Do you struggle with getting your kids to play? Particularly, staying interested and engaged in play?

A study published in The American Journal of Play, noted that last 50 years has seen a sharp decline in children’s play. (Gray, 2011) Today’s kids have the largest toy collections in history, so why is it that our kids are playing less?

Parents are becoming increasingly challenged with supporting their children’s sustained play. Busy activity schedules, increasing demands of homework, and struggles of work-life balance make it difficult for families to carve out time for sustained, unstructured play at home. The decrease in free play can also be directly related to the increase of screen time: television, video games, “educational apps” and YouTube channels lure children in with their flashy, fast-paced, instantly gratifying platforms.

While most parents understand the benefits of play, and the importance of limited screen time, they are competing...

Valentine's Day is a special day that captures the hearts {and sweet-teeth} of our children, and is a day that holds so much possibility for dialogue about love, kindness and friendship.

Children of all ages love to receive and create their own handmade Valentines, and inside my latest YouTube video, I'm sharing several {new!} process-art techniques for creating Valentines cards for sharing, and ways to extend these invitations to include beginning writing.

 But how do we extend our children's Valentine's art to also encourage writing?

Begin with mind-mapping exercises (brainstorming), where you create a bubble map of children's ideas about love / kindness / friendship.

Some ideas for brainstorming:

• People we love
• What is Love?
• What does kindness look like / sound like / feel like?
• What does it mean to be a good friend?

These brainstorming moments are a great way to initiate our kids' prior knowledge. This...