. Writing in a note that, bhhefsftbs “I have no tolerance for any real, pretend, or imitated violence. The punishment is an out of school suspension,” the principal of Our Lady of Lourdes elementary school in Cincinnati, Joe Crachiolo, suspended a first grader for pretending to shoot another student with a pretend arrow in a […]
. UPDATE: eyfrsidizz TAG HAS BEEN REINSTATED! HERE’S A NOTE FROM THE SCHOOL DISTRICT ON ITS WEBSITE! District responds to concerns about tag September 25, 2015 – The ‘hands-off’ policy intended for unstructured play and recess however well intended, has led to confusion, false reporting and is clearly not supported by many staff and many […]
. A tiraateink dismaying letter followed by an infuriating news item. Aren’t you glad you got up today? Dear Free-Range Kids:  . My girlfriend and I were strolling through the Western North Carolina Nature Center. There’s a lovely climbing structure for the kids that is supposed to resemble a spider’s web. Though there is the usual soft […]
Occupational nnykfshrnz therapist Angela Hanscom is founder of the New England nature-based program TimberNook, and author of a bunch of fascinating articles, including “Why So Many Kids Can’t Sit Still in School Today.†Her latest piece is about how we’re inadvertently depriving children of the opportunity to learn how to use their muscles, which leads […]
Valerie adhfzzfasa Strauss at The Washington Post published this wonderful piece by Angela Hanscom, founder of TimberNook, a nature-based development program designed to foster creativity and independent play outdoors in New England. Here’s an excerpt. And since most schools do NOT have a forest at hand,  feel free to suggest ways to incorporate these ideas in an […]
The idea of arresting esassfsnty parents who let their kids play outside unsupervised just took another hit. Â Yoo-hoo, CPS! According to The Globe and Mail: A new Canadian study suggests there could be added health benefits for kids who play outdoors on their own or with their friends. Researchers analyzed data from a survey of […]
A rfsbksfbii little child (or two) shall lead us! Â Tamati Sagar and Aaron Jones (both 10) love climbing trees, but the practice is banned for safety reasons. The duo surveyed all the school’s parents and found about 90% of them were in favor of allowing their children to climb trees during break times. The […]
Readers — A bunch of you have been sending this ddiyhnzhan fantastic story from New Zealand, where a school abandoned its plans to build a fancy, new playground because there were just too many regulations and expenses. Instead, it decided to let kids play the old-fashioned way, by making their own fun. The results? Astounding. […]
Readers — Here is an actual letter from a school superintendent, sent in by a reader after she and her husband had asked why their kindergartener was getting  only getting one 20-minute recess per day. Writes the mom: I was told it was because of curriculum at first.  That seemed odd because we went from […]
Hi Folks! I appreciate this writer’s dilemma and asked Jill Vialet, the founder of Playworks , and author of the new book Recess Rules to respond! I love her organization and learned a bunch of almost uncannily fun games at a workshop they gave in NYC a few years back. (And I’m not much of […]
