It is April 1st and it is time to kick-off the PhD in Parenting Carnival of Play (announced previously in this post). From April 1st to April 15th extended to April 20, the content on my blog is going to be dedicated to play. I hope this will be a fun and inspiring half month for everyone. I hope to give you an understanding of the importance of play and also share lots of fun play ideas.
See full recap of all Carnival of Play posts here!
Here is what is planned:
- Thoughts and Ideas About Play
- Book Reviews
- Product Reviews
- Research on playing
- Fun playtime activities
- Contest
- ….and your posts!
On those last few items, a few more details…
Your Posts
One of the great things about a carnival is getting to share ideas and explore each other’s blogs. When I announced the carnival I mentioned that I would be looking for other people to write posts about play for the carnival.
Here are the details for those that are participating:
- Write a post on anything to do with play and its role in parenting and/or childhood
- Post it on your blog (or if you don’t have a blog e-mail it to me and I’ll post it here as a guest post) between April 1st and April 14, 2009
- Include a link back to this post in your post and tell your readers that you are writing it as part of the PhD in Parenting Carnival of Play
Every few days during the carnival, I will then put up a post featuring (summarizing/commenting on) the posts that you have written and linking to them so that my readers can go to your blog to read the full thing and hopefully get to know your blog a bit better.
Contest
What would a Carnival of Play be without a bit of play for us adults? One of the books I will be reviewing during my Carnival of Play is Play by Stuart Brown, M.D. and the publisher has kindly donated 3 copies of the book for me to give away to my readers. So, I am going to randomly pick a winner for each of the following 3 tasks:
- People that write posts for the carnival: If you write a post for the carnival (as per the instructions above), your name will be included in the draw for the first copy of the book.
- People that link to one of the posts in the carnival: If you link to any of the posts that I put up during the carnival, your name will be included in the draw for the second copy of the book. Usually I see pingbacks to my posts, but sometimes they don’t register for whatever reason. Feel free to drop a comment on the post that you linked to letting me know that you linked to it (to be sure that I see your post).
- People that send me great links to include in the carnival: I’m still looking for more great stuff about play to link to and blog about during the carnival and you can help! Go out there in the World Wide Web and find some great blog posts, articles, research studies, or other content about play and send me an e-mail with (a) the link to the article/post and (b) a link to your blog if you have one (I’ll give you credit for finding it if I link to it). My e-mail address is phdinparenting at gmail dot com. Everyone that sends me a link gets entered in the draw for the third copy of the book.
I look forward to playing along with you all! 
Photo credit: I Nancy on flickr
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I’ve got my post up! http://www.strocel.com/lets-pretend/
Mine is up!
I did one! http://sususeriffic.blogspot.com/2009/04/carnival-of-play.html
Star Wars play is the focus!
This is so great — I hope to get a chance to write about it — it’s a topic I adore — and i like that I can do it over the next 2 weeks — I just might get it done… Either way though — I look forward to all the reading on the subject I’ll get because of this over the next 2 weeks
so thank you!
Great to hear play getting attention. Victoria Castle, the writer of the Trance of Scarcity also stresses the importance of play.
I personally love play, so I will be here.
Can I submit an old post too? LOL! I’ll be back when my post is up!
What a fantastic idea! I’ll get a post up in the next few days.
Here are a couple links relating to play I found through The Thoughtful Parent:
Creative Play Plus
Playful Learning
My post goes up tomorrow!
I’m excited about your carnival, Annie! I’ve been thinking I need to get back to playing more with the kids, both for fun and to reconnect/help with discipline. Time to get Playful Parenting by Cohen out for a reread, maybe.
Also, I was thinking about this old Mothering article on violent/gun play recently. Liam is Mr. Imagination and is always running around as a soldier, knight, bad guy, or pirate, “killing” people. I sometimes wonder how to respond…
http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_child/discipline/bang-bang.html
My post is up!
http://alittlebitofmomsense.blogspot.com/2009/04/play-ball.html
Okay, I’m going to post my take on play in a few minutes!
Okay, my post is up!
http://loulousviews.blogspot.com/2009/04/carnival-of-play.html
Here’s my post!
http://www.becausebabiesgrowup.com/2009/04/thinking-thursday-waiting-games.html
What a fantastic idea for a blog carnival. I am so excited to join! Here is my post:
http://www.littlestomaks.com/2009/04/think-play-nutrition-rest-for-long-term-health-of-your-children/
I think a good mix of play-nutrition-rest each day is key to long term healthy growth of children. My focus in this post is on play involving physical activity combined with adequate nutrition on a daily basis. Active children have higher caloric requirements. I provide a table comparing daily calorie requirements for both boys and girls based on activity levels. This information is based on MyPyramid for PreSchoolers.
thanks so much for inviting me to participate in your carnival! My post is up here http://maternalspark.com/wp/?p=1086
Hi Everyone! I’ll be putting up a Showcase of Arts & Crafts Play on April 11, so if you are writing a post related to arts and crafts, please get it up by April 10 for inclusion in the showcase.
Here’s my post
http://play-activities.com/blog/parents-dance-with-your-child/
This is a great idea! Here’s a post about play I wrote recently: http://thethoughtfulparent.blogspot.com/2009/02/not-just-childs-play.html
I wrote mine up! You can click on my name to get there. We did an experimental day of all-play.
I finally put up a post! Took me awhile to think of a topic. http://infantbibliophile.blogspot.com/2009/04/ten-ways-to-play-with-childrens-books.html
One topic suggestion, one topic request.
The suggestion: http://www.mindspring.com/~dgn/childart.htm is a great link about using non-directive methods of play to connect with your child. The method described here, Floortime, is wonderful for any child but is also used as a form of therapy/connection with autistic children – more on that at http://www.autcom.org/articles%5CBehaviorism.html, http://www.mindspring.com/~dgn/Atlantic.pdf, and http://www.mindspring.com/~dgn/davefaq.htm.
The request: playing simultaneously with two children at different developmental stages. Any good tips for playing with two very young children who are at different stages with regard to what they need for playing, but both still at the stage where they need fairly intensive one-on-one time? My four-year-old is into doing jigsaw puzzles or playing floor games, while my sixteen-month-old likes toddling around exploring the world and picking up everything she sees to try to eat. Trying to play with both of them together is a nightmare – all Katie wants to do is grab Jamie’s jigsaw pieces. But neither of them is really at a stage where they can get the concept of sharing in games or playing nicely together or taking turns so that one of them waits while I play with the other one and then gets their turn a little later. (I know you’d normally expect a four-year-old to be starting to get those points, but Jamie is on the autistic spectrum and hence much more immature with a lot of the personal-social stuff.) I know your two are a few months older, so I’d love to hear your tips.
Here is my post
http://rhymesandmore.blogspot.com/2009/04/pretend-play-enhance-your-childs.html
Second post is up:
http://www.littlestomaks.com/2009/04/play-is-the-secret-ingredient-for-success-at-mealtime/
If flexibility, patience and perseverance are the main ingredients of parenting, fun and play is the secret ingredient for success at mealtime. Check out some of our recent experiences with our twins, and feel free to leave your tips for fun and play as you encourage your little ones to try new foods.
The carnival has been extended to April 20! More time to join in the fun.
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/04/13/carnival-of-play-extended-to-april-20/
Most of what I do in my classes IS play since I work in a play-based program, but here’s one I wrote a bit ago about playing in the rain: http://preschoolpatti.blogspot.com/2009/03/rain-activities.html
Love this blog, by the way. I don’t leave tons of comments around, but the world definitely needs more play!
I’m adding my post for the blog carnival.
oh, the actual referring post is here:
http://growinginpeace.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/just-play/
adding another post on my blog for inexpensive props for pretend play
http://growinginpeace.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/props-for-pretend-play/
Got another post to add! Are we too over-protective now and taking the fun out of play?
http://alittlebitofmomsense.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-overprotection-changing-play.html
Good thing you extended the time limit on this
Here is part 1 of my contribution. http://typical-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/04/play-with-me-part-1.html It’s about Play from Birth to 6 months. More to follow.
A reader commented on my post and had a link to here. If you think it is interesting, it would be great to see it in your carninval of play. Thanks. http://www.preschoolplaybook.com/2009/04/importance-of-playing.html
I am a relatively new blogger on parenting topics. I found your blog and contest from http://growinginpeace.wordpress.com/. And I couldn’t resist
Here is my contribution – http://teachingyoungchildren.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/play-is-fundamental/
Part 2 on my series Play from birth to 2yrs. http://typical-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/04/play-with-me-part-2.html
For the second copy of the book, you have until end of day on April 21 to link to any of the posts on my blog that was posted from April 1 to April 20.
The contest winners were drawn and have been contacted. The lucky winners were:
Rebecca from http://alittlebitofmomsense.blogspot.com/
Lynn from http://infantbibliophile.blogspot.com/
KC from http://growinginpeace.wordpress.com/
Congratulations to all of you and thank you to everyone that contributed to the carnival!
This was a really good series! Glad you tackled this great topic.
This was an awesome series. I’ve never had so much fun and I’ve never won anything before, so that makes it all the more special for me!
Thanks.
I received my book today and I’m so excited to read it! Thanks so much!