These strategies help teachers set up engaging and enriching opportunities for literacy exploration throughout the day.

Play is often viewed as the natural language of childhood. But beyond simply being fun, play is a vital component of early ...

Parents visiting their children’s kindergarten class for the first time may think they’ve arrived at the wrong room, especially if they expect it to resemble the kindergarten they attended as ...

EdSource · From a juvenile facility to a college dorm room When Krystyna Kalishevskyi emigrated from Ukraine with her family last year, she had experienced more trauma and fear than a 4-year-old can ...

Corrected: This story has been updated to more accurately describe how Mansfield Elementary’s test scores compare to those of other schools in Connecticut. When the doors to Mansfield Elementary ...

Connecticut teachers want you to know that “play-based learning” is not an oxymoron. For years child development and education experts have praised the benefits of play-based learning — a pedagogy ...

The Tumwater School District has implemented mandatory play-based learning across all kindergarten classrooms, requiring one hour of daily free play while maintaining traditional instruction in ...

As a play researcher, I applaud the state legislature for mandating play-based learning in preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school classrooms. Play has a powerful effect on development and ...

One of my earliest posts here concerned the definition of play, which I developed further in an article on “Definitions of Play” for Scholarpedia (Gray, 2013) and in my book Free to Learn. I first ...