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This project was important for a variety of reasons. First, I researched education standards and created lesson plans based around these standards. We were able to come up with several ideas based off of only a few standards.
Second, we worked together with my partner on the project. I did most of the work in creating the Padlet, and it too was an opportunity to express creativity in choosing different pictures and colors.
This project was important for me to work with my partner to express our creativity and develop ideas together. It was also good to have some exposure to Padlet that I think I could use in my future classroom.
This project also allowed me to grow my further understanding for children and their feelings. For me personally, I do not agree with the books message about same sex love and such.  However, it is important for children to love their friends and get along with one another.  It was a great way for me to grow

POST BY: Andrew Nelson

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Title: Diversity and Equality

Grade: First Grade

Standards: AL. 2. 1. E Employ familiar strategies to recall information for a purpose.
- recall details from the story and details

AL. 3 1. Use and connect materials/strategies in uncommon ways to create something new or to solve problems.
- be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives

AL. 3 1. C Use materials and objects to represent new concepts
- use music, art, stories, and/or open-ended materials to represent concepts, ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

Takeaway: Love is something that we can feel towards anyone regardless of their background, gender, or social status. Students learn about love and other emotions and how they relate to a positive well-being and good mental health.

Activity: An emotion matching game that works on memory retention and analysis. Have a set of matching emotion cards, the teacher will set cards in front of the students face down. Students then will flip one card over and look for its match. If they do not get a match, they will flip the cards back over and leave them in their spot and repeat attempt until they get all of the matches.

Materials: Emotion matching cards

SPED adaption: Digital matching game for children who have a special needs disability. We planned for a specific disability of their fine motor skills being extremely delayed.

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Title: Who Do You Love?

Grade: First Grade

Standards: AL. 4 1. A Relate knowledge learned from one experience to another
- relate personal experience during school activities

1. 4 1.O Include thoughts and feelings to describe experiences and events.
- participate in discussions describing experiences and events
- Include thoughts and feelings related to experiences and events

Takeaway: Understanding that love is something we feel, and the feeling can be towards anyone or anything.

Activity: Students will be asked to illustrate and then give the reason through writing for who/what they love in their life.  The students will pick two people and one object that they love in their life.

Materials: Cardstock paper, coloring pencils/crayons, writing paper, and pencils.

SPED adaptations: For a student who has ASD the assignment will be modified by having the student just draw to the best of their ability, instead of writing.

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A great activity for children with special needs would be balloon volleyball. Balloons fall very slowly down to the ground which would give students with poor motor skills or developmental challenges ample time to receive and hit the balloon. Additionally, they are much softer than a ball and allow for a smaller chance of an injury.

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A great way for children to build their gross-motor skills would be to play team-based sports like soccer, kickball, and tag.

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A great way to help children develop their fine-motor skills would be to have them work/play with Play-Doh.

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In the 21st Century, I think we have forgotten the developmental benefits of play for children.  According to PBS, "one of the strongest benefits is how it enhances a child's social development." Today we see kids spending a lot of time on TikTok, video games, and other electronic devices.  Play is very individualized, and some kids might have an easier time getting along with other kids than others.  However, the benefits are in the same developmental areas including include social, emotional, physical, cognitive and language development. Focusing specifically on social development, children are able to cope with feelings. Additionally play helps to develop individual interests and can easily include children with disabilities.  There is so much information and learning to do with how a child's development is linked to creative play.

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Edutopia is an amazing resource as well! This resource allows you to look at how you can incorporate play into a child's learning.

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Play-based learning helps engage elementary students in their education and has cognitive, physical, social, and emotional benefits.

A few years ago, I began shifting to a play-based approach in my kindergarten classroom. Research extolled the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional benefits of play and called to mind Friedrich Froebel's vision of kindergarten as a place where play and learning go hand in hand.

As I made small changes in my classroom, I began to understand that play is a primary and integral mode through which children make sense of the world, and that it is essential to their development and well-being. In addition, it supports skills like collaboration, communication, and creativity. Offering play can feel challenging when mandated programs and standardized tests are requirements of many school districts, but play-based learning is an effective practice for deepening understanding and engaging children. The key is finding a balance between academic expectations and the developmental needs of young students.

Offer Time, Space, and Materials

As I studied children's play, I saw that their bodies and minds were most engaged and focused when they were offered time, space, and meaningful materials to make sense of what they were learning. Teacher-directed activities and transitions are no substitutes for opportunities for exploration, creativity, and socialization.

Using a "choice time" structure like the one outlined in Choice Time: How to Deepen Learning Through Inquiry and Play, PreK-2 affords children opportunities to learn playfully. Making time for play early in the day optimizes learning and helps to balance a classroom schedule. My students have a 30-minute choice time within our literacy block each morning in addition to a 45-minute choice time at the end of the day.

The classroom environment is designed to engage their minds, meet their sensory needs, and offer practice with academic content. Our classroom includes a block center, math center, science center, book nook, dramatic play corner, sensory table, felt board, and art center. Many of the materials in each center can be integrated into more than one center.

With thoughtfully designed centers, children flow from one activity to the next with a sense of purpose. The art center is a place where children can construct all sorts of creations. Pine cones, tree bark, and other natural treasures are piled into the science center with an old overhead projector for light study. Cuisenaire rods, pattern blocks, and counting grids encourage geometric design at the math center. The block center is where children's imaginative worlds come to life.

Creativity and invention stem from some of the simplest materials, and having access to these materials can make the difference in a child's ability to learn.

Other materials are introduced to expand thinking on a certain topic or theme. For example, later in the spring, the sensory table will be filled with soil and the students will begin a scientific study of worms that will eventually lead the students outdoors to the garden.

Use Play to Inform Teaching

I had an initial hesitation surrounding play-based learning because I worried that it would impact my ability to teach district-mandated programs or address required academic standards and assessments. But observing young students as they played gave me new insight on the ways they think and learn. I was able to use that knowledge and address their individual needs more effectively.

Children were more motivated to explore academic standards within their play because it was meaningful to them. After reading Miss Maple's Seeds last fall, the children became fascinated by the knowledge that Eliza Wheeler had created the pictures and story from her imagination. They grew curious about how the book was made. After discussing the book-making process in our circle, a child exclaimed, "We can make books, too!" A few minutes later, a group of children set off to the art center to create books of their own.

The collaborative work of story writing incorporates speaking, listening, and writing standards. Book making has since become a favorite activity, carrying over into other areas of learning.

This winter, a child made a number book and brought it to our math circle to share with the class. Number books quickly became the rage, with each one a little different from the next. One child began a book about groups of 10. A friend offered support by popping up from the table to reference the number grid on the wall. They soon reached 200.

Given time, space, and materials, these children were able to explore mathematical concepts at their ability level while also contributing to other children's understanding. Educational consultant Mike Anderson describes this kind of "self-differentiation" as the place in which learning is "most effective" and "enjoyable"-in other words, their zone of proximal development.

Understand Child Development

Understanding how play supports learning means understanding how children learn. Just as a tree's roots form a foundation on which the tree can thrive, our teaching must have roots in child development in order for children to thrive.

Once my students had experienced play-based learning, they were more focused, motivated, and purposeful. Most important, they were happier. Bringing play-based learning to my classroom created balance, deepened our learning, and defined our classroom community as a place where we could learn and grow together.

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Play-based learning helps engage elementary students in their education and has cognitive, physical, social, and emotional benefits.

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Naeyc is all around a great resource to use. This link will take you the the "Play" page, from there it will provide you with several articles about the pros of play on a child's development.

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Play is an important part of children's learning and development. Find articles on how to intentionally connect play and learning, ideas to share with families, and the latest research about learning and play.