I had spent most of my day at Explorations Play Studio, faciliating birthday parties, and was fully intending to come home, step foot in the house, and be greeted by my girls needing something from me...food, drink, a friend, a band-aid...something...but instead I was pleasantly surprised to see them FULLY engaged in creating these fun mazes for their Hexbugs (found in the lower right corner of the photo) out of wooden blocks and any random objects around the house. They had such a blast doing this and it carried over for days to come. It was actually enticing enough that I wanted to be a part of it! And then I began thinking...how fun this would be to bring these micro robotic creatures into the studio. It looks like they sell plastic tracks for these guys to move around on but it seems a lot more exciting and open-ended, to create your own world and track for them out of found objects. The possiblities are much greater as well. Generally, we steer away from battery operated toys, but these hexbugs have won our hearts!
At Explorations Play Studio, we believe that it is important to get messy, or to at least receive a lot of sensory input when engaging in play. It is not always practical, however, to deliberately make a mess in the house. But there are some not-so-messy things you can do. I had made the assumption that everyone knew about homemade playdough, but that is not the case! So, I just wanted to share the recipe that we use as our base at the studio. Once you are comfortable making it and using it at home, you can begin to tweak it and make it your own. We love to add essential oils to ours like rosemary and spearmint. Then you can add fun things to press into the dough like stones, acrylic leaves, pumpkins, and euculyptus leaves. Adding food coloring is also an easy way to change it up.The photo above was taken by a professional photographer mom who was inspired to make some dough and use what she had on hand, so she added lavender oil, flowers, food coloring, and butterflies. Look around your house today and see what fun combination you can create!
Basic no-cook homemade play dough recipe:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
3 tbsp cream of tartar
3 tbsp oil
1/2 cup boiling water.
Mix dry ingredients together then add the rest. If using food coloring, add it to the water before mixing it in. If it is too dry, add more water. If it is too sticky add more flour.
Double the recipe for twice the fun!
August is really the month when it feels like summer to me. It seems like everything tends to slow down. I just feel it in the air. It is almost like the calm before the storm! We have had time to go to the beach, visit with family, have neighborhood cook-outs, partake in camps, and watch late movie nights. My younger daughter's blond hair is on the verge of being green so I know we have had our share of swimming! We have had our summer fun but it is not quite time for school, although the buzz at Target in the school supplies section lets us know it's coming...things are now slower, feeling more like the pace of a turtle. I am hearing more of, "Mommy, I'm bored" or "Now what, Mommy?" or " I HAVE NOTHING TO DO!!!" It makes me realize how important this time is and how infrequently we have slower times like these. I really want to embrace these quieter times and allow my children to settle into the stillness of August--to recharge and process all of what has happened in the past months and to recharge for the months to come. Having "not much to do" is not a bad thing. And when you allow children the time and space for "nothingness" it is amazing what creativity comes out of it! Fairs are created in our bathroom out of toothpaste and toilet paper (yikes!), string bracelets are made and sold to neighbors outside our door, fancy set ups are made for pet hermit crabs, gymnastic shows are performed for anyone who is willing to watch. It can be challenging to get to the place of contentment with "nothing to do" but once you get there it is quite rewarding! Hope you find some slower days ahead as well!
Over the last year or so my life has become quite full, sometimes reaching a point where it is almost unmanageable-- running and growing a business, being available to my family, keeping the house tidy enough so that we can all still function, holding down the fort when my husband travels, learning how to live during times of unemployment, making sure the girls are in the right educational environment, tending to our two golden retrievers and cat, and the list goes on! I have reached a point and realized that if I want to do all that I do, I need to begin simplifying things in my life. I have begun doing that by not overscheduling our days if I can help it, clearing things out at home that we really don't need, not taking the girls into "big boxes" bombarded with commercialism, allowing enough time for transitions so we don't feel rushed, and best of all studying Kim John Payne's approach to child rearing, Simplicity Parenting.
So with that being said I thought I would present to you one of the simplest activities that we do at Explorations Play Studio, Rock Painting with water. So basic, so uncomplicated, so easy...and surprisingly so engaging! We have been astounded by the focus this activity creates. Children just love taking their paint brushes full of water and stroking the rocks one by one, noticing how the tones of the rocks change as they get wet. During my trip to the beach I found large shells to add to the mix as well. This is something that you can easily present to your child/children without a whole lot of set up or clean up. Give it a try! and then go check out Kim John Payne's video on simplifying parenting.
My family and I are in the midst our summer vacation at Virginia Beach and this morning I was looking at some of the photos that we took from our day yesterday. My husband and I were remarking on how amazing it was that our kids were SO captivated by sand and water for 8 hours straight. What I really found amusing this morning, however, is that my mother and I just finished exhibiting/vending Explorations Play Studio's Irresistable Sensory Trays and Bins at the Shining Stars Conference here in Virginia Beach...and what we receive so many ooooohhhs and aaahhhhhs about is that we go beyond sand and water for sensory experiences inside. So, it is just ironic that there is such a need to explore other options besides sand and water in a classroom setting yet you need not much more when you are at the beach! I have to say it was so refreshing to see children being busy filling, dumping, digging, patting, forming, running, laughing...with nothing electronic or commercial in sight!
Photo by Robert Radifera (www.radifera.com)
We like to bring seasonal materials into the studio in a non-trite way...and I would like to begin sharing with you some of the things we bring to the table for children to work with over the next months. When we first opened a few years ago I had ordered some finger paint trays from Discountschoolsupplies.com with the intention of actually having the children finger paint. I quickly realized, however, that finger paint was not a great thing to have in the studio when the children were accustomed to going back and forth between table activities. Little did I know that not being able to use these trays for their main purpose was going to lead to Explorations signature sensory-based play scenes ( I will offer up many play scene ideas as we go along). We use these white trays every single day and they are the best! They are great for defining the play space and containing the "mess". It is also so easy to pick them up and remove them from the working station when it is time to clean up. The photo above is of my older daughter playing with sea glass. We had first used solid blue sea glass with a variety of glass containers. Now we use assorted colors (light blue, dark blue, light green, clear) because we have found that the children really enjoy sorting the different colors. It is not often that we see glass, and glass upon glass, offered to children but we have deliberately chosen to present this combination to children for a couple of reasons. One is that we believe that children need to learn how to handle materials with care. So many of the toys that children play with these days are made out of plastic and they will not be damaged even when they are rough with them. If children are not working carefully here something will break... This helps to teach children to respect the materials that they are engaging with. Also, there is a nice auditory dimension to the playing when the sea glass is placed into the glass containers, which would not occur if the containers were plastic. If you are interested in giving it a try, you should be able to find some sea glass at your local craft store and yard sales or consignment stores are good for finding fun inexpensive glass containers. I've really enjoyed using icecream sundae glasses for a more summery feel. Let me know if you give it a go!
Come September, Explorations Play Studio will be 4 years old! I can't believe it...and to think my younger daughter was only 2 when we opened and now she is going into 1st grade in the Fall. Having this physical space in Charlottesville has been one of the most rewarding (and challenging) things I have ever done. To witness day in and day out the true joy of children engaging in open-ended play is remarkable. The concept seems simple, to aesthetically and purposefully design an environment to entice young children to explore and discover...to allow the environment to be the teacher and the adult the facilitator. But the experience itself is absolutely magical and the results are undeniably beneficial (I'll speak of current scientific research a little later on). AND, the reality is that, in general, children are not getting enough time for unstructured play (and I will address why they are not later on as well). I think we all know, on one level or another, just intuitively, that "play" is healthy for our children. But just because we know that doesn't mean that we are "scheduling" enough time in our days to allow for these crucial open-ended playtimes. I certainly wasn't as a full-time mom at home with my two girls. My head was too cluttered with thoughts of laundry, cleaning, food managment, and making sure the girls were at with peace with themselves and each other. I was too preoccupied and tired to bring in the creative hands-on learning that I was so familiar with through all my early childhood education studies and experiences. Therefore, one of my motivating factors to create Explorations Play Studio was because it was killing me inside to know that I was at home with my two girls and not providing them with what I knew I wanted them to have. And since the opening of the studio, my focus is back to where it needs to be and it has not only benefitted my children but hundreds of others. In terms of my laundry, dishes, floors, gourmet meals...well, that is a different story!
Little did I know 8 years ago when we moved to Charlottesville, VA from the DC area that I would have created an oasis for young children and their parents/caregivers known as Explorations Play Studio. I would have never dreamed of starting my own “business” had we stayed in the DC area. There is just something about Charlottesville that allows those with enough fire in them to get out there and share their passion with the rest of the world. I didn’t know, however, that I had such a passion for the importance of play for young children and open-ended materials until I took the time to examine what my true calling was. After 7 years of being home full time with my girls I got the “entrepreneurial bug”. I had a sense of what I wanted to offer to the community but it took me a full year to figure out exactly what it was that I really wanted to offer. What was it that was going to add value to families with young children AND be exceptionally invigorating for me????—as it would have to be knowing it would be a huge undertaking building, running, and growing a business while raising two young girls. But I hashed it out until I had enough clarity to jump off the cliff and never look back . With a lot of initial waivering back and forth, I have to say that I can’t imagine my life now if I hadn’t jumped. And now almost 4 years into the business, I want to share the magic of the studio with everyone who wants to listen and to share with you how the studio (ironically enough) and the families that are a part of it inspire me . So here we go!
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