Tips & tricks

I’m having a great time. I don’t want this to be over.

Paul and Bo…Question: Are there easy ways that we as adults in charge, can facilitate social and emotional skill development through play at home or at school or even while homeschooling? Do you have tips for easily repeatable activities? Well, there’s some easy things you can already do with your children at home, especially for young children. One example I have is “Belly Breathing”, which is a really easy breathing activity where you with your children you breathe in, like you’re smelling a flower. A really nice smelling flower. And breathe out, like you’re about to blow out a candle.

And you do that a couple times and that can help to calm down really high emotions, if children have emotions during uncertain times, which is really possible. Another activity you could do, is create a Calm Down Kit with your children where you design some type of kit with the shoe box where you maybe paint the shoebox or color the shoebox somehow and then put items in the shoe box that help children calm down. And if they are having intense emotions you can ask them to go the shoebox and think about and touch and feel and play with that object. So those are two simple activities you can do that are about emotions. What about you Bo?

Yeah, I think these are great examples and the questions we sometimes get is how does play fit in school now? Does that really have any benefits? But some of the examples is usually think about books and reading books, but one of the effective ways is to build stories from books. So take physical materials, represent what’s in the book and maybe ask your students or children to see what will be an alternative ending for that book. So build that. Co-build it and shared with others. Another example, when children or students get a little older, is to think about problems that really reflect on them and concern them in everyday life. Something is about energy.

So asked to document or make a small stop motion movie around how we spend our energy, how we spend our resources. and engage them in sharing that video and reflect on what are kind of the ways we can do and think alternative about using our energy. But most importantly, it’s about the characteristics of being playful. So make sure that your children are actually engaged and enjoy the challenges and they are allowed to test and try out, because it doesn’t need to be a right answer. because they social support and interaction with others. Bo, Paul, thank you so much. This has been fantastic. I am so excited to keep Learning through Play and everybody at home, I hope you are too.

After this step you’ll find a review article and some reflection questions to help wrap up the unit. Then you’ll see some links about how you can continue your journey in Learning through Play. Oh, and don’t forget to visit playlist.legofoundation.com for even more learning through play activities. I’ll see you soon.