Purposeful Play: A Teacher's Guide to Igniting Deep and Joyful Learning Across the Day

by Kristine Mraz (Author), Alison Porcelli (Author), Cheryl Tyler (Author)

Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play

by Mitchel Resnick (Author), Ken Robinson (Foreword)

To thrive in today's fast-changing world, people of all ages must learn to think and act creatively―and the best way to do that is by focusing more on imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting, just as children do in traditional kindergartens.Drawing on experiences from more than thirty years at MIT's Media Lab, Resnick discusses new technologies and strategies for engaging young people in creative learning experiences.

Loose Parts

by Lisa Daly (Author), Miriam Beloglovsky (Author), Jenna Daly (Photographer)

Use loose parts to spark children's creativity and innovation.

Loose parts are natural or synthetic found, bought, or upcycled materials that children can move, manipulate, control, and change within their play. Alluring and captivating, they capture children's curiosity, give free reign to their imagination, and motivate learning.

In the Spirit of the Studio: Learning from the Atelier of Reggio Emilia

by Lella Gandini (Author), Lynn Hill (Author), Louise Cadwell (Author), Charles Schwall (Author)

As the authors state in their opening chapter, prepare to be amazed. This beautiful book describes the revolution that the Reggio Emiliaatelier (art studio) brought to the education of young children in Italy, and follows that revolution across the ocean to North America. It explores how the experiences of children interacting with rich materials in the atelier affect an entire school's approach to the construction and expression of thought and learning.

Choice Time: How to Deepen Learning Through Inquiry and Play, PreK-2

by Renee Dinnerstein (Author)

Renee reveals what can happen when you embrace a culture of inquiry, providing opportunities for children to be explorative and creative in their thinking. She believes that, "A child's engagement is the most powerful asset we have for teaching and learning." Give your students choice time, and watch them engage in joyful, important, playful, age-appropriate work that will empower them to become lifelong learners.

Visible Learners: Promoting Reggio-Inspired Approaches in All Schools

by Mara Krechevsky (Author), Ben Mardell (Author)

Based on the Reggio Emilia approach to learning, Visible Learners highlights learning through interpreting objects and artifacts, group learning, and documentation to make students' learning evident to K-12 teachers. Visible classrooms are committed to five key principles: that learning is purposeful, social, emotional, empowering, and representational. The book includes visual essays, key practices, classroom and examples.

• Show how to make learning happen in relation to others, spark emotional connections, give students power over their learning, and express ideas in multiple ways
• Illustrate Reggio-inspired principles and approaches via quotes, photos, student and teacher reflections, and examples of student work
• Offer a new way to enhance learning using progressive, research-based practices for increasing collaboration and critical thinking in and outside the classroom

Saving Play: Addressing Standards through Play-Based Learning in Preschool and Kindergarten

by Gaye Gronlund (Author), Thomas Rendon (Author)

Play, academics, and standards can work together with the right strategies and support from educators. Take an active role in child-directed play to guide learning. Become a strong advocate for saving play in early childhood education by empowering teachers to join play and standards, and learn how child-led, open-ended play addresses the seven domains and Common Core Standards.

The Second City Guide to Improv in the Classroom: Using Improvisation to Teach Skills and Boost Learning

by Katherine S. McKnight (Author), Mary Scruggs (Author)

Most people know The Second City as an innovative school for improvisation that has turned out leading talents such as Alan Arkin, Bill Murray, Stephen Colbert, and Tina Fey. This groundbreaking company has also trained thousands of educators and students through its Improvisation for Creative Pedagogy program, which uses improv exercises to teach a wide variety of content areas, and boost skills that are crucial for student learning: listening, teamwork, communication, idea-generation, vocabulary, and more.

Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children

by Angela J. Hanscom (Author), Richard Louv (Foreword)

In this important book, a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of TimberNook shows how outdoor play and unstructured freedom of movement are vital for children’s cognitive development and growth, and offers tons of fun, engaging ways to help ensure that kids grow into healthy, balanced, and resilient adults.

Global School Play Day is for public schools, private schools, and homeschool families! Many are helping to spread the word about the benefits of play. Why has this movement been so well-received? Because kids have started forgetting how to play and so many educators are seeing those negative impacts and want to turn things around!

Innovating Play is a shared vision, experienced through a continuous cycle. It is a mindset, a way of experiencing learning and teaching without limits, that lives out in the world.