Learn by playing

Children learn by playing. Parents can learn about unschooling by playing. Parents can learn about their children by playing, too. Don't try to control the play. Be the guest in your child's play sometimes. If you've forgotten how to play or he doesn't want you to play, just watch, then. See if you can help by providing more of whatever he might need: space, materials, a surface, boxes or bags or tools or a photo of what he's done so he won't feel so bad about taking it apart, maybe. Maybe he needs a light to keep playing outside at night, or maybe a darkened room in the house to play with something that glows.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd of flower fairies by a younger Holly Dodd

Unexpected juxtaposition

The connection between humor and learning is well known. Unexpected juxtaposition is the basis of a lot of humor, and even more learning. It can be physical, musical, verbal, mathematical, but basically what it means is that unexpected combinations or outcomes can be funny. There are funny chemistry experiments, plays on words, math tricks, embarrassingly amusing stories from history, and there are parodies of famous pieces or styles of art and music.


SandraDodd.com/playing
La connexion entre l’humour et l’apprentissage est bien connue. Des juxtapositions inattendues sont la base d’un certain humour, et encore plus, de l’apprentissage. Cela peut être physique, musical, verbal, mathématique, mais au fond, ce que cela signifie, c’est que les combinaisons ou les résultats inattendus peuvent être amusants. Il y a des expériences chimiques amusantes, des jeux de mots, des jeux de maths, des textes historiques amusants et embarrassants, et il y a des parodies de pièces célèbres ou de styles artistiques et de musique.
SandraDodd.com/french/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd, of artsiness at Alex Polikowsky's house
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History in your hand

By seeing the same old things in new ways, you might discover a world of riches in the same old stuff you already had. Take, for instance, a deck of playing cards. What might seem too mundane and common to you isn't so common to someone else. And maybe your parents or grandparents thought cards were sinful, but playing dominoes or something else was okay. My dad's family was that way.

Playing card games has social benefits and leads to learning and all, but playing around with the cards themselves leads to dozens of things too! Compare aces and art from different decks. Consider the manufacture of cards, the traditional colors, the etiquette of card tables, shuffling, cutting, directions of play.

Cards connect to history, art, statistics, logic, geography, religion, law, entertainment, paper manufacturing, printing technology... well they don't connect to more things than everything else does, but they're an easy way to see how things connect!

Some of this is from SandraDodd.com/game/cards
Image from a Wikipedia article.

Other images and fun trivia are here:
History found in Playing Cards, on the Thinking Sticks blog
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Play lightly

All my life I was given advice like this:

Be serious
Act your age
Don't take this lightly.

Now, though, that I'm involved with unschooling I say to adults and to children alike, take this lightly. Play around.

Play with words, with ideas, with thoughts.

Play with music.

Play in the rain.

Play in the dark.

Play with your food.

But play safely. Play is only play when no one involved is objecting. It's only playing if everyone is playing.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd (click it)

Imagining

Take this lightly. Play around.

Play with words, with ideas, with thoughts.
Play with music.
Play in the rain.
Play in the dark.
Play with your food.

But play safely. Play is only play when no one involved is objecting. It's only playing if everyone is playing.

Pretending, with a barn swallow's nest
SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Playing with dolls

Holly was here today. She's 22 years old now. In this photo, she was 14 or so.

Today she was trying out a new basket, for the possibility of being a babydoll bed. She has a babydoll collection. She was carrying one of her favorites around while we were talking, and asked me seriously why, when she has had it out in public, people have reacted so oddly. The only acceptable answer seemed to be that she was taking a class of some sort, and needed to carry a baby doll. Otherwise, they didn't know how to respond.

I gave her some possible responses to use ("I really like it" or "He feels almost like a real baby" or something conversational), but the real answer was that there is often pressure on kids to stop playing with certain things at certain ages. Baby dolls, maybe by the time girls are eight or so. Boys even sooner (if they were allowed to play with a doll at all).

Holly grew up without much pressure to conform to arbitary age rules. I'm glad.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Try, discuss, explore

What makes unschooling work is that children learn by playing. Older kids too. Adults, too. People learn by playing. People can learn without “work” and “study.” They can learn by trying, discussing, exploring.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Continue to play

Play can be serious business. Playing is certainly the main way that very young children learn, until they go to school.

What if they don't go to school? What if the ages of five and six don't mark a life change, and the playing progresses along naturally?
Many people would have no idea how to answer that question. The idea that toddlers' play would naturally progress to other levels without interruption, without separation from families, and without professionals telling children when, where and how to play is foreign to most in our culture.

In one small corner, though, it's common knowledge. There are unschoolers whose children have not been to school and who have continued to play.

That writing continues here: SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Janine

Play around.

Play with words, with ideas, with thoughts.

Play with music.

Play in the rain.

Play in the dark.

Play with your food.

But play safely. Play is only play when no one involved is objecting. It's only playing if everyone is playing.

SandraDodd.com/playing
Jouer, un sérieux travail
photo by Sandra Dodd of a shiny trashcan on a tile floor
Play with your camera.

Playful lives

My three children grew up around adults who played, not just putting on feasts and tournaments and buildingmedieval-looking camps, but also playing strategy board games and mystery games, having costume parties when it wasn't even Halloween, and making up goofy song parodies on long car rides.

Maybe because I kept playing I had an advantage, but I don't think it is beyond more serious adults to regain their playfulness.


SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Dress up and play

My three children grew up around adults who played, not just putting on feasts and tournaments and building medieval-looking camps, but also playing strategy board games and mystery games, having costume parties when it wasn't even Halloween, and making up goofy song parodies on long car rides.

Maybe because I kept playing I had an advantage, but I don't think it is beyond more serious adults to regain their playfulness.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Julie D, and is unrelated to the text,
except around the costumes and joy, and the Holly Dodd
(and is also a link)
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Connections coming and going

Diana Jenner wrote (not "lately" anymore):

Football has been a big connector lately. Hayden loves claw machines and on our trip won (bought) a KC Chiefs window hangie thingamabobber. He thought we should send it to the "unschoolers who sing the Kansas City Song" (Ken & Amy Briggs). When we were at Burger King the other day, the kids' prizes were NFL related. He first found KC Chiefs and reiterated his connection to the team, which led to a talk of the Briggs' actually living in NY -- "NY has TWO teams!!" As he browsed the other teams, he happened upon Cleveland Browns -- "Oh! Now I get the joke on Family Guy!! Cleveland's last name is Brown, I thought it was because of his skin color, well it is! Both!" I didn't realize how many football jokes have been on that series, but Hayden knew of a few others and it is just now that they're connecting and beginning to make sense.

I never knew how multi-layered most movies and television shows are, until I lived the freedom of no censorship with my kids. I'm excited to watch Shrek again with Hayden... we've not seen it in over a year and I know his sense of humor has drastically changed, he's more aware of innuendo, it will most likely be a whole new movie for him. I will miss his *younger* perspective as much as I look forward to this *older* one.

—Diana Jenner

SandraDodd.com/dot/hayden

also consider SandraDodd.com/again, about watching things again

Hayden playing in a fountain,
photo by Gail Higgins, I think,
or maybe by Diana Jenner

Able to see learning

The parents must be willing to believe that their children can learn.

Unless your children are given a real opportunity to show you how children learn, to show you that it works, you will not see it.

The parents have to be
   willing to see learning
      able to see it
         and desirous of seeing it.

You can kill unschooling on the vine with "That won't work."

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Lisa Jonick

Regaining Playfulness

Maybe because I kept playing I had an advantage, but I don't think it is beyond more serious adults to regain their playfulness.

But (some might be thinking), if you just play all the time, how will you know the kids are learning? I knew my boys had learned all the swimming safety rules when they rhythmically took turns reciting them exactly wrong: Never swim with a buddy, always swim alone; Always swim in a storm; Always run by the pool…

The bit above will make more sense if you read here:
SandraDodd.com/playing.
photo by Holly Dodd
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Touching, playing, knowing

"How do you know they're learning?"

The people who ask that question are looking at the world through school-colored glasses. Those same parents knew when their children could use a spoon. They knew when the child could drink out of a cup. They knew when walking and talking and bike riding had been learned.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Able to see learning

The parents must be willing to believe that their children can learn.

Unless your children are given a real opportunity to show you how children learn, to show you that it works, you will not see it.

The parents have to be
   willing to see learning
      able to see it
         and desirous of seeing it.

You can kill unschooling on the vine with "That won't work."

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Lisa Jonick
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Supplies for play

Consider your resources and be on the lookout for more necessities like these: balls, flashlights, cloth for capes or tents (over tables or chairs or couches), containers, bathtub toys (ice is good), costumes, hats, blocks, magnets. Think of yourself, as a child, and what might have caught your attention. Provide for the child inside you and the current child, too!

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd, Amsterdam airport

Work or play?

The best moments are when an activity might look like work, but it feels like play.

It can happen to anyone.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Cátia Maciel

Tools and purposes

A YouTube video showed slime-play with a tennis racket. I didn't have one, but a potato masher worked, to create strings of slime. "Bath toys" are sold in stores, but kitchens are full of things that are fun in bathtubs. Colanders, measuring cups, mixing bowls, slotted spoons to pick up bubbles (or blow them). Ice is great in the tub, and cheap, and cleans itself up. Practice seeing other purposes and possibilites.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Sandra Dodd

Parallel play

When a family is used to being together most of the time, it's easy to accept that one person could be having thoughts or experiences that don't match anyone else's, and people can still be happy in the situation. In a game, or looking at a display, or climbing, different people's experiences are their own, and learning will be happening within and around you all.

Shared experiences are not identical experiences.

SandraDodd.com/playing
photo by Janelle Wrock
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