Science of the Air

Every week, Madison (my 10-year old daughter) and I teach a 1.5-hour afterschool science club for K-2^nd graders.  We learned the experiments and activities from Steve Spangler (awesome speaker and science guy extraordinaire).  Most of the links to the complete descriptions of the experiments and the products we used connect you to his website.  We are not affiliated with this company, but we are raving fans – www.stevespanglerscience.com .

Lesson 3

Science of the Air

Science Standards Addressed:

• Observe that things (air) move in different ways.
• Describe the characteristics of the 3 states of matter.
• Know that air takes up space and exerts a force.

Plus we snuck in some speaking and listening standards like asking questions, expressing ideas, following multi-step directions, and participating in discussions.

See a similar afterschool science lesson that we did in 2009 at

You Tube Video on the Science of Air

10 minutes

As the children arrived we played the songs Something in the Air, by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Air that I Breathe, by the Hollies, and Love is Like Oxygen, by Pilot.

Next we had a snack that once again was a hint of the science to follow.  We snacked on Rice Krispie Treats (both the rice cereal and the marshmallows have many tiny pockets of air). While we ate snack we asked the kids to “describe the properties” of the treats.  They had some difficulty coming up with describing words that didn’t have anything to do with how they TASTE!  So, we asked them to pretend that they had to describe these treats over the phone to an alien from outer space that did not eat food and had no sense of taste.  Now they started using words like sticky, tan, gooey, bumpy, etc.  They described the many bubbles, which led to the question, “What is inside bubbles?” Air! We asked them to predict what the topic might be.

While we ate, Madison gave us another hint and snuck in some English Language Arts by reading Gilberto and the Wind, by Marie Hall – a story about Gilberto and his friendship with the wind.  The wind can be mean or nice; it takes Gilberto’s toys away, but also plays with bubbles and gives him an apple.

Then Madison read The Wind Blew, by Pat Hutchins – a story about a town where the wind took an umbrella, a balloon, a hat, a kite, a wig, and even more things. Then dropped them down again.

Waterproof Paper Challenge:  We gave the kids the challenge of dunking a wad of paper towel COMPLETELY under water for 10 seconds and keeping the paper towel COMPLETELY dry – using only a small cup and a piece of tape. The kids eventually discovered that if they taped the wad of paper towel to the bottom of the cup and submerged it upside down into the water, the bubble of air trapped inside the cup separates the paper towel from the water and keeps the wad from getting wet – having no way to escape the air kept the water from entering.  Now - tilt the glass while under water – what happens? See our afterschool Waterproof Paper Engineering Challenge Video on You Tube

Impossible Bottle: We slipped a balloon inside the neck of a special bottle (Impossible Bottle) and stretched the mouth of the balloon over the top of the bottle.  A volunteer tried to blow up the bottle, but the balloon won’t inflate because the bottle is already filled with air and there’s NO room for the balloon to expand.  Then we removed the stopper that plugged a second hole in the bottle.  This time the volunteer could easily blow up the balloon since as the balloon inflates it pushes the air in the bottle out the escape hole.  Then when we replace the stopper, the outside air can’t get back in so the balloon STAYS inflated.  LOTS of “Woa’s” and “Wow’s” from the kids at that little trick of science! Full Experiment Description

Huff ‘n’ Puff Challenge: We gave the kids an “empty” 1L soda bottle and a small wad of paper towel.  They placed the small wad of paper towel into the neck of the bottle.  Their challenge was simply to blow the wad of paper INTO the bottle.  Remember the bottle is not empty, but is COMPLETELY filled with AIR (takes up space and exerts force)!  This definitely falls into the harder than it looks category! As you blow air into the bottle, you force the air that was already in there to blow out the only place it can escape.  This escaping air blows the paper ball OUT! Try blowing hard or soft.  Try blowing close to the bottle or further away.  What do you think would happen if instead of a loose, pea-sized ball you made a more compact spit wad?  What if the opening was bigger?  What if you created another escape hole? See our afterschool Huff 'n' Puff Challenge Video on You Tube

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

Bubbles are great ways to explore air and talk about the three states of matter: solid, liquid, gas. What is a bubble? A bubble is air or another gas surrounded by a thin liquid film of soapy water surrounded by more air.  The thin film of soapy water forms three layers – a thin layer of water sandwiched between two layers of soap molecules.  On both sides of the layer of water, soap molecules orient themselves so their water-loving (hydrophilic) heads face the layer of water and their water-fearing (hydrophobic) feet extend away from the water.

What causes bubbles to pop? Among other things, rough edges and the oils in our skin. So we gave the kids gloves to wear so they could actually touch, hold, and examine the bubbles.

Bouncing Bubble Kit

Bubbles form because of the surface tension of water – positively-charged hydrogen atoms in one molecule attracted to the negatively-charged oxygen atoms in another molecule. The molecules cling together to enclose the maximum amount of air with the minimum amount of bubble solution. Bubbles become spheres because it is the shape that requires the least energy to form. But we used the stick and ball connectors called ZOME to construct bubbles with forms in shapes like cubes, pyramids, bananas, spirals, flowers, and even a dodecahedron!

  Zome Tools 

Vortex Generators.  Steve’s signature grand finale is shooting giant smoke rings (See his video and description here), so this was the afterschool science club grand finale too!  First we bought a cheap 5-gallon bucket, cut a hole in the bottom and fastened a piece of a cheap clear shower curtain over the top with a bungee cord.  We have the kids put Styrofoam cups on their heads and we blow them off doughnuts of air created by this small vortex generator – they LOVE it!  Then we kick it up a notch and take things outside with the big smoke ring generator made with a large garbage can and the rest of the cheap shower curtain.

We ignite a smoke bomb (the little ones they sell at fireworks stands) and place the hole in the trashcan over the smoke bomb so that smoke fills the trashcan.  Then we gently tap the shower curtain and send cool smoke rings out over the cars of parents arriving to pick up their kids.  

Ta dah!

Science of the Sun!

Every week, Madison (my 10-year old daughter) and I teach a 1.5-hour afterschool science club for K-2^nd graders.  We learned the experiments and activities from Steve Spangler (awesome speaker and science guy extraordinaire).  The links to the complete descriptions of the experiments and the products we used connect you to his website – www.stevespanglerscience.com .

Science of the Sun!
Science Standards Addressed:

• ·      Use observation and questioning skills,
• ·      Uses senses to observe surroundings
• ·      Observe how energy does things (solar energy changes UV beads & sun-sensitive paper)
• ·      Observes that the sun warms the land which in turn warms the air
• ·      Knows that the sun is a star

Plus we snuck in some speaking and listening standards like asking questions, expressing ideas, following multi-step directions, and participating in discussions.

See a video of a similar afterschool science lesson that we did in 2009 at http://www.youtube.com/user/CCafterschool?feature=mhum#p/c/78621E57C85DFAAB/10/8nBVtFrXrV8

10 minutes

As the children arrived we played Good Day Sunshine, by the Beatles; Here Comes the Sun, George Harrison, Sunshine on my Shoulders, by John Denver, Walking on Sunshine, by Katrina and the Waves; and You Are My Sunshine, by Ray Charles.

We had a snack that once again was a hint of the science to follow.  We snacked on Sun Chips and Orange juice, and the oh-so-subtle solar system centerpiece was another clue. We asked them to predict what the topic might be.  Most of them shouted “the SUN” right away.  Next week we are going to have to make it MORE difficult to predict the topic!

Madison snuck in some English and SPANISH language arts when she read them a poem that she wrote about our topic of the day!

SUN

Hot, Bright

Burning, Heating, Energizing

Sol, Fire, Space, Light

Shining, Twinkling, Sparkling

Estrella, Bright

STAR

To sneak in some MORE literacy, she read Bear Shadow, by Frank Asch – a story about a bear who was outside all day trying to get rid of his shadow because it scared away the fish when we went fishing.

15 Minutes

Pinch and Mix Gel

We learned about primary and secondary colors, while making true masterpieces. We squeezed these colored gels into zip top bags, and then placed them where the sunshine could shine through the window and through the beautiful bags of color.  There were lots of “oohs!” and “ahhs!” as the kids squished and squeezed the bags to mix their colors into beautiful stained glass images. Complete Experiment Description

We also snuck in some literacy by having them spell their names and special messages by drawing letters with their fingers on their bags.

We chatted about the sun.  Even the kindergarteners already knew that the sun is a star (a second grade standard).  We talked about how much energy the sun produces and how that energy can do so many wonderful things like generate electricity, warm houses, and feed plants!  We also talked about how that energy can be harmful when overexposure can damage and burn our eyes, our skin, and even our pets.  We snuck in some social studies when we described ways that solar energy can help us conserve natural resources.

5 Minutes

We experienced Rainbow Glasses and learned that white light is made of all the colors in the spectrum. These special glasses have lenses that separate light into the colors of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue Indigo, and Violet. When you look through them, funky rainbows appear.  It’s a little bit like when water vapor in the air bends and separates sunlight creating a real rainbow.

15 minutes

Nature Print Paper – this paper is coated with light-sensitive chemicals.  These chemicals react to sunlight (undergo a chemical change when exposed to sunlight).  When you put things like leaves, flowers, or paper clips on the paper and then expose it to direct sunlight for a few minutes, the objects block the light and create a white “shadow” or “negative” while the paper around them stays blue.  Then we rinsed them in water for a few seconds to permanently “fix” the images on the paper.

Complete Experiment Description

20 minutes

Cheap Wal-Mart Beads

Madison said, “I had an idea of doing an art project with you. I thought you could make bracelets.  I went to the store to buy you some beads with money from my allowance.  The colorful beads were too expensive. I could not afford them, so I could only get these white ones.” We made bracelets, and then we took the kids outside. As soon as we got out in the sun they noticed the beds stared to change colors. “Wow!” They were shocked to realize they had been tricked.  We explained to them that the cheap white beads were actually ultraviolet (U.V.) light detection beads that change color when exposed to U.V. rays.

U.V. Detection Beads. These beads are very good at detecting and indicating changes in levels of UV radiation. Madison told the group that brown prescription bottles were colored that way to protect our medicine from damaging UV rays.  When we put UV beads in the prescription bottle we could see NO color change.  Looks like the little brown bottles do a good job!

After we discovered this, we decided to conduct some experiments.

15 minutes

We discussed some of the things people use to block UV rays, like sunglasses and sunscreen.  We decided to compare how two different types of sunglasses blocked the UV rays.  We predicted that the $5 sunglasses labeled as 100% UV protection would block the sun better than the free kids meal toy sunglasses.  We found that the beads protected by BOTH sunglasses were colorless when we removed the glasses.  We concluded that more research would be needed to conclude anything!

Sunscreen Experiment - When it comes to sunscreen, there are lots of SPFs (Sun Protection Factors). We thought, “What if we protected the UV beads with different SPF sunscreens.” Since these beads are very sensitive to changes in UV, we decided to conduct an experiment - using the beads to look for differences in how bright the color of the beads would be when exposed to direct sunlight. To find out which sunscreens work best, we collected four strengths of sunscreen (SPF 2, 30, 50 &; 70). First we coated some zip top bags with the difference strengths of sunscreen similar to the way we would apply it to skin.  We labeled each bag with the SPF of the sunscreen we applied. Then we placed the bracelets we made into the zip top bags. We put NO sunscreen on one bag for a control. Then we exposed the bags to direct sunlight and observed and recorded the results.  We observed a big difference between the SPF 2 and the SPF 70, but NOT a big difference between SPF 30 &; SPF 50.  We also observed that ALL sunscreens let some UV radiation through.

 Complete Experiment Description

10 minutes
Nature Prints Experiment:  We applied sunscreen (the same sunscreen that we applied to the zip-top bags containing UV detection beads) directly to the sun sensitive paper.  Again we found that the SPF 50 & 70 were much better at blocking UV rays than the SPF 2, and 30 and ALL sunscreens allowed some UV rays to get through.

Science of Color

Every week, Madison (my 10-year old daughter) and I teach an afterschool science club for K-2^nd graders.  We learned the experiments and activities from Steve Spangler (awesome speaker and science guy extraordinaire).  The links to the complete descriptions of the experiments and the products we used connect you to his website – www.stevespanglerscience.com .

Lesson 1

Science of Color, Polymers, and “Sol”

Science Standards Addressed:

• ·      Use observation and questioning skills,
• ·      Describe the relative size of objects,
• ·      Know that matter is made of things to small to be seen with the naked eye (atoms and molecules),
• ·      Conduct simple experiments.

Plus we snuck in some speaking and listening standards like asking questions, expressing ideas, following multi-step directions, and participating in discussions.

See a similar afterschool science lesson that we did in 2009 at http://www.youtube.com/user/CCafterschool?feature=mhum#p/c/78621E57C85DFAAB/8/sewl8TfUgRE

As the children arrived we played the song True Colors, by Cindy Lauper

10 minutes

When the children arrived we played Color Name Game to get to know each other’s names and build a sense of community. Each person in the team thinks of a color that begins with the same letter as their first name (with younger children, a favorite color or ANY color will do).  Then they go around the circle clockwise, introducing themselves by their color name and first name.  Blue Billy, Red Rebecca, Chartreuse Charlie, Violet Vanessa, etc.  Repeat, but this time the first person says their own name, the second person says the first person’s and their own name, the third person says the first two people’s name and their own name, and so on…until the last person attempts to say everyone’s name in order ending with their own name.  Repeat this time going counter clockwise. 

10 minutes

Next we had a colorful afterschool snack of blueberries, red cherry tomatoes, and green grapes.  We told them the game we played and something observable about the traits of the snack were clues about the science topic of the day.  We asked them to predict what the topic might be.

While the kids ate, we snuck in some literacy. Madison read White Rabbit’s Color Book by Alan Baker – a book about a white rabbit who dips himself into different colored paints and learns about color mixing by dipping himself into different cups of paint.  After a shower he dips himself into all the colors and learns that all the colors together make brown.

15 minutes

Then we began the first step of making “Test Tube Rainbows.”

Directions: We filled small plastic cups ¾ full with water and placed 1 tablet of “True Colors! Fizzing Color Tablets” into each cup. We discussed what the kids were observing, made lots of guesses, and asked lots of questions as the fizzing tablets dissolved and the water became red yellow, and blue.  We talked about the 3 states of matter and observed that we added a solid to a liquid and created a gas!   Then we added about a teaspoon of “Jelly Crystals” - super absorbent polymer crystals. 

We discussed how all matter is made up of things that are too small to see with our eyes (atoms and molecules) and that polymers are long chains of molecules.

Then we set the cups aside for an hour to let the crystals fully absorb the water. (Kids could also experiment with how different types of liquid are absorbed).

15 minutes

Then we began the “Is black really black?” experiment. 

We filled small plastic cups halfway with water.  Near the center of a round piece of filter paper, the kids made small dots of black using black Vis-à-vis (water soluble) markers.   They cut green pipe cleaners in half and dipped each piece in water and shook off the excess.  This helps jump-start the wicking action.  Then we stuck each pipe cleaner through the center of each piece of round filter paper and placed the filter paper over the rim of the cup so that one end of the pipe cleaner was touching the water. 

Then we put this experiment aside and worked on the next experiment. Eventually the water was sucked up the wick and drawn into the filter paper.  As the water crossed over the black ink it dissolved the ink, and carried it from the center toward the edge of the filter paper. The bursts of colors we observed on the filter paper proved that black is really a combination of colors. The science of chromatography!

20 minutes

While waiting for the crystals to absorb the water and the black to be separated, we worked on our Sharpie Science T-Shirts - an activity similar to the previous chromatography experiment.  We made small designs about the size of a quarter on white t-shirts.  Then we dropped rubbing alcohol on the designs very slowly.  The alcohol spreads across the fibers of the t-shirt and acts as a SOLVENT on the Sharpie ink – producing nice bursts of color.  We talked about the meaning of words like disSOLve, and SOLution, SOLid, SOLubility, and SOLvent. It is a science of SOL – tie dyed t-shirt. 

To sneak in a little more literacy, while working on our shirts, my Madison read A Rainbow of my Own by Don Freeman, a book about a boy who day dreams about what would happen if a rainbow could stay and play instead of fading away.

10 minutes

Then we continued our Test Tube Rainbow experiment.  We observed and described what happened to the super-absorbent polymer crystals – now fully hydrated.  We measured and described the relative size of both a dehydrated crystal and an expanded and hydrated globs and compared the two.  Then the kids put a layer of red crystals in the bottom of a Baby Soda Bottle, followed by a layer of yellow, then blue and finally a red layer. 

At first there are only red-yellow-blue-red layers, but as the colors mix (overnight) the area where the red touches the yellow becomes orange, the area where yellow touches blue becomes green, and the area where blue touches red becomes purple.  The next morning the kids can observe their rainbow tubes that now have distinct red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple layers.  Sorry indigo and violet!

Play, Brains, & Emotions

“Children today are under much greater stresses than were children a generation or two ago, in part because the world is a more dangerous and complicated place to grow up in, and in part because their need to be protected, nurtured, and guided has been neglected.” – David Elkind

6,000 children were kicked out of preschool last year – PRESCHOOL! They are hitting and biting each other at a higher rate than ever before. I think a large part of the reason is threat and stress. Their brains are not prepared for growing academic expectations of the new preschool, and the brains instruct their owners to bite out of anger and frustration.

One of the things we know about the brain is how it reacts to threat. When threatened, the sympathetic nervous system kicks into gear, releasing cortisol and sending the individual into a state of fight or flight. Blood is taken away from the BRAIN and internal organs and is given to the extremities, so the individual is prepared to fight or run away quickly and NOT ABLE TO LEARN (Browder, 1984; Jensen, 1998). So, the first thing to do is eliminate threat (the negatives). Possible sources of threat and stress are nagging, scolding, loss of privileges, parent phone calls, sarcasm, high stakes tests, threat of harsh punishment, poor peer relationships, crowded environments, embarrassment, humiliation, inadequate resources, and language/cultural barriers. Eliminating threat makes it possible to learn and creates a condition where brain enrichment and playful learning will work. Then and only then can we work on the positive potential and power of play!

Educators can also teach children about stress and about how to de-stress themselves through time-management, breathing techniques, useful down time, relationships skills, and peer support. We must apply the research that shows that active playful learning with periods of rest, game play, dramatic play, exercise, discussion, positive rituals, celebrations, physical activity, stretching, dance, walking and creative writing are effective ways to reduce threat.

After eliminating threat, we can intentionally elicit more positive emotions. Emotions drive attention and create meaning out of dry facts and information. The brain is like the clay of the potter - shaped and formed. We know that through playful and enriching experiences, the brain will develop a thicker cortex, more dendritic branching, more growth spines, larger cell bodies, more support cells, more blood supply, more neural networks and more intricate connections between neurons.

While the brain is able to set goals, it takes emotion to build the motivation to accomplish those goals. The emotional “binding” or emotional “seasoning” affects of emotions such as happiness surprise or excitement enhances synaptic connections and provides an additional hook for remembering material. “The close emotional attunement derived from play is critical to healthy brain development” (Gunnar, 1996).

Recently my family took a trip to Hawaii. Before our trip I read travel brochures, watched DVD’s, watched travel channel shows, talked to people who had been there, and even read the novel Hawaii by James Michener. I learned a lot from my research. If we had cancelled our trip, I still would have retained some of that knowledge. But then we went there. We played in the sand, swam in the water, touched the plant life, explored tropical spaces, and experienced the emotions that came out of our playful experience in Hawaii. The amount that I learned through the experience far exceeds what I learned from the books, videos, and people who told me about it.

The emotional state of the children is directly related to student learning, so we must facilitate the positive emotions and emotional development. Humans often abuse substances to get to an immediate emotional state which may be more productively attained through playful experiences, successes, friendships, celebrations, community service projects, clubs, dancing, sports, and building positive relationships with peers and adults. We must create programs that provide the environments, relationships and experiences that promote the nurturing of a positive emotional state – playful learning does that. Learning should be intrinsically rewarding - it should be fun.

Play and Self-Discipline - Self-Direction

It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.

Vygotsky said that in play, children do what they feel like because play is connected with pleasure. Early on, play is more about the imaginary situation than the rules

At the same time, they learn to obey rules. Children learn to renounce what they want - obey rules and delay immediate desires in order to experience maximum pleasure in play.

Play continually creates demands on the child to act against immediate impulse. I’m playing hide and seek and I’m IT. I want to run off and seek at once, but the rules of the game order me to wait and count to twenty. Why do I not do what I want, spontaneously and at once? So that I can have fun! Because following the rules of the game provides greater pleasure than the gratification of an immediate impulse.

The will and sense of self-discipline that people develop originates in, and develops from, PLAY with rules. Children exhibit their greatest self-control in play. They achieve the maximum willPOWER by following the rules and resisting temptations to act impulsively. As they grow up and the imaginary situation is removed, the rules remain, and they behave as they did in play. They follow life’s rules as a choice – self-discipline.

There are famous studies of self-control where researchers have a child in a room with a bowl of marshmallows. The researcher tells the child not to eat the candy yet and then leaves the room to observe from behind a two-way mirror. Many children are unable to resist the temptation and eat the marshmallows, others use strategies like sitting on their hands or looking away in order to resist the temptation.

Now imagine another situation. A couple of kids are playing a game, using marshmallows as game pieces. In this game the children are not allowed to eat the marshmallows because they represent something inedible. In play, these children can exhibit enormous self control, and maximize learning when adults are there to scaffold the learning and help them learn more and make life connections.

Play is the primary source of development in children. Children develop positively through play. Play gives children practice figuring out what they want, coming up with goals and ideas – essential skills in self-disciplined adults. In play, children make decisions and determine the course of what happens in the imaginary situation. Play is the essence of childhood learning, the leading activity that determines the child’s development. Self-discipline, the formation of real-life plans, and decision-making motives all appear in play. Play gives children new forms of desires – to their role in the game and its rules. Therefore children’s greatest achievements are possible in play – achievements that tomorrow will become the basis for their life decisions and their morality. From a child development perspective, play is a means of developing the cognitive POWERS of abstract thought and self-discipline.

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Play and Abstract Thought

In PLAY children learn to think abstractly!

“Through play the child develops abstract meaning separate from the objects in the world which is a critical feature in the development of all higher mental functions.” – Lev Vygotsky

Vygotsky believed that in play, “thought becomes separated from objects” (a stick becomes a horse) and “action begins to be driven by meaning and ideas, not by the objects” (play is driven by the meaning of a horse not the stick).  The ability to separate the meaning of horse from a real horse, transfer it to a stick, and really act with the stick as if it were a horse is a crucial transitional stage toward the POWER of abstract thought, a giant leap forward in cognitive development.

In play, children unconsciously and spontaneously make use of the fact that they can separate meaning from an object without knowing they are doing it.  For example, children first separate meaning from objects when they play with a stick like a horse.   Unconsciously they are exploring metaphor and simile.  As this knowledge is internalized they acquire language and abstract thought (the ability to understand how “love is like a red rose”) because they already unconsciously learned that a stick is like a horse. 

When my daughter was five, we played the game “adult talk.”  We sat on the porch and had “grown-up” conversations – discussing the weather, the kids, the family, the job according to the rules of how grown-ups talk.  She would also ask me if I had any high-interest credit card debt or whether I had any stubborn belly fat (sometimes what they learn is TAUGHT, sometimes it is just CAUGHT, in this case from TV).  She was unconsciously making use of the knowledge of speaking formally, acting like an adult and having a grown-up conversation. She did not know that she was learning to speak in prose (formal, ordinary written language) – but she was. 

Adult life begins in imagination. Play is fertile ground for the development of imagination, but these days there is little time for exercising the imagination, fantasy, or creativity – the mental tools required for success in higher-level math and science (Elkind, 2007)  Piaget said, “Play is the answer to the question, How does anything new ever come about?”  Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”  Thomas Edison said, “To be a great inventor, all you need is a good imagination and a pile of junk.  When the greatest minds and inventors of our time were asked, “How did you think of that?”  They often respond, “Well I was in my lab PLAYING, when I had a thought…”  Children practice their thoughts in play.   Through play children learn how to think!

Promoting the Potential of Playful Learning

Potential

“Without Play – without the child that still lives in all of us, we will always be incomplete.  And not only physically, but creatively, intellectually, and spiritually as well.”  -George Sheehan

Lately I’ve heard a lot of talk about global warming – an eminent “crisis.”  I’m more concerned about another crisis – the withering of imagination and creativity, and the entrance of adult-like stress into the world of childhood learning.  I am more worried about the loss of childhood than the loss of the ozone layer.  Robert Fulgrum wrote a famous book entitled, “Everything I Ever Needed to Know about Life I Learned in Kindergarten.”  Robert might have learned life’s lessons in kindergarten, but not so for the kindergarteners of today.  Kindergarteners today learn what Robert might have learned in first or second grade.  Life skills are not on the tests, so they are eliminated because they are not essential.  With children, we are beginning to do things earlier and earlier that we shouldn’t even be doing later.  The elimination of physical education, art, and music; the elimination of project based learning in favor of push-down curriculum, standardized teaching, high-stakes testing and the counter-productive focus on “academic achievement” over LEARNING is a threat to our future of our planet.  Playful, social, interactive learning is threatened with extinction.  Life skills and social skills can help to solve most of the problems we have on our planet.  In the environment of learning, if play goes extinct – we can kiss life skills and social skills goodbye.  That’s the “inconvenient truth.”

There are people who believe that play is a slothful waste of time – “Idle hands are the Devil’s playground.”  I grew up with one - my next door neighbor.  He seemed to be lying in wait for a kids to play, so that he could put an end to it.  If a ball went into his yard, we would draw straws to decide who had to go into his yard to retrieve it.  At best he would just yell at us to get off his lawn, “You’re crushing my GRASS!”  A worst he would take the ball away and destroy it.

Play is not the opposite of work.  Together, work and play are pleasurable.  Play without work is merely entertainment.  Work without play is painful.  Play is the essence of childhood learning.  Playful learning assists children to develop to their maximum potential.  Through play children become bigger than themselves – larger than life.  They become kings of their own hills, athletes, heroes, magicians, or fairy princesses – beyond their own limits toward maximum potential. 

Recently, I was at the beach with my family.  My daughter built a sand castle and was playing by herself when a boy approached and asked if he could play too.  She agreed and for a while they both played by her rules.  Then the plot changed when the boy announced that the castle was on fire and poured a bucket of water on it – firefighter to the rescue.  My daughter was not happy about this turn of events, and the partial destruction of the castle, but she played along.  She rebuilt part of the castle and then decided to introduce a person to this situation and took out a Barbie-type doll – the princess.  A few minutes later the boy poured water on her doll and announced, “She’s drowning” – once again the plot thickens!  My daughter snatched her princess up and clutched her close.  At this the boy begged and pleaded her to let the princess drown, promising “this time I’ll save her!”  As their play continued I thought about how many things they were potentially learning about in this situation – conflict, pleasure, heroism, love, drama, destruction, construction, and making the best of whatever the tide brings in!

When children are playing at being a fire fighter, they are not learning to fight fires; rather, they are learning how to relate to people in diverse situations, how to adapt, how to think, how to make decisions, how to form relationships, how to generate possibilities, and how to guide their own behavior.  They learn how to make decisions and plans – in fact they often spend more time planning the roles of the imaginary situation than actually playing the game. Through play, children become wonderful learners.  Through play, children learn how to learn.

Lev Vygotsky's concept of a zone of proximal development (зона ближайшего развития) or ZPD is the gap - the distance between their actual developmental level (what children can do on their own) and their level of POTENTIAL development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers (what children can do with help).  It is the level of actual development that a standardized test measures.  Two children might have the same level of actual development, in the sense of being able to solve the same number of problems on some standardized test.  But, given appropriate help from an adult or another child, one child might be able to solve an additional dozen problems while the other child might be able to solve only three more. 

Vygotsky states “… play creates the zone of proximal development of the child. In play a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself. As in the focus of a magnifying glass, play contains all developmental tendencies in a condensed form; in play it is as though the child were trying to jump above the level of his normal behavior.” 

Speaking of being a head taller…I was at Disneyland a while ago.  At the entrance to many rides was a sign that said, “You must be this tall to ride this ride.”  I watched as children stood as straight and tall as they could; they poofed up their hair, they put on a hat, they stood on their tippy toes; they tried to be bigger than they are in order to have fun and play.  In schools, we do not say you must be this tall – be at this developmental level to start school.  We say you must be five years old by September 1st to enter Kindergarten.  Imagine two children at the same actual level of development.  Johnny turns five on August 31 and Amanda turns five on September1.  Amanda starts first grade while Johnny has another year to play and develop.  Within a few weeks, Amanda is being tested for dyslexia, developmentally delayed syndrome and a special education program.  Johnny starts kindergarten the following year in within a few weeks he is labeled as gifted!

The theory of a ZPD argues that children develop best, not through unaccompanied passive learning (on their own), but through social interaction and collaborative problem-solving (with help).  Full development of the ZPD depends upon full social interaction. The range of skill that can be developed with adult guidance or peer collaboration exceeds what can be attained alone.  Playful and interactive learning drives children beyond their actual level of development.  Through play children develop MORE - towards a greater POTENTIAL.