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"Playful experiences create pathways in the brain that enable us to consider more readily unusual, inventive, creative, resourceful ways of doing the things we need to do. These are also the pathways needed to solve problems that haven't been solved before and to create things that didn't exist before. These benefits combine and work together to feed a mindset that is flexible, creative and courageous. Our survival as humans depends on a complex set of skills, and the variety of human play reflects that complexity. We play with language in order to learn how it works, and doesn't work, as effective communication with our social groups. In play we learn what our bodies can and can't do. Through play we learn how things work in the world around us-how objects feel and fit together, what they do when they're hit, thrown, banged together. This book shows teachers how to use play as an opportunity to learn"--
About the author
Stephanie Parsons is a literacy consultant, a former staff developer with Lucy Calkins and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, and a former teacher. She loves working alongside teachers and children to discover new ways of teaching. She hopes you will feel the power of transformative teaching along with your students. After attending Yale University and Teachers College at Columbia University, she became a first grade teacher at P.S. 321 in Brooklyn. She is now a reading and writing staff developer working with elementary schools in New York City and across the country.
