In 2016, I wanted to keep it simple and do the theme, "want, need, wear, read" for Christmas presents. But I literally have enough books to start a library for the first five years of Charlie's life. He has plenty of clothes. In fact, too many. And want/need… I had a new thought… basing their gifts on what they WANT/LIKE and support the development they need in the upcoming year.
SOMETHING I REALLY VALUE IS CHILD DEVELOPMENT THROUGH PLAY.
So with toys and books this year, I am not going to look at the most popular toy. I'm going to start with the developmental areas… see what toys/experiences that support those areas.
Notice where my kids may need more support and get the toys that can help him develop those skills! This is my third year doing this and it’s been WONDERFUL.
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The main purpose of having open-ended toys is learning. So more toys than not should be able to serve multiple uses and engage them in different ways. But there is a place for the others too. BALANCE.
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Alanna: So, I am the founder of a brand called play, learn, and thrive. Well, I’m still a teacher so I’m a public school teacher I’ve been teaching for about 10 years and after I became a mom I sort of saw the issues that I was seeing in public school and realized that I wanted to do something about it. And so, I founded this brand this company to help educate parents and just to give them permission to step back and let their kids play, not push early academics and just kind of allow kids to really have a childhood.
Xo Playtime
Yay, we just finished another play podcast because I love learning through play. A quick reminder that you can join anytime our XO playtime membership where you can access all of my XO playtime learning plans. Each plan is centered around a theme and includes creative arts, reading, and writing, math and engineering, science sensory, dramatic play, social studies which is code for field trips and gross motor play along with some supplemental activities at the end some book ideas and some super fun engaging interactive learning through play activities to create your little problem solvers and engineers.
Go to XOLaurenPace.com/XOplaytime for more information or click the link in my show notes.
Find Alanna here
@playlearnthrivekids (FB, Insta, Pinterest, Twitter)
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Today we're going to jump in with an episode on, ‘how children learn and what we should value in our children's education’.
ACADEMIC VS. INTELLECTUAL GOALS
So, we're going to talk about two different types of learning and specifically, I’m talking about for under kindergarten age level right now, but this will apply for all age levels. So, there are two different goals in learning that I want to talk to you about. The first is academic and the second is intellectual.
So, academic goals focus on the mastery of facts. So, memorizing the alphabet, practicing drills, worksheets, and other kinds of exercises that prepare children for the next level of numeracy and learning. So, in older grades, this would be you know, the things that we have to know the facts for to memorize for a test history information that kind of stuff.
Okay intellectual goals, emphasize reasoning, hypothesizing, posing questions, predicting answers to questions, developing and analyzing ideas, and then trying to understand something.
So, we need both goals when it comes to learning. However, much of the early curriculum in non-accredited programs focus on the academic goals before the intellectual goals. Academic learning will happen without a doubt in kindergarten first grade and second grade, but research argues that preschoolers and toddlers actually will do better academically if they have the executive functioning skills which include self-regulation, organizing and planning, and flexible thinking before those academic goals come.
XO PLAYTIME
check out xo playtime here: xolaurenpace.com/xoplaytime
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