Thank you for your interest in our blocks.   -Dr. Drew

What is most important in the creative arts is that teachers, families, and children draw upon their inner resources, making possible direct and clear expression. The goal of engaging in the creative arts is to communicate, think, and feel. The goal is to express thought and feeling through movement, and to express visual perception and representation through the process of play and creative art making. These forms of creative expression are important ways that children and adults express themselves, learn, and grow (Vygotsky [1930– 35&91; 1978a, 1978b; Klugman & Smilansky 1990; Jones & Reynolds 1992; Reynolds & Jones 1997; McNiff 1998; Chalufour, Drew, & Waite-Stupiansky 2004; Zigler, Singer, & Bishop-Josef 2004).

This article is based on field research, observations, and interviews about the use of creative, open-ended materials in early childhood classrooms and how their use affects the teaching/learning process. We identify seven key principles for using open-ended materials in early childhood classrooms, and we wrap educators’ stories, experiences, and ideas around these principles. Included
are specific suggestions for practice.

Click here to download the full article [.pdf format&91;

When replicated for adults, hands-on play and reflection experiences lead to insight into children’s learning and the teaching process. In the same way that children engage in the reverie of play, adults can rediscover the joy and importance of their own play and creativity.

This “how to” article is a practical guide for conducting a dynamic hands-on adult play workshop. When provided with a carefully structured setting, open-ended materials, and a sensitive play coach, teachers—and parents—can refocus and rethink the role of play. The process often alters insight and changes approaches to the education of young children. The workshops apply constructivist principles to create a learning community in which adults build their own knowledge through hands-on play, reflection on their play experiences, and collaboration with peers.

This approach to teaching and learning is built on several guiding assumptions:

• Every child and adult has a developmental need to experience creativity and self-expression. Play with concrete open-ended materials offers a powerful medium.
• Children and adults who are skilled at play with both things and ideas have more power, influence, and capacity to create meaningful lives. Play can build capacities like problem solving, persistence, and collaboration that we draw on throughout our lives.
• Play is a powerful mode of response to new experiences where the content and meaning are ambiguous and the outcome uncertain. A playful attitude enables the mind to remain open to explore
  and imagine a wider range of possibilities when seeking answers to new experiences. Play can and should be taught to children, teachers, and parents alike through direct experience. Teaching play
  requires setting the stage for learning by creating a safe accepting environment for hands-on activities, reflection, and dialogue—as well as for investigating theory and practice.
• Play is an integral part of the curriculum, opening the door to more engaging hands-on problem solving and inspiring projects. It is a natural organizing framework for integrating academic learning
  experiences in mathematics, science, literacy, and social studies.
• As children and adults play and work together, we can discuss differences of opinion and seek civilized ways of settling them. As we share emotions and thoughts, we gain insight into perspectives other
  than ours and discover that we are not so different from peers. This process helps us learn how to become positive and contributing members of the community.

Click here to download the full article [.pdf format&91;

Play has long had a key role in early childhood education, where it has been viewed as an efficient “medium” for promoting all aspects of child development (e.g., Johnson, Christie, & Wardle, 2005; Van Hoorn, Nourot, Scales, & Alward, 2007). Preschool programs have routinely allocated large amounts of time to center time during which children could choose to engage in a variety of play-related activities, including play with different types of blocks and other open-ended construction materials (Drew & Rankin, 2004).

Major policy shifts in preschool education, including the standards movement and the new “science-based” perspective on early learning are starting to erode play’s curricular status. Zigler and Bishop-Josef (2004, p. 1) warn:

In recent years, children’s play has come under serious attack. Many preschools and elementary schools have reduced or even eliminated play time from their schedules….Play is being replaced by lessons targeting cognitive development and the content of standardized testing, particularly in the area of literacy and reading.

Play is being shunted aside in early childhood programs in favor of more direct forms of instruction that address the new ‘Pre- K basics’ of language, early literacy and numeracy skills.

Two majors shifts in policy, originating in the latter decades of the 20th century, have contributed to this dramatic shift in play’s status in early learning, especially as it applies in language and literacy domains. One is the powerful movement to prevent reading difficulties which has given rise to a new perspective on reading instruction that is anchored in a body of ‘Scientifically Based Reading Research’ (SBRR) (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The other is the standards movement, with its persistent press for accountability, presently manifested in the rise of state-level early childhood academic standards, the development of standardized assessments of academic achievement at the preschool level, and a heavy emphasis on school readiness (Kagan & Lowenstein, 2004). The combination of the science of reading and standards converge to form current conceptions of “best practice” that, at first glance, appear to have little in common with play (Christie & Roskos, 2006).

We firmly believe that play with blocks and other open-ended resources can provide an ideal context for meeting curriculum standards and promoting young children’s early literacy and oral language skills, logical reasoning and creative problem solving abilities, and social/emotional competence. To illustrate this point, we present examples of how research has linked constructive play with several of the Arizona Early Learning Standards.

Click here to download the full report [.doc format&91;

For a child, play is research, inquiry, investigation...the surest and best way to find out both about the world and ones capacity to interact and affect it. It is for them a way to learn to gain control of what is possible and to learn to be content with what you cannot impact.

This morning Kitty and I had 23 third graders come to the center for a 90 minute Discovery Workshop along with the teacher and 7 parents. My oh my what fun we had! They were amazing making things. For to fiddle is to create, to invent and innovate.

I find it curious and wonderful that in the 1500 managers surveyed by IBM, regarding the qualities they look for in new employees, the number one quality is creativity...the ability to see one thing and imagine another, another way, another possibility...to imagine.

That is what those 23 third graders were doing all morning...developing their capacity to create...AND in so doing feel that inner power to create harmony and order through their own unique thoughtful intention. What they did with those materials is amazing! AMAZING. And the parents felt it; they witnessed their children free from the bondage of the prescribed instruction...the "This is how I want you to do it" oppression.

Free open-ended play is the surest prescription for young healthy minds to grow.

The teacher headed back home on the bus with the children. I asked her is she would please give the children time once back to school, to draw and write about their experience. We would not want to leave out the opportunity to develop written language skills and the drawing as a way of unifying both hemispheres of their brain. In terms of social and emotional wellbeing...there is nothing that beats a fully, happily, creatively engaged child...or adult for that matter.

Walter Drew, EdD

10/06/2011