Haney, M. & Bissonnette, V. (2011). Teachers’ Perceptions about the Use of Play to Facilitate Development and                Teach Prosocial Skills. Creative Education, 2, 41-46. 

This article is about the implementation of a freeplay rule by teachers. The rule is “you can’t say you can’t play. The rule is approached as a class scale intervention for inclusion. The article starts after inconstant implantation warranted a closer look into the reasons teachers may be resistant to adoption of the rule. The study described in the article consists of a series of questions about the importance of play for social, emotional, and cognitive development. 

The results demonstrate more teachers believe in play as a tool for social skills, but not as much for the development of cognitive and emotional skills. The results also show that less experienced/educated teachers are more likely to believe play is just for social development. The article suggests that the opportunity to see play as a tool for emotional and cognitive development may arise from more playful and interactive instruction in teacher prep schools

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Fisher, K., Hirsh-Pasek, K .,Golinkoff, R. M., Singer, D., & Berk, L. E. (2010). Playing around in school: Implications

        for learning and educational policy.  In A. Pellegrini (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of play. NY: Oxford University          Press, 341-363.

This article outlines the ways free play and guided play are beneficial to the development of academic, cognitive, and social-emotional skills. The authors do this by reviewing common educational philosophies and research on the role of play in early childhood academic settings. They start by calling attention to the tensions that fall between two very different pedagogical philosophies; teacher and keeper of knowledge and whole child settings. The role of play holds very different value in these two settings and the author attributes the development of the whole child theory to advancements in understanding about how children learn through play. These perspectives are reduced down to direct instruction and “playful learning”. 

 

Guided play can also take many forms, from the play setting, goals, to the questions asked. The author makes clear that teachers will need to stay conscious of “line between child-centered learning activities and direct instruction” (Fisher, 2010) with their role in guided play. 

 

The authors then use a review of relevant literature to highlight possible benefits for freeplay and guided play in skill development pertaining to math, science, language,  literacy, social and self regulatory skills. The collective research demonstrated the validity of play as a pedagogical practice for the development of many skills needed in the 21st century.
 

 

Fernández Santín, M., & Feliu Torruella, M. (2017). Reggio Emilia: An Essential Tool to Develop Critical Thinking in              Early Childhood. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 6(1), 50-56.

 

This article is about different methods of art instruction. While the focus on art is not currently a part of our lesson, the way the author describes the impact of Reggio Emilia practices on the development of critical thinking and creativity was useful. We are interested in play structures that can be used in the classroom and overlooked benefits of play. We want to incorporate Reggio practices into our play research lesson.  The article outlines the core areas of Reggio Emilia theory. 

 

 

Boutte, G. S. (2008). Beyond the Illusion of Diversity: How early childhood teachers can promote social justice.                 The Social Studies, 99(4), 165-173.

 

In this article, Gloria Swindler Boutte shares anecdotal stories that provide evidence for her claim that social justice needs to be addressed with children so they don’t develop misconceptions that reinforce bias and hate. Boutte shares a story of her young son’s assumption that white people can not live with black people, unpacking observations that could lead her son to this misconception. This evidence that young children are learning and trying to make sense of race and power through observations of interactions in a complex society.

 

 

 

Schwartz, K. (2019, October 28). Teaching 6-Year-Olds About Privilege and Power. Retrieved from                                     https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/54150/teaching-6-year-olds-about-privilege-and-power.

In this article Katrina Schwartz shares her observations and conversations from a visit to Bret Turner’s first grade class. Upon her visit, Turner’s class was studying homelessness and reflecting on privilege and racism. Schwartz shares how Turner weaves social justice conversations into many aspects of his curriculum, building opportunities and being ready for the student inspired opportunities. Schwartz addresses the pushback to Turner’s practice and  shares evidence that these conversations and very developmentally appropriate. Turner shared how he developed his critical practices, identifying that avoiding these conversations is a disservice to students. 

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Grocke, P., Rossano, F., & Tomasello, M. (2015). Procedural justice in children: Preschoolers accept unequal                     resource distributions if the procedure provides equal opportunities. Journal of Experimental Child                           Psychology, 140, 197–210. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.07.008

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In this study Grocke et all. explored the patterns in 5 year old behavior when encountering inequitable resources. They tested children using a game in which resources were distributed by spinning a wheel. One wheel was fair and provided equal opportunities to win, while the other was not fair. Children playing with the unfair wheel often chose to change the rules of the game. 

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Murallon, R.  (2020, January) Personal interview.

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This interview is with a 1st grade teacher named Rizelle. The interview explored play structures in her classroom. When interviewing Rizelle, I was interested in the dynamics of the student interactions at play. They have a variety of play times and have experimented with negotiation that comes with inventing games. 

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Lim, P.  (2020, January) Personal interview.

 

This interview is with Patricial Lim, a 1st grade teacher at High Tech Elementary Explorer. Patricia has play built into her daily schedule. The students have indoor and outdoor play time. The indoor playtime can be guided play, providing some specific parameters to students play. She noticed the groupings for indoor play can be very different to the outdoor play. The students are more likely to share times where they feel successful and take creative risks. 

 

When I asked Patricia about challenges that arise during indoor play time, she shared that the students need support with being inclusive. She shared that some students are more aware of being excluded and some students are exploring the social dynamics associated with excluding others. She described the use of social interventions before play opportunities and their benefits.