How to Spark Independent, Solitary Play (STREW FOR SOLO PLAY)

0:00 - All right guys. Let's get some play happening in your homes. I know that this is a big reason why many of you have joined me here and joined me in general and I know that you know that this is what I teach in-depth inside my membership Present Play which is opening soon and you are so invited to join me, but before we even get to Present Play opening. It only happens once a year and that's still a ways off.

0:22 I wanna talk to you about reclaiming play right here, right now with one of the most potent tools that exists which is strewing. Okay, what is strewing? Strewing is a tool borrowed from Reggio Emilia, sometimes you can see it in other schools of pedagogy as well such as Waldorf, but it's basically an idea of leaving out a play prompt. Okay, this is just a fancy way of saying setting up some toys. Setting up some toys in new and interesting ways.

0:49 It doesn't have to be toys, it could be art materials, it could be kitchen items, it could be just loose parts that you have lying around that your kids could play with, but the idea is to set up something that will pique your kids' curiosity and you wanna be doing this while your kid is busy doing something else, sleeping or watching a movie or playing with something else. You kind of just take out some of their toys.

1:11 Say they have animals right? Animals or dolls or whatever and you set them up in a scene. So maybe you make all the horses stand in a row, maybe you build a full-blown castle. You could get as fancy or keep it as simple as you want, but the idea is that you're child suddenly sees their toys, oh, what's that? And they see it set up in a new way and it piques their curiosity and draws them in.

1:32 It entices them. It's a seductive tool that gets them interested in play. So that's was strewing is and that's why you should try it, and your challenge today is to set up what I call an imaginative strew, okay? There are all sorts of strews, messy play strews, movement plays strews, focus time strews. Lots of different ways to strew things out and get our kids juices flowing, but this is one of the easiest things to do. It will take you less than five minutes and it may just get your kids into some deep play.

2:03 Now it may not and you mustn't take it personally, okay? Pinky promise, you don't take it personally if your kids don't bite? You just keep trying, okay? So grab a tray, put it out somewhere that maybe your kid doesn't usually play like the coffee table or, I don't know, on the floor somewhere and just set out a little scene, a little farm scene, maybe a doll's tea party, maybe the trucks all in a row, whatever, something that they haven't seen for awhile and if you wanna get really smart about this, you can grab some toys out of that rotation that they haven't seen in a week or so and put them in now and see how that spruces up their play.

2:42 Don't forget to snap a picture and share this out with a hashtag play pandemic and don't forget to share this with your friends. We're having a contest, we got some juicy prizes, we've got the Spielgaben, and the Grimm's Rainbow, and apparently others and there are gonna be huge winners for those who do this and share their video and join Present Play and so don't forget to do that 'cause I love seeing them, I love sharing them with everybody else and it creates this sense that we're all in this together and that it's spreading just as wildly as the coronavirus itself, but doing all good and no harm.