I’ve had a lovely weekend meeting new people and learning some new skills. I attended workshops on loose parts and how many opportunities for learning they provide as well as how they fit so easily into our curriculum, the physics of fire (fascinating to watch but not one I’ll be doing at home!) and, probably my favourite, making my very own wand.

Was at a really interesting seminar in Glasgow this afternoon on the State of Children’s Play. I hope to write more about this later (or bore you all with it 😉 ) but it served only to reinforce my conviction that the play based ethos of a PLAYgroup is significantly beneficial to children. Children need self directed play experiences to allow their brains to develop. In a competitive society, however, where we rush to get children ready for school, we risk forcing education onto children before their brains have developed capacities such as reasoning and self-control. Without these basic skills teaching becomes much more difficult. The analogy of trying to build a house on sand comes to mind.

I’ve added this document to our Useful Reading section.