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# Playvolution HQ: Early Learning Resources For Parent And Professional Caregivers

## Sitemaps
[XML Sitemap](https://playvolutionhq.com/sitemap_index.xml): Includes all crawlable and indexable pages.

## Posts
- [The Scientist In The Crib | Quote 01171](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-scientist-in-the-crib-quote-01171/): Imitation is the motor for culture. By imitating what the particular adults around them do, young children learn how to behave in the particular social world—the particular family or community or culture—they find themselves in. They can draw a bow or dress a doll or even learn such bizarre cultural rituals as pulling a piece of toothed plastic through their hair every morning and rubbing a stiff brush against their teeth every night.
- [A Theory Of Human Motivation  | Quote 01652](https://playvolutionhq.com/a-theory-of-human-motivation-quote-01652/): Another peculiar characteristic of the human organism when it is dominated by a certain need is that the whole philosophy of the future tends also to change.
- [A Nation Of Wimps | Quote 00894](https://playvolutionhq.com/a-nation-of-wimps-quote-00894/): Inhabiting a fine and fleeting line between the substantive and the simulated, play compels constant shifts of perspective along with attention to the elements of communication just for players to decipher the meaning of an action.
- [It’s OK Not To Share | Quote 00964](https://playvolutionhq.com/its-ok-not-to-share-quote-00964/): A child who is hitting is too furious to think straight. Stop the harm, but don’t necessarily stop the action. The ultimate goal is conflict mediation, but she needs time to be ready. Take care of the burst of adrenaline first . If your child needs to hit, direct the hitting toward a pillow, sofa or other suitable target. This simple act of substitution reinforces the idea that people are not for hitting. After the first raw energy is released, then it’s time to calm down and start talking.
- [Endangered Minds  | Quote 00247](https://playvolutionhq.com/endangered-minds-quote-00247/): Attention determines how and what an individual learns. It enables us to make choices and maintain control over what we notice, absorb, and remember. Children with attention problems fall into two general categories: some are too mentally active, with their focus jumping from one thing to another, while others behave as if their brains were underactive. Those in the latter group frequently are termed “spaced out,”…
- [Let The Children Play | Quote 02705](https://playvolutionhq.com/let-the-children-play-quote-02705/): Children are biologically engineered for constant intellectual and physical play. They are designed to question, daydream, pretend, arrange block towers and doll houses, wiggle, fidget, run, jump, laugh, cry, be frustrated, be absorbed, be bored, be creative, and, above all, to be different.
- [No Bad Kids | Quote 03248](https://playvolutionhq.com/no-bad-kids-quote-03248/): Parenting is the development of an extremely vital relationship, the model for every future relationship our child will engage in. Since a relationship takes two, our needs and feelings are just as important as our child’s. Yes, we make many sacrifices as parents, but ultimately, the relationship has to work for both of us.
- [No Bad Kids | Quote 02978](https://playvolutionhq.com/no-bad-kids-quote-2978/): Young children seem to be the last people on earth to register their own fatigue or hunger. They seem programmed to push on, and sometimes their bodies will take possession of their minds and transmit SOS messages to us through attention-getting behavior.
- [The Coaching Habit | Quote 00345](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-coaching-habit-quote-00345/): To build an effective new habit, you need five essential components: a reason, a trigger, a micro-habit, effective practice, and a plan.
- [Instead Of Education | Quote 02007](https://playvolutionhq.com/instead-of-education-quote-02007/): ...education—compulsory schooling, compulsory learning—is a tyranny and a crime against the human mind and spirit. Let all those escape it who can, any way they can.
- [A Clear Process For Creating Early Learning Policies And Procedures](https://playvolutionhq.com/creating-early-learning-policies-and-procedure/): It's important to have a clear policy and procedure process for creating, updating, and managing your early learning setting's policies and procedures.
- [The Absorbent Mind | Quote 03570](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-absorbent-mind-quote-03570/): …the child…is given small copies of things used by adults: toy-kitchens and houses, toy-pianos, etc., but these in a form which render them useless to the child. The adults say: “Children want them; they see us working so they want to do the same,” But the things they give them to work with are useless; the copies of fruits are stone fruits, they cannot prepare them nor eat them. It is a mockery.
- [Brain Rules | Quote 01560](https://playvolutionhq.com/brain-rules-quote-01560/): Parenting is a not a race. Kids are not proxies for adult success. Competition can be inspiring, but brands of it can wire your child's brain in a toxic way. Comparing your kids with your friends kids will not get them, or you, where you want to go.
- [Hebb’s Law](https://playvolutionhq.com/hebbs-law-2/): This free downloadable PDF looks at Hebb's Law: "Neurons that fire together wire together."
- [Einstein Never Used Flash Cards | Quote 03105](https://playvolutionhq.com/einstein-never-used-flash-cards-quote-03105/): Research has found that without even realizing it, parents adjust how they speak to their children. They seem to be always slightly ahead of their children’s capabilities. So if a child is speaking mostly in three-word sentences, parents tend to add another word or two to their sentences, but not to speak in paragraphs as they would to another adult.
- [I’m OK! | Quote 02678](https://playvolutionhq.com/im-ok-quote-02678/): Children are social creatures, and they learn in the context of social interactions. Having close personal relationships with children allows teachers to know their abilities and needs, to communicate more effectively, to flexibly adjust plans to changing contexts. Relationships, in other words, improve teaching.
- [Creative Schools  | Quote 00010](https://playvolutionhq.com/creative-schools-quote-00010/): If you’re involved in education in any way you have three options: you can make changes within the system, you can press for changes to the system, or you can take initiatives outside the system.
- [The Homework Myth | Quote 03344](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-homework-myth-quote-03344/): When the goal is excellence rather than victory, it seems silly to spend time figuring out who’s doing better than whom. In fact, we may be inclined not only to stop comparing standardized test scores but also to rethink the whole rationale for giving such tests in the first place.
- [Baby Knows Best | Quote 02366](https://playvolutionhq.com/baby-knows-best-quote-02366/): Setting limits for your child isn’t punitive when it’s done in a direct, respectful, and compassionate way. As Magda said, “Lack of discipline is not kindness… it is neglect.”
- [Don’t Get So Upset! | Quote 00874](https://playvolutionhq.com/dont-get-so-upset-quote-00874/): Follow through immediately, firmly, and clearly. So many teachers call across the room, “Sammy. Put that block down. How many times have I told you …?” Calling across the room in that manner is almost as good as a dare. If you mean it, do it. In other words, physically go over to the child in question . Immediately, kneel down at the child’s eye level, hold his hand that has the block in it, and say firmly, “I want everyone to be safe here. Throwing that block is not safe for anyone.” Personally, I have never found that counting to three or calling out “How many times must I tell you?” are effective ways to stop a child from doing something dangerous. Following through is immediate and explicit. The message is right here and now— physically and verbally.
- [Linchpin | Quote 00305](https://playvolutionhq.com/linchpin-quote-00305/): If you can be human at work (not a machine), you’ll discover a passion for work you didn’t know you had.
- [Creative Schools | Quote 02536](https://playvolutionhq.com/creative-schools-quote-02536/): Human intelligence embraces much more than academic ability: it suffuses all the achievements that are manifest in the arts, sports, technology, business, engineering, and the host of other vocations to which people who are alert to them may devote their time and lives.
- [The K-12 Implosion | Quote 00987](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-k-12-implosion-quote-00987/): Rather than looking for the one best way to educate our kids, we might be better off putting together a diversified portfolio of educational approaches, some of which work better for some kids in some circumstances and some of which work better for other kids in other circumstances. Such an approach is likely to produce better outcomes, and at lower costs.
- [Dumbing Us Down  | Quote 00959](https://playvolutionhq.com/dumbing-us-down-quote-00959-2/): There are no private spaces for children; there is no private time.
- [The Disappearance Of Childhood | Quote 03310](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-disappearance-of-childhood-quote-03310/): The printing press created a new definition of adulthood based on reading competence, and, correspondingly, a new conception of childhood based on reading incompetence. Prior to the coming of that new environment, infancy ended at seven and adulthood began at once. There was no intervening stage because none was needed.
- [It’s OK Not To Share | Quote 00772](https://playvolutionhq.com/its-ok-not-to-share-quote-00772/): Children need to deal with rejection. It’s a reality in life. And so is social risk-taking— whether it’s for a grade-school friend, teenage date, job, audition or marriage proposal. We take social risks all our lives, and we all sometimes get rejected. Even from a young age, we can teach our kids how to cope with rejection.
- [Einstein Never Used Flash Cards | Quote 03124](https://playvolutionhq.com/einstein-never-used-flash-cards-quote-03124/): …babies are brilliant, working out much about the world under our very noses, without fancy toys or classes. Nature intended that children be able to learn lots of things about their world without special support. Developing intelligence in infancy is simply part of the terrain, as natural as eating or sleeping.
- [The Myth Of The First Three Years | Quote 00857](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-myth-of-the-first-three-years-quote-00857/): The stimulation children need during critical periods to fine-tune their neural circuitry are everywhere around them— at home With mother or in a Montessori preschool, in the inner city, the suburbs, rural areas, in the hills of New Guinea, or On Manhattan's Upper West Side.
- [Killing Monsters  | Quote 01142](https://playvolutionhq.com/killing-monsters-quote-01142/): The benefits of rough-and-tumble play are well documented. It can be annoying for parents, it can get out of hand and lead to head bumps, but most authorities agree that it's normal, healthy, and generally conducive to more confident kids.
- [Reclaiming Childhood | Quote 03278](https://playvolutionhq.com/reclaiming-childhood-quote-03278/): Motherese seems to come to us quite naturally. It is prevalent in cultures around the world, although not in all. The Kaluli in New Guinea, for example, don’t believe in using it. Current evidence indicates that parents who use a particularly large amount of motherese can speed up language development a bit. But motherese is hardly essential for normal language development. On average, the Kaluli children, who don’t hear motherese, learn language at about the same rate as U. S. children.
- [Playful Parenting | Quote 01386](https://playvolutionhq.com/playful-parenting-quote-01386/): For a parent who wants to use play to build closeness and confidence, giggling is a sure sign that you're on the right track.
- [Magsawi](https://playvolutionhq.com/magsawi/): From: Philippine Folk TalesAuthor/Editor: Mabel Cook ColePublished By: A.C. McClurg & Co., Chicago (1916)
- [Endangered Minds  | Quote 00481](https://playvolutionhq.com/endangered-minds-quote-00481/): According to Vygotsky, inner speech develops as the child learns to use language, first to think out loud and then to reason inside his own mind. Eventually, it becomes an instinctive tool with which to think and also to communicate thoughts by speech and writing. I am convinced that a major reason so many students today have difficulty with problem solving, abstract reasoning, and writing coherently is that they have insufficiently developed mechanisms of inner speech.
- [Risk and Adventure In Early Years Outdoor Play | Quote 02719](https://playvolutionhq.com/risk-and-adventure-in-early-years-outdoor-play-quote-2719/): The EYFS (DfES, 2007) talks about ‘reasonable risk taking’ (on practice card 1.4), a phrase I am fond of. It means that the responsible adult has recognised the risk, examined the hazards, balanced the likelihood of an accident happening against the severity of the harm that would take place if it did happen, and taken the appropriate action. What is left is an experience where the risk is reasonable for the age and stage of the children taking part in it.
- [Freedom And Beyond | Quote 02203](https://playvolutionhq.com/freedom-and-beyond-quote-02203/): When people talk about their child “learning discipline,” what is it that they really want him to learn?
- [The Importance Of Being Little  | Quote 03350](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-importance-of-being-little-quote-03350/): Teachers know that they are judged—as most Americans are—by what they produce. It’s a lot easier to say “Here’s the construction paper jack-o’-lantern we made today” than “I’ve noticed that Michael is really excited by what happens when he mixes blue and yellow paint.”
- [Sand Leap Challenge | Play Sighting 0058](https://playvolutionhq.com/sand-leap-challenge/): Spotting people take on the sand leap challenge isn't unusual on the stretch of Gulf Coast beach I frequent, but the participants are usually 14 and under. So when I saw a guy in his late 40s giving it a serious try, I had to jot some notes for a Play Sightings post here at Playvolution HQ.
- [The Declaration Of Independence | Quote 00739](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-declaration-of-independence-quote-00739/): We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
- [Cheerful Bubble Gun Walks With Grandpa | Play Sighting 0057](https://playvolutionhq.com/bubble-gun-walks/): I first observed the bubble gun walks a couple of years back. A neighborhood grandpa watched his grandsons (about 2 and 3.5 years old) in the afternoons, three or four days a week. For three solid weeks, their slow neighborhood strolls featured bubble guns just like the one pictured above. Grandpa had picked them up because he figured they'd be fun—and he was spot on.
- [Unschooled | Quote 02204](https://playvolutionhq.com/unschooled-quote-02204/): The ability to freely choose how you learn and from whom you learn it puts the learner at the helm. Learning and teaching become a more fluid process of seeking and sharing.
- [How Children Acquire “Academic” Skills Without Formal Instruction | Quote 02169](https://playvolutionhq.com/how-children-acquire-academic-skills-without-formal-instruction-quote-02169/): The “No Child Left Behind” act and, more recently, the “Every Child Succeeds” act were designed, in part, to reduce the achievement gap. These programs, in theory, would reduce the differences among schools and among teachers in how they taught and would ensure that all students are subject to essentially the same curriculum and experience the same pressures to succeed in school. However, over the period that these programs have been in effect, the gap has increased.
- [Your Child’s Growing Mind | Quote 03446](https://playvolutionhq.com/your-childs-growing-mind-quote-03446/): As raw material for thinking and learning, nature cleverly equips the infant’s brain with an excess of neurons. At birth, much cortical tissue is uncommitted, “plastic” in its ability to develop.
- [Endangered Minds  | Quote 00905](https://playvolutionhq.com/endangered-minds-quote-00905/): When a child reads a novel, he has to self-create whole scenarios, he has to create images of who these people are, what their emotions are, what their tones of voice are, what the environment looks like, what the feeling of this environment is. These self-created scenarios are important, and television leaves no room for that creative process.
- [Better Late Than Early | Quote 02979](https://playvolutionhq.com/better-late-than-early-quote-2979/): Seldom mentioned in early childhood literature is the small child's need for freedom to be by himself, just to be himself. Yet one of the young child's greatest needs is for solitude.
- [Free Range Learning | Quote 03008](https://playvolutionhq.com/free-range-learning-quote-3008/): Real choice exists when the people directly affected are the same people who create the options and have control over the decisions. Real choice gives parents, children, teachers and members of the community the freedom to do what best serves their unique needs. But in today’s divisive educational climate, often the only choices left are between unsatisfactory options that result in the same oppressive educational climate.
- [Interacting Or Interfering? | Quote 01295](https://playvolutionhq.com/interacting-or-interfering-quote-01295/): From around the second month, babies clearly begin to communicate for social reasons. Rather than gazing neutrally at his parent, the infant becomes far more attentive and can concentrate for longer periods of time. He actively seeks eye-contact and will match his parent’s expressions and increasingly follow his looks to them with ‘smiles, vocalisation and hand gestures, as well as the more deliberate and well-formed mouth and tongue movements that are described as ‘pre-speech’ (Murray 2014: 11).
- [It’s Ok To Go Up The Slide | Quote 01497](https://playvolutionhq.com/its-ok-to-go-up-the-slide-quote-01497/): Creative risk is the risk of ideas. It means deviating from model-based craft projects and letting kids experiment with paint and materials in their own way. It means letting children write the stories they want, expressing the ideas inside. Creative risk is fundamentally about freedom to play.
- [Risk and Adventure In Early Years Outdoor Play | Quote 02929](https://playvolutionhq.com/risk-and-adventure-in-early-years-outdoor-play-quote-2929/): To avoid the grazes, stings and bumps of childhood would be to avoid learning how to manage ourselves and our environment. The strategies adopted by settings vary, and each practitioner needs to be familiar with the requirements of their own setting. However, strategies are not once-and-for-all documents, any more than any other policy document is. They need to be reviewed regularly, and particularly after changes of legislation or advice, or after practitioners have acquired new skills that enable them to re-appraise their own practice.
- [Kids Are Worth It! | Quote 01054](https://playvolutionhq.com/kids-are-worth-it-quote-01054/): With threats and punishment, children are robbed of the opportunity to develop their own inner discipline—the ability to act with integrity, wisdom, compassion, and mercy when there is no external force holding them accountable for what they do.
- [The K-12 Implosion | Quote 01039](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-k-12-implosion-quote-01039/): When our public education system was created in the 19th century, its goal, quite explicitly, was to produce obedient and orderly factory workers to fill the new jobs being created by the Industrial Revolution. Those jobs are mostly gone now, and the needs of the 21st century are not the needs of the 19th. Perhaps there’s still a role for teaching children to sit up straight and form lines, but perhaps not . Certainly the rapidly increasing willingness of parents to try homeschooling , charter schools, online schools, and other alternative approaches suggests that a lot of people are unhappy with the status quo.
- [Staff Professional Development](https://playvolutionhq.com/staff-professional-development/): Professional Development is so vital to the world of early childhood that it’s literally part of the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct and Statement of Commitment (see I-3A.3 and I-4.8, for a start.) Part of joining this professional is committing to continue to stay curious, looking for ways to learn more about child development, relationship building, early childhood environments, materials and techniques, and learning as a skill.
- [Let The Children Play | Quote 01565](https://playvolutionhq.com/let-the-children-play-quote-01565/): Across the United States, many of our most experienced and gifted teachers of young children are giving up in despair in the wake of the tidal wave of rushed academics, premature academic overpressure, universal standardized testing, and play deprivation. “They are leaving the profession,” said Dr. Carla Horwitz of the Yale Child Study Center, “because they can no longer do what they now will ensure learning and growth in the broadest, deepest way.”
- [Intrinsic Motivation At Work | Quote 00768](https://playvolutionhq.com/intrinsic-motivation-at-work-quote-00768/): Your sense of choice is the opportunity you feel to make decisions about how best to accomplish your work purpose—to select activities (courses of action) that make sense to you and to perform them in ways that seem appropriate. It’s the feeling of being free to choose—of being able to use your own judgment and act out of your own understanding.
- [Facing Fear](https://playvolutionhq.com/handout-facing-fear/): Here’s a free one-page handout with 5 of my favorite quotes about facing fear, children, and early learning. These quotes can help adults better understand fear, risk-taking, and their role in early learning. As these quotes explain, adult fear can be a big roadblock to children's self-directed play and exploration.
- [Decisive  | Quote 00229](https://playvolutionhq.com/decisive-quote-00229/): ...it’s so important to enshrine core priorities, not just cheerlead for generic values.
- [Let The Children Play | Quote 03206](https://playvolutionhq.com/let-the-children-play-quote-03206/): Twenty-four hundred years ago, Plato championed the idea of “play sanctuaries” for 3- to 6-year-olds, and he described children’s free play as an automatic process of nature: “When children are brought together, they discover more or less spontaneously the games which come naturally to them at that age.”
- [Punished By Rewards | Quote 01708](https://playvolutionhq.com/punished-by-rewards-quote-01708/): Children are more likely to grow into caring people if they know they themselves are cared about. A warm, nurturing environment is the sine qua non of positive development.
- [The Shoemaker’s Apron: The Story of the Man Who Sits Near the Golden Gate](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-shoemakers-apron-the-story-of-the-man-who-sits-near-the-golden-gate/): From: The Shoemaker's ApronAuthor/Editor: Parker FillmorePublished By: Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York (1920)
- [Free To Learn | Quote 00036](https://playvolutionhq.com/free-to-learn-quote-00036/): What is true for children’s play is also true for adults’ sense of play. Research studies have shown repeatedly that adults who have a great deal of freedom as to how and when to do their work commonly experience that work as play, even— in fact, especially— when the work is difficult. In contrast, people who must follow others’ directions, with little creative input of their own, rarely experience their work as play.
- [The Myth Of The Spoiled Child | Quote 00707](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-myth-of-the-spoiled-child-quote-00707/): Rewards aren’t necessary to promote learning, but they may be necessary to make kids memorize a list of facts for a quiz. Rewards aren’t necessary to make kids concerned about the welfare of other people (indeed, they tend to undermine that concern), but they may be necessary to make kids shut up and do what they’re told.
- [Creative Schools  | Quote 00425](https://playvolutionhq.com/creative-schools-quote-00425/): If you ask middle-aged and older people if they are doing exactly what they had in mind when they were in high school, very few say they are. The lives we create are the result of all sorts of currents and crosscurrents, most of which we can’t anticipate in advance.
- [Out Of Our Minds | Quote 00004](https://playvolutionhq.com/out-of-our-minds-quote-00004/): Education should not be knowledge-based but child–centred.
- [Feel-Bad Education | Quote 00467](https://playvolutionhq.com/feel-bad-education-quote-00467/): Accepting students for who they are— as opposed to for what they do— is integrally related to the idea of teaching the whole child. That connection is worth highlighting because the phrase “whole child” is sometimes interpreted to mean “more than academics,” which suggests a fragmented education. The point isn’t just to meet a student’s emotional needs with this activity, her physical needs with that activity, her social needs with something else, and so on. Rather, it is an integrated self to whom we respond. It is a whole person whom we value. And to do so in any way that matters is to accept children unconditionally, even (perhaps especially) when they screw up or fall short.
- [The K-12 Implosion | Quote 01871](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-k-12-implosion-quote-01871/): Given that there are so many different kinds of kids and, today, so many different kinds of career paths, it makes sense to allow different approaches. This isn’t the industrial age anymore. Why pursue a one-size-fits-all approach in education?
- [The Quality School | Quote 02919](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-quality-school-quote-2919/): From birth, our behavior is always our best attempt at the time to do what we believe will best satisfy one or more of our needs. We can no more deny that these needs exist and are constantly on our mind (whether we are aware of it or not), than we can deny the shape of our nose or the color of our eyes.
- [Free Range Learning | Quote 02352](https://playvolutionhq.com/free-range-learning-quote-02352/): When any of us is expected to learn for a specific measurable outcome like an exam or grade, we don’t absorb the information as naturally, as eagerly, connecting it to other areas of interest or retaining it in long-term memory. We’re left with a surface imprint of knowledge rather than the kind of understanding that sinks in and stays with us.
- [Your Child’s Growing Mind | Quote 03466](https://playvolutionhq.com/your-childs-growing-mind-quote-03466/): Babies come programmed with visual preferences that prepare them for intelligent looking. They like things that are novel or that move or make noise, and already prefer gazing at patterns that resemble real faces rather than at objects or pictures of faces that have scrambled features.
- [Freedom And Beyond | Quote 01984](https://playvolutionhq.com/freedom-and-beyond-quote-01984/): In any classroom, traditional or open, rigid or flexible, kids want to know how to get along, how to become an insider instead of an outsider, how to get whatever good things are going. Most of all, to use the phrase everyone loves, they want to know where are the limits. If doing and saying something is going to get them in really bad trouble, they want to know beforehand what it is.
- [Play  | Quote 01816](https://playvolutionhq.com/play-quote-01816/): It is a Wonder to watch someone who is really good at balancing children's simultaneous but opposing needs for supervision and freedom, for order and disorder.
- [Emotional Intelligence | Quote 00533](https://playvolutionhq.com/emotional-intelligence-quote-00533/): The growing brain is resilient, but may eventually be compromised by combinations of factors ranging from exposure to toxic substances, over- or understimulation, or lack of availability of appropriate adults to provide scaffolds for intellectual growth. Particularly important are inner speech, attention, and problem-solving strategies attributed to prefrontal development in the brain.
- [A Spirited Game Of Stick Tag | Play Sighting 0054](https://playvolutionhq.com/stick-tag/): I observed neighborhood kids (4 to 12 years old) playing stick tag for the first time over 2 years ago. Stick Tag has been a regular on their play menu ever since. It's basically classic tag, with a few key twists:
- [Creative Schools | Quote 02594](https://playvolutionhq.com/creative-schools-quote-02594/): Creativity is not a linear process, in which you have to learn all the necessary skills before you get started. It is true that creative work in any field involves a growing mastery of skills and concepts. It is not true that they have to be mastered before the creative work can begin.
- [Unschooled | Quote 03412](https://playvolutionhq.com/unschooled-quote-03412/): Perhaps curriculum shouldn’t shut down our self-educative tendencies, but it often does. For instance, a reading curriculum positions reading as something separate from living. Rather than reading happening naturally through a child’s interests in a particular topic, it becomes a subject to be covered in a certain way, following someone else’s agenda. Learning to read and write because you want to know more about…bugs…can be much more powerful than learning to read because your mom or teacher tells you so.
- [Evolutionary Playwork | Quote 02164](https://playvolutionhq.com/evolutionary-playwork-quote-02164/): Resilience is defined as ‘the capacity of dynamic systems to withstand or recover from significant challenges’ (Masten 2007: 923).
- [Free To Learn | Quote 00309](https://playvolutionhq.com/free-to-learn-quote-00309/): A prison, according to the common, general definition, is any place of involuntary confinement and restriction of liberty. In school, as in adult prisons, the inmates are told exactly what they must do and are punished for failure to comply. Actually, students in school must spend more time doing exactly what they are told to do than is true of adults in penal institutions. Another difference, of course, is that we put adults in prison because they have committed a crime, while we put children in school because of their age.
- [Let The Children Play | Quote 03211](https://playvolutionhq.com/let-the-children-play-quote-03211/): A report published in 2015 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and at the Child & Family Research Institute at British Columbia Children’s Hospital found that “risky” outdoor play encourages creativity, resilience, and social skills. Children who participated in physical activity like climbing and jumping, rough-and-tumble play, and solitary exploration displayed greater physical and social health.
- [The Schools Our Children Deserve | Quote 01785](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-schools-our-children-deserve-quote-01785/): The trick is to start not with facts to be taught or disciplines to be mastered, but with questions to be answered. That may sound straightforward, but it's actually quite rare for learning to be organized around questions. In fact, it's even rare for classroom questions to reflect a commitment to real learning. What we find instead are those fact-based questions that Old School teachers are so fond of putting to the class: "Who can tell me...?"—or the practice of "guiding children to answers by carefully chosen leading questions," which isn't much different "from just telling them the answers in the first place."
- [Your Child’s Growing Mind | Quote 03464](https://playvolutionhq.com/your-childs-growing-mind-quote-03464/): Psychologists voice concern that young children’s hectic schedules are causing an “epidemic” of sleep disturbances, which may eventually lead to learning or attention problems.
- [The Scientist In The Crib | Quote 00443](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-scientist-in-the-crib-quote-00443/): …babies aren’t just able to imitate us, they are driven to do so.
- [Elevating Child Care | Quote 01902](https://playvolutionhq.com/elevating-child-care-quote-01902/): Infant expert Magda Gerber taught that babies don’t naturally become bored. Parents do. Babies are entranced by the way their bodies can move and the sights, sounds, smells, nooks and crannies of life that we adults take for granted. They need uninterrupted time to experience those things and assimilate them.
- [The Devil’s Little Brother-in-law: The Story of a Youth Who Couldn’t Find Work](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-devils-little-brother-in-law-the-story-of-a-youth-who-couldnt-find-work/): From: The Shoemaker's ApronAuthor/Editor: Parker FillmorePublished By: Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York (1920)
- [Free Range Learning | Quote 00458](https://playvolutionhq.com/free-range-learning-quote-00458/): Creating a more natural childhood of outdoor play, hands-on involvement, and attunement to individual interests is the most promising orientation for learning. Yet educational standards increasingly focus on measurable outcomes that make learning an indirect rather than direct experience. This translates into rigid curricula with regular drills to ensure passing grades on mandatory tests. And this approach takes children farther away from what we know actually promotes long-term learning.
- [Balanced And Barefoot  | Quote 02666](https://playvolutionhq.com/balanced-and-barefoot-quote-02666/): People orient to noise as a survival instinct. Noise ignites our postural muscles, which position our body so our eyes and ears are aligned with the object or point of interest. These postural patterns actually foster engagement with the world around us and promote deep breathing and the ability to effectively regulate (control) our senses.
- [Early Learning Clothing Policies](https://playvolutionhq.com/early-learning-clothing-policies/): Implementing clear and concise clothing policies helps early childhood programs support playful learning, keep children safe, and reduce staff stress. In my experience, programs often lack clarity around clothing policies. That leads to confusion for kids, parents, and staff. Taking the time to spell out and explain your expectations makes life easier for everyone involved--there tend to be fewer clothing-based problems. And when problems do arise, your policy lays out a clear path on how to respond.
- [Your Child’s Growing Mind | Quote 03470](https://playvolutionhq.com/your-childs-growing-mind-quote-03470/): Although auditory pathways continue to develop until seven to ten years, the first year is a critical period for learning the sounds of a language and developing an interest in communicating with others. Sounds from the environment, music, and human speech are all necessary for a well-balanced auditory diet.
- [Unschooled | Quote 02711](https://playvolutionhq.com/unschooled-quote-02711/): Children are natural learners. They are born with the drive to explore and synthesize their world. Their childhood curiosity and exuberance lead them to learn and discover, to make connections and deepen their knowledge, so that they may gain essential skills. This inclination to learn, along with a passion for discovery, does not magically disappear at a certain age. Our industrial model of schooling systematically diminishes a child’s natural curiosity and ability to self educate. Educators have long known this to be true.
- [The 3 Handbook Method](https://playvolutionhq.com/handout-the-3-handbook-method/): This free handout provides an overview of an efficient and easy way of organizing your early learning program's policies and procedures.
- [The Gardener And The Carpenter | Quote 01542](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-gardener-and-the-carpenter-quote-01542/): The great twenty-first-century battle of the screens and the books is just the latest skirmish in a long war. We humans have always been caught between preserving the old and ringing in the new. This tension has gone on for a very long time— it isn’t just a feature of our technological culture, but a part of our evolutionary program. Children have always, by their very nature, been on the front lines of that war.
- [Intrinsic Motivation At Work | Quote 00166](https://playvolutionhq.com/intrinsic-motivation-at-work-quote-00166/): When you make choices about how to perform a task, you redesign it to some degree, and it becomes your own. You also feel personally responsible for task accomplishment—for the quality of your activities and the progress you make toward the purpose. After all, if quality and progress result from your decisions, you deserve to feel proud of those accomplishments. The opposite is true for having a low sense of choice. I find that few micromanagers seem to understand this.
- [The Importance Of Being Little  | Quote 03355](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-importance-of-being-little-quote-03355/): The shallow achievement of the sort we see in so many classrooms helps explain in part the huge disconnection between what educators claim they are doing in early education, which often sounds pretty terrific, and what they are actually doing when you step in the door and observe teaching up close.
- [Free-Range Kids  | Quote 00534](https://playvolutionhq.com/free-range-kids-quote-00534/): Parents who think that teaching their child this or that skill ahead of the game or giving them the right educational tape or puzzle will make their children brainier have bought into a false worldview.
- [What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated? | Quote 01400](https://playvolutionhq.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-well-educated-quote-01400/): Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective. A B in English says nothing about what a student can do, what she understands, where she needs help. Moreover, the basis for that grade is as subjective as the result is uninformative. A teacher can meticulously record scores for one test or assignment after another, eventually calculating averages down to a hundredth of a percentage point, but that doesn't change the arbitrariness of each of these individual marks. Even the score on a math test is largely a reflection of how the test was written: what skills the teacher decided to assess, what kinds of questions happened to be left out, and how many points each section was "worth."
- [It’s OK Not To Share | Quote 00715](https://playvolutionhq.com/its-ok-not-to-share-quote-00715/): Brain researchers today are reinforcing the tremendous value of children’s play. They’re discovering children are designed to play. Play helps kids develop social skills, memory, emotional awareness, creative problem-solving, flexibility and impulse control. It helps them understand the world and their place in it.
- [Risk and Adventure In Early Years Outdoor Play | Quote 02699](https://playvolutionhq.com/risk-and-adventure-in-early-years-outdoor-play-quote-02699/): In settings with outdoor spaces, the challenge for practitioners may be to review the space and to think about ways to increase the risks, rather than minimise them. A concrete square has few visible risks, and yet children fall or push each other over and accidents happen. It may even be that some of the ‘accidents’ are the result of the limitations of the space, a direct correlation with the sterile safety being offered to the children. Perhaps if they had the challenge of a pile of logs to scramble over, the risks would be focused, could be discussed and managed, and learning could take place.
- [Kids Are Worth It! | Quote 01441](https://playvolutionhq.com/kids-are-worth-it-quote-01441/): Empowering our children involves first giving them a secure, safe, nurturing environment—offering them unconditional love, caring touch, tenderness, and concern for their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Within that environment, children can begin to make choices and decisions and mistakes, assume responsibilities and become actively involved family members.
- [Most Kids Aren’t Getting Enough Daily Movement](https://playvolutionhq.com/most-kids-arent-getting-enough-daily-movement/): The research examined over 1.6 million teens worldwide and found that most kids aren’t meeting the simple goal of 60 minutes of fun, heart-pumping activity each day—like playing tag, riding bikes, dancing, or shooting hoops. Your child is far from alone in this; it’s a common challenge everywhere. The encouraging part? Even small shifts toward more movement can make a real difference in how your kid feels, plays, learns, and grows. Here are some parent-focused takeaways straight from the findings to help you support your 10-year-old:
- [The Coaching Habit | Quote 01655](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-coaching-habit-quote-01655/): Tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good As you think it is.
- [The Homework Myth | Quote 02137](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-homework-myth-quote-02137/): …classrooms where there’s currently a lot of homework are often the same classrooms where the homework isn’t particularly worthwhile.
- [The Case Against Education | Quote 03298](https://playvolutionhq.com/the-case-against-education-quote-03298/): School and study time has been high and growing for decades. According to leading tabulations of 6-to-12-year-olds’ schedules, weekly school and study time rose from about 31 hours in 1981 to 37 hours in 1997 and 2003. Playtime is small by comparison, about 10 hours a week.
- [Elevating Child Care  | Quote 01843](https://playvolutionhq.com/elevating-child-care-quote-01843/): Diapering is not just about getting a job done or having a clean baby. Our hands are a baby’s introduction to the world. If they touch slowly, gently, and “ask” a child for cooperation rather than demand it, we are rewarded with a relationship bound in trust, respect and the inexorable knowledge of our importance to each other.

## Pages
- [Classic Kid Games](https://playvolutionhq.com/classic-kid-games/): Classic Kid Games is the focus of this corner of the Playvolution HQ website. This collection was started soon after the site was founded, then ignored for too long while I focused on other content. Now I'm regularly adding posts with new games and refreshing the old posts. I aim to build the internet's most complete collection of the games kids can play in the backyard on a sunny spring afternoon or in the living room on a stormy day; no board games or computer games here.
- [Playvolution HQ Podcast](https://playvolutionhq.com/playvolution-hq-podcast/): The Playvolution HQ Podcast: Exploring, supporting, and advocating for child-led learning.
- [Overview](https://playvolutionhq.com/overview/): Here's an overview of the early learning information and resources Playvolution HQ offers. The site has had new content added daily since it was founded in 2018, and there's still plenty of growing to do. To create order and simplify browsing, the following 16 content areas house most of the site's 11,000+ pages. Below, you'll find an overview of each of those areas. You can, of course, also search for what you're looking for.
- [Out Of Line Podcast](https://playvolutionhq.com/out-of-line-podcast/): This is a podcast about stepping out of line, challenging the norms of schooling, recentering the child, and letting go of control for control's sake. Whether you're schooling, unschooling, deschooling, or homeschooling, this podcast is for you.
- [Success](https://playvolutionhq.com/success/): You've been unsubscribed.
- [Unsubscribe](https://playvolutionhq.com/unsubscribe/): We're sorry to see you go.
- [Children’s Games](https://playvolutionhq.com/games/): Building a collection of simple children's games is the goal in this corner of Playvolution HQ. The kind of things kids play when they have free time. The things they play on rainy days. The things they invent themselves. Or used to.
- [Early Learning Posters](https://playvolutionhq.com/early-learning-posters/): Mostly, these early learning posters started as images created for social media posts. We've collected them here for easy searching and browsing.
- [Manage Subscription](https://playvolutionhq.com/manage-subscription/): Below, you can manage your personal information and the mailing lists you choose to subscribe to. You can update your settings here at any time.
- [Contribute Content To Playvolution HQ](https://playvolutionhq.com/contribute-content/): Sharing photography is another way to contribute content. We're looking for quality photos to adorn articles and other HQ site content. Those submitting will be credited in any posts their images appear, and the photographer maintains copyright. Here are some types of images we're seeking:
- [Subscribe](https://playvolutionhq.com/subscribe/): I offer various mailing list options so you can receive precisely what you're interested in. Browse below and select the lists that work for you. You can update your selection or unsubscribe at any time.
- [Handouts](https://playvolutionhq.com/handouts/): These free handouts are intended to help caregivers and early learning advocates share ideas and information quickly and concisely. Share them as you see fit--and if you have ideas for future items to add to this collection, let us know.
- [Child Care Bar And Grill](https://playvolutionhq.com/ccbag/): The Child Care Bar And Grill is a humorous, informative, and slightly irreverent podcast for child care providers and other early learning professionals hosted by Jeff Johnson and a rotating band of cohosts. The show started in January 2013 and was the world's longest-running and most prolific early learning podcast when episode 1200 dropped in January 2025. Our archives include over 600 hours of mostly early learning conversation. Mostly--because we also talk about pillows, flip-flops, hot flashes, rashes, grocery store etiquette, food, cocktails, and other things that grab our attention.
- [Professional Practice](https://playvolutionhq.com/professional-practice-in-early-learning/): These posts cover professional practice and advocacy for child-led learning. Professional caregivers and parents will find many ideas for working with children and advocating on their behalf.
- [Caregiver Self-Care](https://playvolutionhq.com/caregiver-self-care/): For consistent effectiveness, professional caregivers and parents must make time for self-care. This collection of posts looks at self-care, stress, change, habits, and more.
- [Child Development](https://playvolutionhq.com/child-development/): This collection of posts looks at child development and the ways children learn. This page links to abundant helpful information for professional caregivers and parents interested in the topics.
- [Early Learning Glossary](https://playvolutionhq.com/early-learning-glossary/): This early learning glossary provides caregivers and early learning advocates with definitions of terms and phrases used in the profession, as well as information on important people in the field and links to related resources.
- [Policies And Procedures](https://playvolutionhq.com/policy-and-procedures/): Policies and procedures are the foundation for quality early learning programs because they explain "what we do here" and how it is done. On this page, you'll find resources that will help you understand, create, implement, and maintain early learning policies and procedures. Resources include policy and procedure-related articles, critiques of policies and procedures, informational handouts, and more. We regularly add fresh content to this corner of the Playvolution HQ site.
- [Play](https://playvolutionhq.com/early-learning-play/): This corner of Playvolution HQ offers curated and original articles focused on play. We're always looking for content to add to the collection; contact me with suggestions.
- [Loose Parts Ideas](https://playvolutionhq.com/loose-parts-ideas/): With this never-ending project, I'm creating an extensive collection of loose parts ideas caregivers can browse and search for ideas and inspiration for augmenting their play space's loose parts supply.
- [Forms](https://playvolutionhq.com/forms/): We're no big fans of paperwork, but sometimes it has to be done. With a focus on user-friendliness, I've created a collection of early learning forms--from fire drill logs to running record observation forms--that will help make the job easier. Use and share them as you see fit--and if you have ideas for future items to add to this collection, let us know.
- [Reading List](https://playvolutionhq.com/reading-list/): Here's a reading list of recommended titles for early learning professionals and parents interested in children, caregiving, play, development, and related topics. This is the place to learn more about the early learning theories and ideas advocated for here at Playvolution HQ.
- [Folk And Fairy Tales](https://playvolutionhq.com/tales/): I add to this collection of tales regularly. Be warned; these are traditional, old-school stories–some readers may find some language, themes, and topics distasteful.
- [Rhymes And Songs](https://playvolutionhq.com/rhymes-and-songs/): Mostly classic old-school rhymes and songs. I add content to this collection weekly and am always on the lookout for fresh items if you have suggestions.
- [DIY Projects](https://playvolutionhq.com/early-learning-diy/): DIY projects offer children a chance to practice STEM skills and hone social, physical, cognitive, and language skills. Check out this post for 5 reasons to DIY with kids. These projects provide meaningful and memorable hands-on experiences. But mostly, they're fun. Let us know if you have ideas for future items to add to this collection.
- [Podcast Episodes](https://playvolutionhq.com/podcast-episodes/): This page features a collection of early learning podcast episodes from shows I hosted and produced over approximately 13 years. They include content from many early learning leaders like Dan Hodgins, Lisa Murphy, Tamar Jacobson, Angela Hanscom, Kristen Peterson, and Kisha Reid.
- [Early Learning Quotes](https://playvolutionhq.com/early-learning-quotes/): This collection of quotes started as a series of Facebook posts. I started collecting them here for easy searching and browsing as time passed. A new one was added each day for nearly 10 years. I'm taking a break to work on other projects but may return to daily additions in the future.
- [Terms And Conditions](https://playvolutionhq.com/terms-and-conditions/): In the event the parties are not able to resolve any dispute between them arising out of or concerning these Terms and Conditions, or any provisions hereof, whether in contract, tort, or otherwise at law or in equity for damages or any other relief, then such dispute shall be resolved only by final and binding arbitration pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act, conducted by a single neutral arbitrator and administered by the American Arbitration Association, or a similar arbitration service selected by the parties, in a location mutually agreed upon by the parties. The arbitrator's award shall be final, and judgment may be entered upon it in any court having jurisdiction. In the event that any legal or equitable action, proceeding or arbitration arises out of or concerns these Terms and Conditions, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover its costs and reasonable attorney's fees. The parties agree to arbitrate all disputes and claims in regards to these Terms and Conditions or any disputes arising as a result of these Terms and Conditions, whether directly or indirectly, including Tort claims that are a result of these Terms and Conditions. The parties agree that the Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this provision. The entire dispute, including the scope and enforceability of this arbitration provision shall be determined by the Arbitrator. This arbitration provision shall survive the termination of these Terms and Conditions.
- [About](https://playvolutionhq.com/about/): Playvolution HQ was founded by Jeff A Johnson, owner of Explorations Early Learning, in about 2017 as an early learning information hub for parents and caregivers.
- [Privacy Policy](https://playvolutionhq.com/privacy-policy/): Protecting your private information is our priority. This Statement of Privacy applies to playvolutionhq.com and Explorations Early Learning and governs data collection and usage. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise noted, all references to Explorations Early Learning include playvolutionhq.com, eeltoys.com and explorationsearlylearning.com. The Explorations Early Learning website is a blog site. By using the Explorations Early Learning website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.
- [Support Playvolution HQ](https://playvolutionhq.com/support/): Creating and curating free content requires a continual investment of time, energy, and money. We could offset some of those costs by running ads, but that'd make the site ugly and annoy users. Here are ways you can support what's happening at Playvolution HQ and Explorations Early Learning:

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