Play

admin — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 21:42:52 +0000

Play.
I am often puzzled by how parents and other adults of today’s world are still uncomfortable equating play and learning. Many would say a child sitting at a desk writing is “learning”. The same child creating a block city with a group of other children is “playing”.
I want you to entertain the thought that there may be more learning going on in the ‘play’ than at the desk. Maybe things not normally measured such as, “ I get along in a group. I know how to communicate and be a team player. If I fit these pieces like so, they balance. Hey, if I copy her idea I think I might be able to build this bigger. This one looks like the Taj Mahal. I am successful. I can help others. I have friends.”
Learning happens when we are most fully engaged in the process.
I think all of us humans are made more-or-less this same way. It is our nature to learn, as it is the nature of all species of life.
I once had a cat who brought in a ‘ toy’ beetle for her babies to ‘play’ with. She had moved her kittens to the kitchen and sent them under the refrigerator, presumably to keep warm. Then she went outside, caught a June bug and brought it back, dropping it in front of the ‘fridge. She called her children to come out. Out they came and she lay back a ways and watched as they went after the bug. It almost seemed she was smiling.
Toys.
Weren’t toys originally made to provide this kind of playful learning, this skill development for a child’s adult life? Did we once know that play is the best way for a child to learn? Did we have more trust that our kids would grow up able to work and adapt to their adult world? What happened to that trust?

Now it seems we compartmentalize: “This is school. This is work. This is fun. This is play. This is entertainment.” In our industrialized society where, for many people, work is not fun and their own adult lives are very compartmentalized, are we raising our children in this same unnatural way and teaching them to disconnect from their own childlike nature of playful discovery?
Think about it. Maybe to a child, everything is learning. And maybe they learn the most when it feels like play; climbing the mountain, riding the bike, catching a wave, reading the book, playing a tune, drawing a boat, or discovering they can add.
A child’s nature is to see the world as whole and undivided and learn from playing. Where, with whom and with what does your child play?
-Maria

New and improved Oasis Organic School ONLINE

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:48:09 +0000

Hello Constant Readers,

This is blog post #1 of the new and improved Oasis ONLINE! Well, birds are singing, bees are buzzing, California is officially not so freezing. Spring break is coming soon, and I know that our students are probably going on lots of adventures in their backyards, with toys, with siblings or maybe to a tropical island. We are making kaleidoscopes this week. Kids are eating Borage flowers, an herb originating in Syria (so says the all knowing all spinning ever changing wikipedia), greens from the garden and snap peas (I think they’re snap peas). We also have some contributions of Oranges, Lemons and Avocados donated from various parents. We love the raw, organic presence and presents.

I am anticipating the sight of little shoots of wheatgrass in our Easter Beds. With all this life and warmth around us, it is hard to imagine Southern California being cold. No seriously, I don’t get it. Was it always so cold in the winter? Winter is a wonderful in breath, a time of turning inward and focusing creativity. Now with the coming of Spring, our imagination becomes manifest. We started making some hand crafted baby chicks and rabbits with 100% wool felt on Monday. There are new books to read and our peach blossom tree is beginning to fruit. Annie has told me, that she can’t wait to go swimming in the ocean, but it’s not quite warm enough for her yet. I told her to give it a couple of weeks.

The chickens are petitioning to have an overpass built from their cage over the garden and into the main yard. They say that they can’t figure out how to get out of their cage yet and eat the garden. One chicken has figured out how to do it, but she’s not telling anyone her secret.

Some students and I were underneath the rubber tree the other day, sitting on a bench, and a bluejay flew down to the lowest branch to say hello to us. This was right after snack, so maybe the bluejay wanted to make sure we were eating tasty stuff. He flew off to yon distant telephone pole, apparently in approval and left us to our wheatgrass basket weaving. I minored in underwater basketweaving, so there we were, having a go at it. I wanted to mention storylineonline.net as a really cool website one of the families at the school showed me. It has a collection of popular children’s books, including one that was read during February, (Somebody Loves You, Mr Hatch). They are read by some actors and actresses that parents may recognize and enjoy, James Earl Jones, Hector Elizondo, Jane Kaczmarek…and the stories are really wonderful.

Well, that’s all for now, I hope you enjoy the new site design as much as I do. The calendar page will be updated soon to get you ready for April and May. Thank you for reading and being present with our dance, of every small observation. Send some comments in, stuff you’d like to see on the blog, suggestions of other online resources you use with your children that we could all check out.

See you next time.