Watch, Play and Learn: Our first YouTube Video
We are very proud of our videos on our Easy Play Ideas Youtube Channel. We believe that so far we have a good variety of play ideas to inspire children, parents and teachers to use some of our ideas in everyday play at home and at school. Play provides so many opportunities for kids to learn and develop. We want this to be obvious to everyone but at the same time we know that not everyone has had the opportunities to learn about this. That’s where we come in! We are producing a series of write ups that include highlights of the play that are on one of our videos. We hope to increase the understanding of just how valuable play is for children. Before reading further, take a look at the video first by clicking the image below.
This was our first video for our YouTube channel. I remember the day clearly. It probably was the hottest day of 2021 but then again, maybe it felt like it because of the running back and forth with the boxes. It was so much fun to make the different box towers and then to watch them being bowled over by our big blue ball with the cheeky grin! So let’s take a closer look and think about what this play experience would do for kids.
The boxes were empty and therefore light to carry around. This was important because empty boxes are easier for kids to move around. Even though the boxes were empty when we made the video, the exercise that we experienced was very obvious. It was a workout! The number of steps taken going back and forth was huge. Lifting the boxes up was a stretch most of the time because we are not the tallest people in the world! It’s great that we are small adults because it constantly reminds us of what it’s like to be small and the challenges that come with it.
If you try this idea, your kids will do a workout. They will walk or run up and down which is good exercise and they will also use different movements as they stretch up to stack the boxes. Kids will also have to work out how to move to get the boxes in the right place so they will be problem solving. For example, we had to stand on tippy toes to get boxes onto the top of the other boxes. Sometimes we had to give the box a gentle shove, not too hard and not too soft. We needed to shift the box into the right position. For young children, this is a great introduction to positional language, for example, behind, next to and on top and spatial awareness. Let’s not forget about what is needed To get the job done. Perseverance of course!.
Creative thinking is also used with the way to stack the boxes. We wanted to showcase several combinations of box towers. We did a couple of obvious towers that we knew would be easy to bowl over. Then we had to think creatively to try new ideas. So really we were taking risks with trying out our different ideas. Some ideas worked better than others and by the end of filming, we were very sure of which towers tumbled the best.
Let’s talk about the big blue ball with the cheeky grin! We had a bit of fun with that. Neither of us is sporty so we certainly were not the experts when it came to the power and aim of the ball. You will see some magnificent box tumbles but you will also see a couple of, dare I say it, duds! We have left those in the video to show kids that you don’t have to be perfect every time. Have another go and try a different idea but keep going. Kids need to work out how to handle disappointment. They need to pick themselves up and give it another go. Well that’s what we did and we laughed at ourselves. In fact you can faintly hear us giggling at the end of the video.
Mr Cheeky Ball - laughing at our attempts
We learned a lot that day. Everything described above will help your child with future learning, both academic and non-academic. Best of all we learned about ourselves. We learned what we could do easily and what we weren’t so good at and that meant it was harder for us. That’s what will happen with your kids. They will learn about themselves and you will learn about your kids. So start collecting some boxes and give this outdoor play a go. We can confidently say that it’s a lot of fun! By the way, the kids in our family watched the video and we were hoping for their feedback. Well the verbal feedback didn’t happen. Instead the kids raced outdoors and challenged each other with tower demolitions which was the best feedback ever. Giving the idea a go. That's what it’s all about!
