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Includes ten tips to help encourage children's imaginations

"Hi everyone, I have been looking at the future of play for about 5 years and have spoken about the topic at MIT and written about it in Fast Co. Design, Parents Magazine and The Atlantic. Recently, I summed up the research into a poster for parents and teachers to help them frame the value of play in education (see below attachment). I think this excerpt from my Atlantic article said it best, "Someday, rather than measuring memorization as an indicator of progress, we will measure our children's ability to manipulate (deconstruct and hack), morph (think flexibly and be tolerant of change), and move (think "with their hands" and play productively). Standardized aptitude tests will be replaced by our abilities to see (observe and imagine), sense (have empathy and intrinsic motivation), and stretch (think abstractly and systemically). We will advance our abilities to collaborate and create." The future favors the flexible. And that's another reason this poster has + signs at the top of each category - because the superpowers of play we will need for a constantly evolving world is always changing and it encourages everyone to add their own powers of play. I look forward to your thoughts and comments. Laura http://www.lauraseargeantrichardson.com LinkedIn: laurasgt "

"The child in the photo above just received the most amazing toy! It might have been a giant stuffed giraffe, or a truck, or a new game. However, the cardboard box is even more exciting. The child will eventually outgrow the giraffe or the truck because those toys can be only one thing -- but the box is timeless. The box can be a racecar, a submarine, a suit of armor, a castle, or a cave. We can learn a lot from children's infatuation with cardboard boxes. It shows us how much they want to shape and construct new things, how they long for the freedom to create. In fact, as illustrated by the phenomenon of Caine's Arcade, when students gain the freedom to explore, to learn independently, and to share their creations, they will astound us. Consider the fact that one boy's cardboard arcade inspired thousands from around the world to create and share their own inventions."

"Teachers should use the hugely popular children's digital game Minecraft to help teach maths, design, art and geography, research from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) shows."

ClassWish, a nonprofit, makes it easy for teachers and schools to create Wish Lists of the supplies they need for students to excel. Parents and others in the community see exactly what is needed and contribute online. Together, we can make a powerful difference in our children's lives.

WEbook.com, an online publishing platform that allows writers, editors, reviewers, illustrators and others to join forces to create great works of fiction and non-fiction, thrillers and essays, short stories, children's books and more.

Create your own children's book. StoryJumper is a place to create and discover stories for kids. What's your story?™

Students create murals to establish the Guinness Book of World Records for the Longest Children's Mural in the World. MUSAIC: Originally Composed Music by Youth from around the world.

"Best of Children's Book iPad Apps 2010"

"The iPad platform provides teachers with lots of good resources to assist in developing children's speech and language. The features of the iPad allows Apps that provide students with the ability to interact with words with all their senses. They can listen, see, touch and record while developing their vocabulary, language, articulation and grammar skills."

Activities with fun hildren's book character Harper Collins Children's

"How texting helps pupils with their textbooks Can modern messaging enhance your children's literacy skills? "

"Thank the Center for Biomedical Informatics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for making it possible, because it created an app called Genome Wowser. The goal was to make traversing the human genome as easy as planning a route with Google Maps"

Describes creation of interactive children's e-books and apps for creating e-books

"iStoryBooks is a good service that for the last few years has offered classic children's books for free through their iPad and Android apps. Today, I received an email from their PR department in which they announced that now all of the books in the apps will be free to teachers. Directions for getting a free premium subscription are copied below."

"Tinkering activities provide a powerful way to inspire students' interest, engagement, and understanding in science. The Tinkering Fundamentals course will help educators and enthusiasts develop a practice of tinkering and making. This course will focus on key design elements of high-quality, science-rich tinkering activities, effective facilitation strategies and environmental organization. Watch Intro Video About the Course The Tinkering Fundamentals course will offer educators and enthusiasts an opportunity to develop a practice of tinkering and making.  We see tinkering as a serious endeavor -- one that is generalizable across content and especially good at interweaving disciplines in a way that leads to complex projects and individualized learning opportunities.   Tinkering has recently been introduced into the educational field as a potential driver of creativity, excitement, and innovation in science learning. It is seen by many as an effective means to engage in exploring STEM concepts, practices and phenomena. Tinkering typically blends the high and low tech tools of science along with a strong aesthetic dimension that supports children's (and adults) self expression.  For over a decade, the Exploratorium has been developing science-rich tinkering activities. Working with learning scientists, we have identified a set of design principles and indicators of learning that can help you to integrate tinkering activities into your elementary and middle school science programs. This course will focus on key design elements of high quality science-rich tinkering activities, facilitation strategies, and environmental organization. Selected  tinkering activities will be centered around circuits for this course.  We will review the ways in which tinkering supports science learning through providing opportunities to deepen engagement, intentionality, innovation, collaboration, and understanding. This course will excite you, inspire you, and get you tinkering in

" have been looking at the future of play for about 5 years and have spoken about the topic at MIT and written about it in Fast Co. Design, Parents Magazine and The Atlantic. Recently, I summed up the research into a poster for parents and teachers to help them frame the value of play in education (see below attachment). I think this excerpt from my Atlantic article said it best, "Someday, rather than measuring memorization as an indicator of progress, we will measure our children's ability to manipulate (deconstruct and hack), morph (think flexibly and be tolerant of change), and move (think "with their hands" and play productively). Standardized aptitude tests will be replaced by our abilities to see (observe and imagine), sense (have empathy and intrinsic motivation), and stretch (think abstractly and systemically). We will advance our abilities to collaborate and create." The future favors the flexible. And that's another reason this poster has + signs at the top of each category - because the superpowers of play we will need for a constantly evolving world is always changing and it encourages everyone to add their own powers of play. "

"Over the past couple of weeks I have shared two of Elise Gravel's wonderful non fiction children's books on disgusting critters. We have read The Slug and The Rat. After reading The Rat, and knowing that Elise is on twitter I asked my students if they wanted to tweet her and tell her what they thought about her book. To no surprise the answer was YES! Since I teach a combined grade one and two class I started by modelling how to tweet with the entire class. I ask my grade one students what they wanted to say to her and I typed their tweets as they spoke them. In the process I modelled how a tweet is written and what we needed to include in a tweet. With a few tweets sent, my grade two students were encouraged to tweet to her too while I worked with some of my grade one students. Of course, the rules never change, and I saw each tweet before it went live. Actually one tweet did sneak out without my eyes but it was quickly brought to my attention. This tweeting provided my students an authentic opportunity for writing. "

"I recently picked up a habit worth keeping -- reading a chapter book with my child every single day! Thanks to Mrs. O'Rourke, the extraordinary school librarian at my children's school, she introduced a program to our school called "one school, one book", which is a program that is designed to create a shared reading experience with your child. The idea is to choose a chapter book to read with your child over the course of a single month and gain some of the benefits featured below."