When kids learn how to navigate risks, they enjoy great experiences & learn how to keep themselves safe. To help kids learn to manage risks, this week at Tinkergarten Anywhere we’ll introduce the “#1 toy of all time”—sticks! We’ll discover how to explore sticks and stay safe.
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The Guide
Step 1: Watch the Tinkergarten Anywhere "Stick Around" video lesson.
Hop into your Tinkergarten dashboard to watch the "Stick Around" video lesson. Kids can watch how Meghan and other explorers stay safe as they imagine all of the things their sticks can do and be, then get inspired to enjoy their own stick play!
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Hold up a stick and announce that this is NOT a stick. Turn the stick into some other object and use it in a way that will help to reveal what it is. (A plane flying in the sky, a giant drinking straw, a shovel in the dirt, etc.). Invite kids to guess what your are imagining your stick can be.
Step 4: Give the “stick talk.”
Let kids know that sticks are marvelous tools for play, because they can become anything we can imagine them to be! Then, set a few guidelines for how we can use sticks in ways that keep everyone safe. You might say something like, “Sticks also need lots of space to become whatever we want them to be. So, when we play with sticks near other people, we need to make sure that we can play with sticks in a way that keeps EVERYONE safe. Can we make sure that our sticks do not touch other people’s bodies?" Read here for more helpful language grown-ups can use to help kids manage risks.
Step 5: Enjoy and support stick play.
Enjoy imagining, playing and exploring with your sticks. Model different ways to use sticks in your outdoor space and try out kids’ ideas, too! Turn stick play into a game and take turns imagining and guessing what your sticks can be. Need ideas? You can also use these printable Stick Play Cards with prompts for different ways to use and imagine with sticks.
As needed, give gentle reminders to give sticks space from other people. Young children learn through repetition, and we can expect that wee ones may need lots of reminders to give sticks space from others. You can also redirect by modeling another, safer way to use a stick or by saying something like, “I wonder what would happen if you used your stick to dig the soil over here.” Older kids may also choose to play in more collaborative stick games. As kids play with you or with other kids, you can remind them to check in with their own bodies and with others. An important part of learning to manage risks is learning to recognize and stop when it feels too risky and/or when others communicate that it feels too risky for them.
Step 6: Extend Play.
Try some of these ways to spark even more stick play:
Build a Fire DIY Activity—Use sticks to build a pretend campfire and enjoy using sticks to roast pretend food. To introduce fire safety, demonstrate how to use twine or rocks to make a "circle of safety" around the fire. Learn more here.
Add Objects—How does the play change when you combine other materials with sticks? What can your stick be or do when you add leaves, ribbon, twine, mud or forest putty?
Go Fish DIY Activity—With just a stick and a piece of twine, kids can create their own pretend fishing experience at any time and in any outdoor space. Read here to learn how to create a simple fishing tool that is sure to spark imaginative play.
Why is this activity great for kids?
This activity is all about noticing risks and managing those risks in ways that help kids grow and stay safe. It often feels easier to protect our children from danger by avoiding it. But, when we model how to talk about risks and decide on ways to manage risks, we not only give kids the chance to enjoy a marvelous experience, but we help them see how you can manage risks for the long haul!
Exploring the endless possibilities of what sticks can do and be is also a super exercise in divergent thinking. Kids will also use problem-solving skills as they explore how to play with their sticks in ways that keep themselves and friends safe.
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By creativity, we mean the ability to both imagine original ideas or solutions to problems and actually do what needs to be done to make them happen. So, to help kids develop creativity, we parents need to nurture kids' imaginations and give them lots of chances to design, test, redesign and implement their ideas.
"Creativity is as important now in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”
Why, you ask? For one, it is through being creative that a person is able to get senses, sensibility and spirit working together. Simply put, without creativity, we don't think our kids will live a full life.
On a more practical level, it's also the means by which humans of all ages make an impact on the world and other people around them. A lot of heavy stuff is going to go down in our kids' lifetime, and their generation will need to imagine and implement solutions to big and very complicated problems. Although our kids are still far from public office or the boardroom, today's political and business leaders worldwide are already pointing to creativity as the most important leadership quality for the future.
Although years from the art studio or design lab, little kids can learn to think and act creatively if you give them time and the right practice.
Focus & Self Control
Category:
Thinking Skills
What is Focus and Self Control?
We think of self control as a child’s ability to focus on something in such a way that maximizes learning. In order to do that, they first need to direct their attention and focus on a single thing. They also need to discern which information around them is most important and deserving of their attention. Thirdly, they need something called “inhibition.” Think of inhibition as the ability to control impulses, block out distractions and continue attending to the same thing. Focus, discerning and inhibition all require rather fancy brain work and are thought to be part of the “executive functions” or the set of cognitive processes involving the prefrontal cortex that help us manage ourselves and the environment to achieve a goal.
Why does it matter?
Our world is full of distractions, more today than ever. Kids who are in any learning situation need the ability to control their impulses, block out noise and attend to the person, objects, events, or discussions that are central to learning. As classroom teachers, we saw that kids who did this ruled the classroom. As outdoor educators and parents, we know the same holds true outside of school.
But don’t take our word for it; the research is impressive. It turns out that these executive function skills are closely tied to success in the classroom, higher level education and life beyond school. Experts like Adele Diamond of the University of British Columbia have shown that, “If you look at what predicts how well children will do later in school, more and more evidence is showing that executive functions—working memory and inhibition—actually predict success better than IQ tests.” Although these skills are difficult for young children and don’t crystallize until adulthood, the more kids practice them, the better at them kids become.
Imagination
Category:
Thinking Skills
What is Imagination?
Imagination is defined in many ways, but one we like is, "the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality." This is no small task to little kids, and yet young childhood is a time in which imagination is developed more than any other. How does imagination develop in childhood? Through an increasingly sophisticated life of make believe.
We all likely have a sense of what we mean by make believe or good old "pretend play." How do experts define it, though? To some, there are different types of make believe that vary in sophistication and make pretend play different than other types of play. For example, kids may use objects to represent something else (e.g. a block becomes a cell phone). Or, they may start to give an object certain properties (e.g. a doll is asleep or a tree is on fire!). Still yet, they may themselves take on the properties of someone or something else.
From there, pretend play evolves into acting out scenarios or stories, those getting increasingly intricate as imagination develops. As kids' pretend play grows more sophisticated, these stories come to involve not only the creative use of objects, but multiple perspectives (e.g. good and bad guys in the same story), and/or the playful manipulation of ideas and emotions (e.g. I am sad, but then become happy after I save the village from certain doom).
Why does it matter?
An ever growing body of research substantiates the many benefits of pretend play including the enhanced development of: language and communication skills; self-control and empathy; flexible and abstract thinking; and creativity. These are the skills that will help kids balance emotions, form healthy relationships, work effectively on teams, stay focused in school, be successful at various jobs and solve the problems of an increasingly complicated world. An individual's creativity in particular, both requires and is limited by her imagination.
Age: 0 to 8+
Time: 1 hour+
Materials: Sticks; Printable Stick Play Cards
