I really enjoyed our work together this year and learning about Playful Learning with Yvonne. It was informative and also reinforced some of the things I have been learning through my Responsive Classroom practice over the past few years. Something I thought about and reflecting on throughout the course of this year is how joy, playfulness and choice can enhance our teaching throughout the day in our classrooms.Â
We hosted one of the first CRG lessons this year. In that lesson with the help of Yvonne and the use of Playful Learning practices, we changed the way my students edit their writing. I remember not knowing how the materials and choices we were providing were going to support their learning and being unsure of who would choose the materials and how they would use them. Not only did I see the value of incorporating play that day in the editing process, but my students who reached for the choices we providing that day throughout the rest of this year! Without reminding them, some writers have taken it upon themselves to use the punctuation popsicle sticks, magnifying glasses to hunt for capital letters and highlighters to find and fix spelling mistakes. I have even heard some partners remind each other of these materials! I love how adding play has made our teaching stick that much more!
I will absolutely continue to learn more about playful learning and how to incorporate it into my teaching more often. This year's course also helped me to think about my goal for next year in my classroom which is to use more interactive learning structures to enhance lessons. They add more joy, playfulness and movement to our teaching, which we have all certainly found to be successful and engaging in our classrooms. That was very evident in all of the lessons I taught and observed this year!