Play Based Education: two stories, one classroom

In the fall of 2019, I started working at Trellis Services as a 1:1 ABA therapist. ABA is an intensive early intervention service offered typically to children on the autism spectrum. The child I supported attended a daily preschool program in addition to attending Trellis daily for targeted services. I would go to the preschool environment with this child in order to provide ABA services within a natural school environment. At first I was skeptical and wondered, "How am I going to be able to support this child that needs to meet social/emotional, language and communication, as well as fine motor goals, all while being immersed in a classroom with typically developing children?". Within moments of entering this child's classroom, my mind was put at ease. The child and I were both greeted with a kind and gentle smile from Mrs. Becca Roberts. I quickly learned that this child, and any child typically developing or with special needs, would undoubtedly be successful in this program.

Mrs. Roberts uses a play-based approach in her classroom that involves child-initiated and teacher-supported learning. For example, while children are playing with blocks, Mrs. Roberts would pose questions that encourage problem solving, prediction,hypothesizing, and real world connections. "How tall can this get? How many blocks do you need? Can you BLOW the house down? Who else does that?". Through play like this, children develop social and cognitive skills, mature emotionally, and gain the self-confidence required to engage in new experiences and environments. Teaching with this approach allowed the child I supported to play in a natural setting with peers their age. Through observation of play and interactions, the interests and strengths of this child came to light. Through identifying these interests and strengths, Mrs. Roberts built on his specific needs and created individualized learning through play. Each day I spent in this classroom and program, I connected play-based education to the work I had done in the past working with special needs children. I saw first-hand the impact play-based education had in an early childhood environment. I saw that goals typically designed for special needs children were also applicable and achievable for all children in a play-based environment. I understood that this type of environment stood to be the most inclusive and least restrictive environment for all. This has now become something I am deeply passionate about and use in my own classroom at Embark Education.

By: Mandy Vogel

It has taken me many false starts to write this post. My first iteration sounded too formal and put too much emphasis on my background. The second sounded too much like a college lecture hall. I’m hoping that, like Goldilocks, this iteration is just right. 

I picked this post back up after seeing my Mom’s ”proud mom” post, announcing Embark’s opening. One of the commenters was the widow of my Dad’s late colleague and best friend, Peter. Sally simply wrote, “way to go Becca.” Such a simple sentence, why did this spur me to write? Peter and my Dad were professors of Early Childhood Education. They jointly engaged in research to see just how much impact a play-based education could have on children. They also dreamed of one day opening a preschool. One that was play-based, used best practices, was there for families, and always had the best interest of the children at heart. When I told my Dad that we were opening Embark, he shared this dream with me. I didn’t know about it when we started, but I now get to live out a shared dream, one that I carry with the amazing women I opened this school with and one from the men and women I stand on the shoulders of. 

My parents and Peter set an excellent example of what play-based learning should look like based on their research from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, but as I am constantly reminded, if Marty McFly went back in time this year, it would be 1991. The 90s are definitely now the oldies. While I stand on the shoulders of some giants in the Early Education world, I am also forging my own path, learning and growing with new research and new best practices to create the best environment for today’s children. 

So, what does that look like in my classroom? For starters, I don’t always subscribe to one specific educational philosophy. There are visual aspects of my classroom that are heavily borrowed from Maria Montessori while others are borrowed from Reggio Emilia. My classroom is flexible. The way it is set up at the beginning of the year is most certainly not how it will be set up at the end of the year. The layout, the toys, the art work on the wall, it all changes and shifts with the children’s interests, their growth, and their needs. I love using vertical wall space as learning opportunities. Hanging contact paper sticky side out and pairing it with lightweight foam blocks provides an opportunity for children to build out, not just up. Once they get the hang of this skill, I would add “blue prints” where I would photo copy foam blocks in a design and the children would then have to mimic the design or pattern on the wall. To build further onto this engineering and math skill, children then have the opportunity to make their own blue prints from themselves or for their peers. Once the children have fully engaged in this play, they have learned and gained so much engineering, math, spatial awareness, and short/long term planning skills. All of these skills were gained through reimagining block play and the blocks center.

But play-based education is not just about the physical classroom space, but also the teacher-student and peer-peer interactions. When engaging with a student, I always make observations and then ask them open ended questions, “I noticed your tower fell down. How do you think that we could build it taller next time?” Often other children will chime in “I think that you need to use different blocks on the bottom.” or “Try balancing your blocks better.” That’s when the best learning happens. As the teacher, I don’t tell children how to do something, I facilitate a conversation about how the child or children think they should do something. The children make their own observations, learn to listen to each other, act on advice or constructive criticism, and then make a conclusion on whether or not the adjustment worked. Additionally, the children are gaining critical thinking and important social skills, just by playing. 

This method can be applied throughout the classroom and with all children, regardless of abilities. I often tell children that parents go to their job to work and that coming to school and playing is their work, because play is truly the work of the child.

By: Becca Roberts