I've been meaning to join in on this one for ages! Play-it's where my kids are at!
Unschooling role-model and author Sandra Dodd
coined the term "strewing" which is to leave materials of interest around for the children to discover and choose to get involved in or not. At an older level it might be an interesting book or brochure on an exhibition etc. At the ages my children are at I often use strewing as an invitation to play!
So I set up the farm before I went to bed
Schleich animals! We love them.
And in the morning the girls were excited to find an invitation to play at the farm
Sometimes I set up a craft activity that the girls can run with on their own or I find a book about an animal someone is interested in and put it in a place they'll see it. I'm just getting into strewing-and I'm having a lot of fun with it-I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
Why don't you come play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up too! You can do that HERE. Happy playing!
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11 comments:
We are just getting into strewing too. I re-organised the toy room recently so that all the various toys were grouped together in boxes (so blocks together, cars and race tracks, science equipment, schleich animals etc). This means I can grab a box and strew quite easily. Today it's soft animal toys and bikes. Lots of towing and dinking of teddies and other cuddly friends.
I do like this strewing idea. I've been doing it with books in the girls rooms. Swapping them out while the girls are at school, then at bedtime they get a nice surprise. Although I do love the absolute favourite books there and the one's my oldest daughter is currently reading - she is already turning into someone who has a couple of different books on the go at once.
I don't strew but keep meaning to hehe. I love the idea.
I love the concept of strewing - it has really worked at our house. Of course sometimes it's hard to have the energy to "strew" of an evening, when you'd rather be putting your feet up!!
My 2 kids play longer at an activity that has been set up for them, so it is always worth the effort!
If I was able to better organize the toys and play spaces I'd love to give strewing a go as I really think it might encourage Princess with her independent play. Although, if I fail to pick toys up and she starts playing with the toys that happen to be lying around ... no, maybe it's not the same LOL
And I think we have quite a few of those same Schleich animals. They are the best, aren't they? :)
We're Playmobil lovers at our house... Perhaps I'll strew something for them to discover in our playroom!
Strewing is one of those things I have done in the past without even knowing it had a name! Only learned the term recently from Christie (childhoo101)...
That's a great idea. But our boys have so many toys, I think we'll need to 'cull' before we can strew!
I've been trying strewing also. I'm loving changing the themes of 'corners' each week or so..
A farm sonds like fun. Thanks for the inspiration.
I am a big believer in strewing, a practice I learned as part of Emergent Curriculum. We love our Schleich animals too.
what a great idea! I put it in practice this week :)
http://maynardgull.blogspot.com/2011/05/strewing-beginning-of-morning.html
Thanks Shae, I'm getting so many cool ideas from your blog :)
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