into the play by the child – it’s a completely unstructured, child-led learning experience.

After you have enjoyed the extra quiet time in the morning(!) be prepared to be impressed by what your child decided to do with the items all by themselves. Take notes… you may learn a thing or two!

How to Kill Your Child’s Creativity

By Mariah Bruehl, 3rd June 2014

Kids are born creative geniuses. But unfortunately, by the time they reach the third or fourth grade, their creativity has sunk. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect: each generation, scores go up about 10 points because enriched environments make kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has been identified: since 1990, creativity scores are falling. What are we doing wrong?

These are some of the most effective creativity killers:

Rewards: scientific research has demonstrated that rewards inhibit children’s exploration and imagination. A kid will put as much effort as it is needed to get the reward and he won’t push himself any further. Prizes and stickers eliminate the intrinsic pleasure of creative activities. We want engaged, motivated children, not just kids with their notebooks filled with stars.

Shadowing: always sitting by their side and micromanaging their projects is detrimental to their creativity. If kids are constantly being observed and we give them always some advice they won’t learn to take risks and they won’t experience the value of making mistakes as part of the process.

Limited choice: we put our children into a system that teaches them “there is only one right answer” Most toys come with instructions and we barely let them choose. However, exploring options is at the heart of lateral thinking. Creative kids feel free to propose alternative solutions and are keener to follow their curiosity.

Over scheduling: organized activities, workshops, social dates… children’s diaries have never been fuller. But we are so busy over-stimulating them that we forget to allocate time for the most important stimulus of all: boredom. Boredom feeds imagination and imagination feeds ideas and creativity. We often say “I need to just sit down and do nothing to recharge” and yet we don’t apply this to our kids. It is during times when we are doing “nothing” that our mind gets the best ideas.

Creativity flourishes when things are done for enjoyment. What matters is the pleasure, not the perfection. Let’s forget about the “getting it right” and let’s give our kids the opportunity to explore, to make mistakes and take risks and to feel the freedom to express all their wonderful ideas.

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An Invitation to Learn About Birds

By Mariah Bruehl, 23rd May 2014

Today Emma from 95 Acres of Sky is with us to share some great resources and ideas for learning about birds with the little naturalists in our lives.

At this time of year, when winters grip finally seems behind us and the monochrome of winter is being replaced by full spring bloom, it seems like every moment not spent outside is a waste. But sometimes, just sometimes, nature does not cooperate with our wishes and so we must compromise by learning about outside; just until we can head out again of course.

This year I’ve tried to incorporate more Reggio Emilia learning strategies into our family life, this is an educational model that encourages open ended learning opportunities for children. It also encourages an inspiring environment that allows them to create and learn in a way that feels right to them. A way of setting up this kind of activity (and something I learned here on the Playful Learning site) is to create an invitation to learn, an open ended activity with no particular goal in mind but a clear focus with limited materials.

Our house is full of books, both fiction and informative, but I rarely see the boys reach for one of them unless their interest is sparked first. So by creating an invitation for them, I am drawing their attention to a specific subject but not telling them how they should interpret that information. For me this approach blends beautifully the guidance that children need with the freedom to create that helps them thrive.

For this invitation I laid out two books about birds that we have on our nature shelf, a fun quiz game and some drawing materials; I placed age appropriate materials for both of the boys so that they could interpret at their own level. I didn’t give them any guidance as to what they should do but allowed them to discover and be inspired. And inspired they were! My youngest son drew several pictures of birds and then used some miniature binoculars from our discovery basket to look for birds out of the window. My eldest son (now 8) decided to create his own book of drawings based on the bird encyclopedia.

I was so excited with how well the boys reacted to this spontaneous (yet thought out) invitation, and there was much bird talk in the house for hours after the activity too. My eldest son was so proud of the book he created he couldn’t wait to show it to Daddy as soon as he came home. Though I had thought they might focus on the identification aspect of the bird books, instead they interpreted the material in an artistic way, my son using it as an opportunity to develop his drawing skills and engaging me in an art lesson of sorts. It was lovely to support him as he strove to improve and refine his art work in a way I hadn’t seen before.

If you’d like to lay out a similar invitation for your children, here are some suggestions for what you might like to include:

Bird field or identification guides such as the Audubon Backyard Birdwatcher or the wonderful book Bird Songs 250 North American Birds in Song, which actually includes recordings of each bird’s sound, a truly exceptional identification tool.

For games like the one shown in our invitation look for Professor Noggin’s Bird’s of North America. There are many other in the series covering all sorts of subjects and a great way to improve everyone’s knowledge. There are easier and harder questions that allow younger children to enjoy too. These Fundana games also look wonderful and is something I’m dying to try out this summer! Or this wooden matching game would be lovely for younger children.

Imagination Childhood also has a lovely range of field guides and inspiring nature books, covering everything from birds to beetles. They also stock beautiful bird posters a great reference guide to have on the wall at all times.

And if you’d like to introduce a little technology, there are of course bird watching apps such as iBird Pro and the Peterson’s Birds field guide ,which is full of beautiful and inspiring illustrations that are sure to engage anyone’s imagination.

The great joy of this kind of learning is that it is only a jumping off point, the materials should be carefully chosen but don’t have to be new or expensive. A great field guide from the library and the art materials you already own will quickly become a gateway to a new learning adventure; and the fun thing is, you really don’t know where you’ll end up!

Dandelions: A Playful Activity For Bringing Them To Life

By Mariah Bruehl, 21st May 2014

Monique of Green Acorns is with us today with to share some dandelion inspiration on this lovely spring day!

Dandelions – they seem to spring up overnight to decorate our yards with bright sunshiny-yellow polka dots. They’re cheerful, hardy, and tenacious. They provide magical experiences for many children who are amazed at how quickly they turn into puff balls and who find great amusement at blowing their seeds away and watching them head off on an adventure clinging to their tiny parachutes.

Recently while my children were happily playing with the dandelions strewn throughout our own yard, they were thrilled to find some who had put their “hats” on. They excitedly called me over to see. Hats? My oldest daughter went on to tell a brief story about the dandelions not being too sure about how they feel about losing their golden color and turning white so they put hats on to hide the change taking place. They then decide that they look just as beautiful and let their hats fall off to reveal their new look.

I loved this little story!

We went on to do a spontaneous dandelion study and recorded everything in our nature journals. They are really fascinating plants and we all learned something new about them. Did you know that the flower head is made of lots of individual florets, not just petals? The “hats” are the florets that have gone by and closed up. They eventually fall off to reveal the fuzzies. Did you know that those white fuzzies are called pappi (plural form) from the Latin pappus meaning “old man”? Makes sense. And there are so many fun things that you can do with dandelions. It occurred to me later that evening, however, that my daughter had opened the door to another engaging way to explore this flower. By bringing it to life in a different way. By personifying it. What a fun twist to their playful learning experiences.

Here’s what we did:
After making and recording our observations of a dandelion, my children filled out a printable that I created (you can download it here). They could choose to either place a sample of any part the plant in the detail box or draw a picture of it. They then added as many adjectives and descriptive phrases about the detail as they could. I encouraged them to use figurative as well as literal descriptions. Next we read several story books about dandelions. Here are some to check out:

Dandelion Adventures by Patricia Kite
The Dandelion’s Tale by Kevin Sheehan
The Dandelion Seed by Joseph Anthony
A Dandelion’s Life by John Himmelman
Stars in the Grass by Mia Posada

After reading each one we pointed out and discussed the various examples of personification and simile. The kids then brainstormed some of their own. You could choose to stop here and have the children write a simple sentence or two using personification (“With all her petals reaching out like the rays of the sun, Miss Dandelion greeted me warmly”) or even a short poem like a haiku. If your child would like to go on to write a short story, help him or her develop some personality traits and identify a dilemma to build on (seeds being nervous about where they’ll land, pointy leaves scaring off other plants, etc). Then let their imaginations bring new life to the dandelion!

Note: This activity is most appropriate for 3rd graders and older. My almost six-year-old was able to make comparisons with prompting and record a simple sentence. She also enjoyed using these flower cut outs for some imaginative play – an engaging way for younger children to personify an object.

A Booklist for Young Scientists

By Mariah Bruehl, 16th May 2014

At the moment my eldest son (aged 6) is so enthusiastically engaged in Science. He wants to read and watch and explore anything and everything science related.

Be it information about volcanoes, watching episodes about the Mariana Trench on You Tube, or devouring new concepts on the adorable free app Brain Pop. Watching the daily movie on Brain Pop has become a morning ritual while we prepare breakfast. If you asked me not that long ago if I allow my son to use the iPad before school, I certainly would have said no, but this app is beyond any information I could share with my son. As this morning activity go on, we have had discussions about building dams, both natural and man made, food chains, bullying, and the list goes on.

I have over the past few years been curating a collection of beautiful books both fiction and nonfiction for our home library.

There are a few topics which I can not keep up with so it is wonderful to have a local library which also stocks some wonderful titles.

Below are a few titles worth seeking if you have a little science child in your home needing provocations to continue to open their mind and to encourage the asking of questions.

1. Tiny The Invisible World of Microbes by Nicola Davies and Illustrated by Emily Sutton

2. A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies. Actually put any book by the clever and creative Nicola Davies on your wishlist. Her books are insightful and thought provoking. She teaches children through her clever use of multimodal literacy, therefore leading to further discussion and more trips to the library.

3. The Real Wonders of the World by Lonely Planet. A perfect conversation starter. We love its bold colours and graphic novel styled presentation.

4. 30 Second Astronomy by Francois Fressin. This book is part of a larger collection covering topics such as the brain, philosophy, and economics. This one about astronomy is perfect for my night gazer.

5. The Amazing A to Z Thing by Bronwyn Bancroft. An alphabet book with a beautiful twist. It tells the story of an anteaters adventure though the bush talking to the different animals he encounters.

6. The Magic School Bus Series by J Cole. The unearthing of facts as the class heads off on another wild adventure with Frizz are engaging and my son has learned so much along the way.

7. The Body Book by J Maizels. This is a book which has been in our home for many years and it is perfect. Each time we open the cover new questions fall from their mouths and I gear up for a discussion about taste, babies, stomachs, or eyes. A wonderful conversation starter and perfectly multimodal with moving components.

Enjoy!

Summer Reading In a Box

By Mariah Bruehl, 8th May 2014

Randi from Swoon is with us today to share a lovely summer reading kit for the blossoming young readers in our lives.

Summer is right around the corner and it’s time to think of creative ways to maintain and build on everything our children have learned in this last year throughout the long break. If you’re like me and your children attend school outside of the home, now is a good time to ask teachers for guidance and hints about ways to work with your child as they spend more time at home.

We have a new reader in our house who needs lots of practice and opportunities to grow the skills she’s already mastered. I want her to feel confident as she steps into the next school year, and I know that practice is the key. As a starting point, I’ve put together a little box filled with activities we can do together several times a week.

So, what’s in the box?

A stack of new readers and a fun bookmark. We will also be joining the summer reading program at the local library, and possibly purchasing more of these simple books as we go.

A homemade phonics game. I came across this lovely idea over on the Playdough to Plato blog. Using paper and stickers, we transformed two blocks we had on hand into a fun game about word families. Roll the dice and sound out the word. The first one to make 10 real words wins! Go here for complete instructions.

A homemade phonetic flip chart. This flip chart is all about sounding out words. Simply take a notebook and cut the pages into three equal sections. Write the consonants in the first section, as well as some common blends found at the beginning of words. Vowels go in the middle section, and consonants and common blends found at the end of words in the last section. Find complete instructions over at Kids Activities Blog.

As the summer progresses, I hope to add more things to the box and change activities as needed. I LOVE the idea of giving something like this as a gift to a new reader in your life. The contents of the box could easily be modified for a child who is in the pre-reading stages, or to fit the needs of a more advanced reader as well. The idea is to create a pretty and functional spot that has everything needed to inspire little ones to read.

6 New iPad Apps for Little Ones

By Mariah Bruehl, 2nd May 2014

Rebecca from Thirteen Red Shoes is with us today to share some great new app recommendations for kids.

Miximal and Drawnimal. Miximal is new on the app market, however Drawnimal has been around for awhile. I adore how both of these applications have a strong animal focus as well as education for little ones. Drawnimal encourages drawing animals after seeing the animation and learning letters of the alphabet and Miximal is all about mixing up animals to create a unique species! Adorable. Both are created by Yatatoy.
Hip Hop Hen have a delightful early phonics series of three applications: ABC songs, ABC jigsaw and ABC tracing. All adorable in their own right and stand alone apps which also work well in conjunction with each other.
Tap Tap Toink Tap Tap Toink is a musical puzzle for children. Precious and straight forward. This application is purely visual and auditory and has been created for the very young.
Word Teller An app designed to encourage the listening of sounds and depicting a word form using color cues. You need to drag the letter/sounds to the correct place in the work shown at the top of each page.
Endless Reader Endless Reader introduces sight words as part of an individual word and then as part of a sentence. The creators Originator Kids also have developed Endless Alphabet and Endless Numbers. These apps also have in app purchases when you want to add additional words or numbers to the package.
Montessori Math (+ & -) and Montessori Multiplications. Les Trois Elles have recently released two new Montessori inspired applications. These apps are perfect for children who have advanced past one to one recognition and are looking for a little extra extension in this area. There are so many different options available to solve problems from games, quizzes, slate boards, bead frames and stamps. As you progress through the challenges, you accumulate a score which can then be transferred in the Monster Shop to creating your own monster. A lovely reward at the end of a hard math session at home!

Enjoy!

Raising Little Inventors

By Mariah Bruehl, 28th April 2014

“Mummy, what do you think is inside this?” Simple questions like these happen everyday. Questions which present us with opportunities to learn and discover; opportunities to test theories and to explore. When we hear these questions and respond with a simple, “What do you think? Let’s find out together,” we are nurturing our child’s deep desire to learn and instilling a curiosity for how things work.

Through hands-on work; tinkering, designing, conceptualizing, our children are problem-solving, drawing conclusions, applying their knowledge and creating new ways of thinking and doing; we are raising little inventors.

Little inventors build. They design. They think of an old idea and find new and interesting ways to improve upon it. Little inventors persevere as they try again and again to perfect their designs. Little inventors question things, they wonder, they want to know more. Little inventors see possibilities and potential. And little inventors dream of what could be.

I have a little inventor. He is five. Everyday he asks me how different things work, how they were built, what’s inside different things and whether different machines exist. This strong desire to poke around inside things, create new versions, make changes and see what happens is played out most days in his play.

So how do we raise little inventors?

My son is only five but I could always tell when I was teaching high school which children’s innate desire to create was nurtured while they were young. These almost adults were resourceful, confident people with steadfast resilience. They weren’t put off by failure, rather seeing it as an opportunity to try another way. These students also had a strong sense of self; a self confidence that comes with being valued and trusted as children.

Now with my own children, I am trying to nurture their own sense of curiosity and wonder by providing opportunities for them to ask questions and seek answers in a very real and hands-on way.

Tinkering; poking around, seeing what happens, reflecting – it’s science in its most basic form. It’s one way we are supporting our little inventor. Tinkering encourages curiosity;

What is inside here?
What does this do?
What happens if I take this off?
How do I put this back together?
How do I make this work again?

Do you have any old electronics at your place that could be used for tinkering? We have a growing collection of old telephones, remote controls, computer keyboards, cameras all in different stages of disassembling.

How you can support a little inventor in your home:

Create a maker space – gather together materials for constructing and inventing like tape, clean recyclables and wire
Take a trip to your local refuse store. Give your child a bag and let them fill it with all kinds of wonderful bibs and bobs:
- this is one of my son’s favorite things to do. He gathers things like old switches, lights, bits of pipe, door handles, tubing, anything which takes his fancy
- use these materials for inventing
Gather together old electronics to disassemble and explore. Show your child how to use a screw-driver and let them pull out every part
Give your child a visual journal and some quality drawing pencils for sketching ideas and designs
Study inventors; Edison, da Vinci, Gutenberg, Bell
Read story books about inventing. Two of our favorites are Iggy Peck Architect and Rosie Revere Engineer

The more we encourage our children to wonder and question and follow their own path of exploration, the more we are hopefully helping to raise children who will grow into adults who too will wonder and question, who’ll problem-solve, who’ll have ideas and will have the confidence and the skills to pursue those ideas; creating new future pathways.

Growing Your Child’s Creativity With Constructive Criticism

By Mariah Bruehl, 24th April 2014

Nuria from the The Adventures Archive is here today to share some great advice on giving our children honest and useful feedback.

By now we all know how crucial it is to foster our children’s creativity. Painting, cooking, dancing, playing an instrument…whatever their activity choice if we want to ignite their creative spark it is important to learn the best way to constructively criticize their work.

Criticism shouldn’t be avoided. It is, after all, a gift of knowledge and values. But it requires a fine balance: kids creativity cannot evolve in an environment of constant critiques and inadequate praise can also be detrimental because it doesn’t leave any room for improvement. Critiques need to send messages of both respect and support.

Chuck Jones, the talented animator behind characters like Bugs Bunny and Road Runner, has talked about constructive criticism: -“when a kid brings you a drawing don’t just look at the work, look at him. If you can see that your kid is proud of his work you should promote that pride to increase his self-esteem. But if the child is not happy with what he’s done don’t say to him “that’s wonderful”, because that’s not going to make him feel better. He knows that the drawing is not wonderful. If you give praise regardless he will lose the trust in you and may end up not interested in sharing his future works with you.”

Here you have a few more ideas to balance your critiques:

Follow the sandwich approach: offer him positive feedback before and after informing what needs to be improved. For example, if your kid has been playing the guitar for half an hour you may say to him: “You nailed the strumming today. You might want to improve the position of the finger on the second chord. Overall you’ve improve lots from yesterday and I can see that you’ve put lots of passion on it so I’m really proud of you”.

Ask your child’s point of view: try to see the work from his perspective before offering an unjust criticism. A flower in a drawing may seem too big to you but inside his little hands it is big so it is only natural that he draws it that way.

Be specific: don’t just use general adjectives: “lovely”, “beautiful”. Pick up a detail and comment on it: “I love the blue you used in this sky”, “I thought that particular pirouette was really creative”

Spend time showing him the masters of his passions: if he likes drawing take him to your local museum. If music is his passion be sure that he listens to the classics. Ask him what is it that he likes of a particular masterpiece or what part of it he would like to learn. Your next feedback will benefit from this info.

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Designing Spaces for Children: Aromascape

By Mariah Bruehl, 22nd April 2014

As a child, I spent countless hours in the backyard of my grandparents’ home where there was plenty of open space, trees of every size, and small alcoves to create the perfect hideout. My grandfather loved to garden and planted many flowers, vegetables, and herbs throughout the yard. One summer day while picking basil he rolled a single leaf and placed it inside his nostril. He handed me a leaf and encouraged me to do the same. I did and to my surprise the scent of basiI was quite sharp yet sweet. Years later, I can still recall exactly where I was in the yard when this occurred, and every so often while making a bowl of pesto or picking up a bunch of basil from the market, I can’t help but smile as I take in the scent of fresh basil and am brought back to this scene from my childhood.

“The deepest and most direct emotions are associated with smell,” write Guilo Ceppi and Michele Zini. “The perception of an odor has strong evocative potential, as it can immediately reawaken the image and memory of a place.” Our sense of smell is powerful. A recent study revealed that the olfactory system, the part of the body in charge of smell, is able to distinguish many more odors than was previously thought – up to one trillion. (Yes, trillion!)

We know children explore the world through their senses and with so many aromas to discover, it’s important to consider how this powerful sense is nurtured in our spaces for children. One of the simplest ways to consider the aromascape, or scent landscape, is to think about how air moves through your space. Do you have windows or a door to the outside in your space? A breeze from an open window can have a calming affect as it connects you to the outside world and resets your body and mind.

Including fresh flowers and plants creates a welcoming atmosphere and can add to the aromascape. Eucalyptus and balsam trees release pleasant aromas. Including herbs and spices like rosemary, lavender, cinnamon, and nutmeg can provide a wonderful sensory experience. Empty spice jars can be filled with fresh herbs and placed in a dramatic play space or science area. {If you keep the plastic shaker lid on the jar the contents will not fall out when the jar is turned upside down.}

Cooking and baking projects also release wonderful aromas in the air. Do you ever make your own play dough? Try adding lavender or cinnamon to your recipe next time for an additional scent.

This time of year lends itself beautifully to gardening with children. Creating an herb garden and placing it near a window is a great way to grow your own scents and delight in watching as the plants take shape. While it can be quite enjoyable to explore different scents with children, it’s also important to keep in mind sensitivities and allergies and take care not to overwhelm the senses. Airflow is essential.

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