Spotlight On: Pop-Up Adventure Play

Pop-Up Adventure Play. Those words combined together evoke so much excitement! How could they not? Pop-Up Adventure Play is a non-profit dedicated to creating public opportunities of spontaneous and child-directed play. I first learned about them while reading a piece about the Century of the Child exhibit at MoMA. They worked with the museum to develop a family workshop experience for visitors. I was desperate to know more about the group, and was fortunate enough to sit down with Sharon Unis from the organization.

Adventure play is not just a modern movement, it’s steeped in history. To my surprise, I learned about the adventure playgrounds developed by children following World War II. They created their own spaces out of neighborhoods that in some way had been damaged. Leave it to children to create joy and beauty from rubble. The movement gained more formality in the UK, and play work is a recognized career. Second Masters degree anyone?

With the other founding members, Sharon has helped develop an organization dedicated to spreading this work throughout the States, and internationally. They decided their playgrounds would be pop-ups, similar to retail establishments that might spontaneously open for a limited time. The play is determined and directed by the children who participate. Sharon emphasized the importance of play in kids’ lives, and the evolution the playground could experience throughout an afternoon. “Every kid brings something different for what they need from a play situation,” Sharon shared.

The biggest question I had was about the materials. Do they ever run out and what kinds of materials do you use? With a big smile, Sharon told me that they haven’t run out of materials, that people work well with what’s provided. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that children don’t need glitz and glam to have fun. That fun is created with a few materials and a big imagination. Pop-Up Adventure Play has provided all different kinds of materials, from newspapers to bamboo.

In New York, they’ve shared pop-up playgrounds in Brooklyn Children's Museum, the 14th Street Y, MoMA, and Governor’s Island, just to name a few (these people definitely get around and can create a playground just about anywhere). I can’t wait to check out the Pop-Up Adventure Play team in action! Sharon spoke so highly of the work that she’s doing, and you can tell she really loves this organization and its mission. Judging from the great pictures, videos, and quotes on the organization’s website, it sounds like the whole team is this passionate!

The organization is not only committed to celebrating play in public spaces, but also to helping parents and educators extend those experiences in their own homes and classrooms. I’m ready to play…who’s with me?

Tweet

The Ultimate Lemonade Stand

The best kinds of lemonade stands are spur of the moment creations, making a homemade concoction with your parents, and setting up shop on the sidewalk or front lawn. The lemonade stand is not only a childhood right of passage, it's also a great way to practice necessary developmental skills:

• Making the lemonade requires math skills for measuring (dependent on your use of the powdery, mixy stuff), fine motor skills when cutting lemons, and also lets kids practice culinary skills 

• Creating a sign allows kids to practice their handwriting and experiment with their artistic skills

• Communicating with customers means kids are going to have to socialize with other kids and adults (after several reminders not to talk to strangers), and lets them communicate their ideas about their product

• Pouring is another great way to practice fine motor skills and requires focus and precision

• Counting money and making change is a fun way to work on math skills and number sense 

What if you could create the ultimate lemonade stand? I thought about that a bit and put together some of my favorite pieces for the design savvy lemonade parent:child team!

1. Mason jars take the drinking experience up a notch and offer a greener option

2. These pink and yellow straws compliment the lemonade and add a bit of whimsy

3. Don't forget a brightly colored apron to hide the lemonade spills!

4. This vintage cash box not only keeps your earnings in one place, it also brightens up your stand 

5. This sign framed would be a fun and positive reminder for passers-by and potential customers

6. Even if you're making lemonade with a mix, sliced lemons add some fun and flavor

7. Try making your own organic lemonade from scratch with an inexpensive juice press

8. This ceramic lemonade crock has a retro vibe, and the wording is another great way to get the word out on your product

Tweet

Friendship Bracelets

So often, we get excited about media and technology for children that we forget about some of the timeless activities that kids are still very much interested in. For example, friendship bracelets. No, I'm not talking about those fancy ones that you buy at Claire's, I mean braids, chevron patterns, and Chinese staircase.

via

I came across these familiar childhood tokens while at the beach. Sitting, focused in the shade was a young girl with her plastic embroidery box full colorful thread and a clip board to hold the thread down while she worked. Why didn't I ever think of that?

In typical iGeneration fashion, she wasn't just crafting, she was practicing her entrepreneurial skills. Propped up next to her was a white board listing the different sizes and patterns, and prices associated with them. I couldn't help but shell out a dollar (ugh...inflation) for a green and pink ankle bracelet. These kids aren't just making. They're making, marketing, selling, and posting about it.

I can't help but hope to find my own box of embroidery thread buried in my parents' basement this weekend. I may even take a few tips from this young DIY-er on YouTube.

Tweet

Little Hero Capes

This past Saturday, I hopped over two rivers to check out the Renegade Craft Fair, basically Etsy Live.  I didn't anticipate that I would have something to write about, that's why I was so excited to find Little Hero Capes.

Allison Faunce shared her inspiration story with me: her son would use dish towels as super hero capes, but they didn't stay on and they weren't nearly cool enough. That's when she took to designing her own, and they're way cooler than dish towels.

There are a few things I love about this company:
1- The designs are beautiful, bright, and homemade
2- You can purchase a "courage cape" on the company's site that gets donated to a child in a hospital
3- They foster the kind of outdoor, imaginative play that we keep trying to reintegrate into kid culture

The best part of Allison's booth was this sign:

What are some other ways we can support kids' imaginative play and be a hero to a child in need?

Tweet

Caine's Arcade

What I love most about this business is our inclination to let kids and kid culture inspire our work (which in turn inspires kids). I'm sure you've seen Caine's Arcade already, but it's worth a second/third/tenth view.

This short film reminded me of the movie theater I would create in my grandparents' living room as a child. I would use the TV Guide to help me devise a viewing schedule, and the sell tickets for $.10 to family and friends. Role play helps kids experience what it might be like to take on different adult roles. In Caine's case, it's gone one step beyond role play to actual adult work. I wonder what Caine will do when he grows up. Will he have his own arcade? Will he become a game developer or an engineer that creates new arcade games?

What kind of roles did you experiment with as a child? Did you ever pretend to run a small business?

Tweet

Sandbox Summit, Day 2

“Show me the games of your children, and I’ll show you the next hundred years.”

I was surprised at how much anthropology was discussed today. The conversation was brought back to the nature of play and the human need for gaming. Perhaps this is because many of the speakers were academics. Heather Chaplin and Eric Zimmerman spoke. I won’t share their lengthy, impressive resumes here, but you should absolutely look them up! My favorite presenter was Colleen Macklin, a game designer and professor working with PETLab, part of Parsons at The New School, who gave the keynote. Her energy and enthusiasm for play and game creation were contagious. Check her out! Though she is in the business of gaming, she encouraged us to learn from Caine: “less apps, more cardboard.”

Chaplin and Zimmerman also brought up outdoor, real world play. They defined play as “free movement within a rigid system.” Funny…that’s how I would define art as well. So how do we do and support this while creating and selling tech products? Speaking of the business side (sorry, I have no easy answer for the last question...let's talk about it in the comments section!), Disney Publishing shared a presentation. I find that their work is a great example of risk. Fortunately they have the budget to take bold risks and the confidence that their experiment will pay off in some way. I admire that confidence and that business strategy!

A feature of the iBook app The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore.
Though I've had the app for almost a year, I didn't know I could play an
alphabet cereal game, customize, and save as a photo!

But, Christina, WHAT is an accelerometer? I’m glad you asked. I kept hearing this word get thrown around at the conference and finally discovered that it’s the tool that allows you to move or shake a mobile device and have an app respond. This is the absolute basic "kind of close" definition. The Wikipedia page was very scientific and hard to understand. You should not mistake me for an MIT student.

So much learning, so much knowledge. I am exhausted! I’ll end today’s recap with a few books mentioned that I’m desperate to read after this great meeting of the minds. All seem financially reasonable on Amazon:

The Queer Art of Failure by Judith Halberstam

The Rise of the Video Game Zinesters by Anna Anthropy

Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals by Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen

Shovel on, sandboxers!

Tweet

Rules for Playing in the Sandbox (Summit)

As I prepare for my first visit to Sandbox Summit next week, I have been thinking about successful behaviors observed while watching my former students play in sandboxes. I've found that these behaviors are also applicable to conference interactions...

via

• INTRODUCE YOURSELF: you spent the money to be there, now get to know everyone else

• JOIN IN: start playing and others will join you

• INVITE OTHERS: some people might have great ideas but not feel comfortable joining in without an invite

• SHARE: tools, resources, ideas with others

• CO-CREATE: the more people and materials mean bigger, more impressive projects

Tweet

Guest Blogger: Rachel Graham

Rachel Graham is a writer, researcher, and children’s media enthusiast hailing from Pittsburgh, PA. Trained in Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Rachel has written scripts for preschool television programs, articles for parenting magazines and websites, posts for screenwriting and fashion blogs, and the occasional grocery list. She is also a researcher in preschool television, working on projects for companies like Sesame Workshop, Disney, and Shalom Sesame. She gets to teach and play with kids as a tutor and substitute teacher. She lives in Queens and her current favorite kid’s TV show is My Babysitter’s a Vampire.

Free Play

INT. CLASSROOM –DAY

A preschool classroom, walls covered in paintings and drawings, shelves of toys blocking off different areas to play. It’s slightly lower than ground level so the windows are up high on the wall. RACHEL, mid 20s, sits at the table with ISSAC, 4. Rachel is a substitute teacher and writer. Issac loves trouble, his best friend Ben, and music, in that order. OTHER CHILDREN and MARCY, the lead teacher, are putting away backpacks as Issac and Rachel play with lacing cards (letters that have holes to lace a string through).

Rachel laces the letter “U” in a running stitch, unlaces it, laces it in a whipstitch stitch, unlaces it, laces it in a slipstitch, and unlaces it. Issac is still working on stitching the first time.

Rachel looks at the “U.” She laces the string across the “U” rather than through it.

Rachel strums on the “U” while humming.

RACHEL: Look Issac, I made a harp.

Issac grins. Marcy approaches the table.

MARCY: I never would have thought of that.

END SCENE

Confession: I am Rachel, and the scene above really happened. I am a television writer, so it made sense to write the story as a script. Making that harp was a moment of free play for me. Free play is loosely defined as a time of unstructured play, where kids can choose what they want to play with and how to play with it. Free play has fallen somewhat out of vogue in the preschool world, however, due to a push for more curriculum in preschool and especially kindergarten. Experts are concerned that a lack of free play decreases levels of creativity in children, creativity that helps children become problem-solving, inventive adults.

I was reading an article about creativity on CNN.com and while the points it made about creativity and free play are very interesting, it also made me think about my own need for free play to tap into my creative side. The nice thing about working with kids is that it gives me an excuse to be creative and fun. While I don’t draw, make figurines with playdough, act like a robot, or play with toys in my adult “free time,” in my child “free play” time I do all of those things. I feel more inspired with my writing when I do creative things in my “free play” time.

This leads to a bigger insight that’s about more than just my writing process: I think my affinity for working with kids and writing for kids goes hand in hand, because my creative side IS still childlike. That’s not always true for people who just work with kids (see the story above: Marcy the lead teacher didn’t come up with the creative use of the “U” because she didn’t look at it with a creative child’s eye). It’s not true of all writers either (many of their creative sides I think comes from some level of adult insight).

I’m curious as to what other people who create media for kids think about this. Is the creative side of you more childlike? Or do you have to work to get into the mindset of a child? Or is it a combination of both?

Tweet

If you give a kid a scooter...

You might have heard about the protests happening in downtown New York. Some people are afraid of civil disobedience, and they should be. Just a few blocks north of Occupy Wall Street, a gang of middle to upper class children zip through the streets and take no prisoners.

I thought Razor scooters had gone to the wayside with Saved by the Bell: the New Class, but a new generation has reclaimed the movement in a big way. TriBeCa padestrians: BEWARE.

via
Scooters are the new thing. Despite my worry for safety each evening on my way home from work, I can't say I'm not impressed. We judge this generation for being lazy and overweight, and yet here's something active that they love and can be done in an urban environment. It promotes balance, focus and safety.

When we talk about investing in the future, perhaps scooters and the necessary safety equipment are some items we should consider. If you give a kid a scooter...it just might change the world.

Tweet

Spectacular Steamtown and Astounding Amtrak

I have come to appreciate trains as part of my life. Joe’s love of Amtrak , inspired us to pack up the car and head out to Steamtown for the day, where the Amtrak 40th Anniversary Exhibit Train was on display.

The train is touring the United States and sharing the history of Amtrak. Each decade of the company is represented in its own passenger or baggage car. They’re filled with uniforms, timelines, dining sets, and videos.

I was most excited to learn about Amtrak’s programs for young people. Not only did I pick up this nifty conductor’s hat, I also got a kid’s train conductor handbook published by the company. It seems like Amtrak is really trying to reach out to families with young children. In addition to these cute perks, they’re offering free tickets to kids under 12 in honor of the 40th anniversary.

After doing a bit more research, I learned that Amtrak has an online destination just for kids called The Amtrak Kids Depot where they can play transportation-related games and print train coloring pages.

I can think of few things more exciting to a child than boarding, riding, and walking on a long-distance train. Using Amtrak’s resources, a child’s trip on a train could be planned out and feel like a true adventure!

All aboard!

Tweet

Branch Innovation

While teaching in Massachusetts, I constantly had to remind my students that we needed to play non-violent games. This often included asking them to put down sticks or baseball bats that were guns or lightsabers. Scary fighting. Gone are the days of pirate fights and play-acting Peter Pan.

A friend recently introduced me to the thoughtful design of Naama Agassi. Agassi's website displays the work in beautiful fashion. My favorite product design is the branch holder. GENIUS!

Though pricey, this beautiful piece of plastic slips right onto a branch taking your outside games up a notch (or ten). Why stop at branches? A dowel would work too and might be a really great prop for your high school or community theater Shakespeare performances.

Had my students thought of such a clever addition to their props, I might have different ideas about redirecting their play. Maybe not. They would have definitely gotten major respect, though!

Sword fight, anyone?

Tweet