Summer Blog Series 2023:
Summer, the Libraries & PLAY #5

The last installment of our 2023 Summer Blog Series is from returning guest blogger Elizabeth McChesney.

Playing for Higher Stakes: The Human Rights Game

Learning through board game play dates back thousands of years and has many strategies and outcomes. In Victoria, Australia, Hugh Kingsley, Educationalist and Founder of The Brainery®, believes gameplay is an excellent educational tool. “I see it this way,” says Hugh with a twinkle in their eye, “If students are having fun, they are engaged, they are learning-that simple.” But what about a game that can help build empathy in youth, promote pro-social behaviors, and encourage freedom, equity, and dignity?

Building on his expertise as an educator and creator of learning tools, Hugh and his co-collaborator turned to co-creator, Andrea Chorney created a game that could address issues related to the record level of child and teen anxiety and where “mores, ethics, and values are learned from non-traditional sources often with materialistic and prejudice underpinnings.” Hugh continues, The Human Rights Game came from a shared place of desiring to help children learn right from wrong in a rapidly changing world. I put this argument into a letter addressed to the Director General of the United Nations, and about a week later, I received a reply. Now I’m thrilled the Human Rights Game is an approved resource available on loan from the resource library at the UN Geneva.”

The Human Rights Game is also available to educators, youth groups, schools, camps, and libraries. Although it can be played in a home setting, the best outcomes develop when played in a learning environment with a facilitator. It is a highly engaging, fun game that addresses the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 30 Articles and its three underlying pillars: Freedom, Equality, and Dignity.

Players ages 10+ engage with four decks of cards to discuss how they would handle potential ethical scenarios based on the 30 Articles. Bounce Back Cards add certain chutes and ladders elements related to environmental issues. “I hope the game will empower kids, teens, and adults and vest them to live within the UN’s healthy framework that recognizes freedoms and rights come with a responsibility to each other and the wider world.”

The game makers highly recommend a post-game discussion where facilitators ask questions and help clarify misunderstandings. This is followed by players’ extension activities that will help keep the learning about human rights alive and ongoing.

Hugh’s enormous heart and intellect are matched by his huge vision for the game:

“I believe that following a healthy behavior framework such as the UDHR 30 articles will lead to less racism, antisemitism, hate, bullying, and anxiety.”

About the Author: Liz McChesney served as the Chicago Public Library Director of Children’s Services and Family Engagement, where she earned numerous national awards, including the American Library Service to Children Distinguished Services Recipient. She now serves as the Community Partnerships Consultant to the Laundry Cares Foundation, where she helps build early learning in everyday spaces such as laundromats, WIC Centers, and family courts. She additionally serves as a Senior Advisor to the Urban Libraries Council and is a Senior Fellow at the National Summer Learning Association. In all these roles, play is at the center of her work. She has two books with the American Library Association, Summer Matters: Making All Learning Count (2017) and Pairing STEAM with Stories (2019). Her first picture book, Keke’s Super Strong Double Hugs, was published in 2020 and her forthcoming book, The Path Forward: Serving Children Equitably is forthcoming.

About the Summer PLAY Blog Series: This summer we are featuring some great PLAY resources with our 2023 Summer PLAY Blog Series, starring invited play partners as our content experts.  PLAY is important no matter what season it is…so NO SUMMER LEARNING LOSS here!  For 2023, we are reprising the Libraries & PLAY blog series.

Summer Blog Series 2023 – Summer, the Libraries & PLAY #4

Check out the next installment of our Summer Blog Series.  Guest blogger Noah Lenstra, PhD, shares a summary and review of a recent book that highlights the intersection of play and public librarianship.

PLAY Book Review – Simple Positive Play at the Library

Jennifer Ilardi. Simple Positive Play at the Library. Rowman and Littlefield, 2023.

If you are looking for a practical, inspiring book to get you excited about trying something new in your community, in your library, and with diverse community stakeholders, this is the book for you!

Jennifer Ilardi worked as a Youth Services Specialist/Librarian at the St. Louis County Library from 2008 to 2019. While working in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2016 Ilardi started Simple Positive Play, whose mission is “to help facilitate playful experiences for young people and their families while also promoting an engaged and informed community.” She holds a Master’s of Library and Information Science degree from Syracuse University and a post-graduate certificate in Youth Experience from the University of Maryland Library Science program.

In Simple Positive Play at the Library, Jennifer Ilardi uses her extensive hands-on experience to break down how and why to support open-ended play in libraries and in other community spaces by leveraging the power of community collaboration.

The past twenty years have seen increasing calls for librarians to support playful learning. But simply telling someone to start playing at their library can be overwhelming.

With her advice you too can turn your library, or really any public, community space, into a “playground where young people can utilize what they know to explore their interests,” as Ilardi puts it.

Her experiences developing Simple Positive Play were shaped by her visceral experience of the Ferguson Unrest, a series of protests in St. Louis County spurred by the fatal shooting of the unarmed African American Michael Brown on August 9, 2014.

In these fraught environment, Ilardi turned to play as a means of sparking positive, social change. Ilardi recalls in the book how when “I shared with someone I turned to for ideas that the space [for Simple Positive Play] would be in Ferguson … she told me not to follow through and said it was too unsafe” (p. 12).

Ilardi nonetheless persisted. She says of that time “When the protests in Ferguson delayed school starting in the Ferguson-Florissant School District, the only thing I could think of doing was more of what I had been doing all summer long. I asked my manager if I could use our meeting room space and I filled it with games and art supplies. I shared that I was at the library on Facebook as a way of letting some of the community I connected with know I was there and the space was there for them as they were trying to figure out what to do. So we played.”

Ilardi sees spaces for play as a critical social good – and she sees librarians as critical providers of that social good.

This book will be of use not only to librarians, but also to individuals seeking to do more in communities through collaboration with librarians, and to anyone seeking about how to use community spaces to create more opportunities for playful learning.

Ilardi unpacks her approach to Simple Positive Play across 12 chapters that focus on how to support open-ended play through the participatory design of public spaces, including libraries.

Chapter 7 and 9 focus on the “how” of how to do this work, with chapters on “collaboration,” “playwork,” and the “importance of stakeholders.”

The final chapter “The continuing evolution of Simple Positive Play” conveys Ilardi’s lessons learned from seven years developing this unique approach to play at the intersection of public librarianship and community development.

She closes the book with this powerful statement:

“Simple Positive Play, the concept and the organization, were inspired by libraries and those who work tirelessly to promote curiosity and innovation. As a free resource located in large and small communities all over the country, libraries provide opportunities for joyful exploration. The library is a playground where young people can utilize what they know to explore their interests and youth public library workers help facilitate that exploration by developing welcoming spaces and hosting programs to showcase ideas.”

Written in an accessible, engaging format, Simple Positive Play at the Library deserves to be widely read.

About the Author: Noah Lenstra, PhD, is Director of Let’s Move in Libraries and associate professor of Library & Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  Learn more about Noah at noahlenstra.com and follow him on Twitter at @NoahLenstra.

About the Summer PLAY Blog Series: This summer we are featuring some great PLAY resources with our 2023 Summer PLAY Blog Series, starring invited play partners as our content experts.  PLAY is important no matter what season it is…so NO SUMMER LEARNING LOSS here!  Noah Lenstra, Director of Let’s Move in Libraries, is reprising his Summer, the Libraries & PLAY blog series.  This summer Noah will highlight recent books on the intersection of play and librarianship.

Summer Blog Series 2023:
Summer, the Libraries & PLAY #3

By returning guest blogger Elizabeth McChesney (bio below), along with Bryan Wunar,  President and CEO of Discovery World (Milwaukee).

Playing Around with STEM and Literacy: Libraries Bring Together Learning through Play

Play as a public service is a global concept explored by public libraries. Library leaders worldwide convened in May 2023 in Aarhus, Denmark, for the NEXT Library Conference. The Aarhus Public Libraries, who created this conference, is a mecca for play and learning for people of all ages.  The role of play as a democratizing and essential public library service was one of the core pillars of the conference.

We were honored to present a session called Playing Around with STEM and Literacy  at the conference. In this session, we explored how playing, linked to scientific concepts and children’s books, can help build the flexible and agile thinking scientists and science-literate citizens need. Play can promote critical 21st-century skills: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity, and it can also help children to spark curiosity and informal learning and be successful working in diverse teams. It can also develop key cross-cutting science concepts laid out in the Next Generation Science Standards.

Playing with science or science play marries together some of the characteristics of play (active, risky, communicative, enjoyable, involved, meaningful, sociable, therapeutic, and voluntary) to  to best practices of scientific thinking (including persistence, curiosity, and perseverance). Open play allows children to explore concepts related to a scientific idea or principle. Examples include filling plastic cups with water in the bathtub or playing with how sound reverberates when a young child hits a kitchen pot with a wooden spoon. Directly connecting play to a scientific principle allows youth to make sense of the world around them. These examples show how a child utilizes both inquiry and observation in their play. Good science learning depends on taking chances, exploring the unknown, and being curious about how things work, fit together, or act upon one another. Science play promotes the habits of mind of effective 21st Century learners: those who can practice communication, collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving.

Our session at NEXT Library focused on two types of science play. First, we explored the engineering design process and how play can help us help a character in a book. Participants played with a way to use index cards to build a stable structure for the three little pigs to take cover from the blustering, big, bad wolf. In teams, we played with shapes in structures, what makes a stable foundation, and how to build a tower. This is an example of how libraries combine a children’s book with play and scientific concepts. Said Lena Sjornsen, Sweden: “Playing with these concepts is the best of hands-on learning and play. It is fun, but it also helps build vocabulary, solidify science knowledge, and even helps us build empathy for those little, lazy pigs!” We believe this type of scientific play also builds the skills needed to promote the language comprehension strand of the Scarborough Reading Rope which comes from the research we refer to as the Science of Reading. When we engage children in playful reading, we are helping to build background knowledge, vocabulary, language structure, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge. Casper Gurrensen of Finland said, “This makes so much sense to play with stories and extend them in these fun and informal science investigations. It takes the risk out of doing science and makes the play the center while children are learning all around the play.”

For our second experience, we used scientific background knowledge and habits of mind to help land a payload- a raw egg-without it breaking. Teams used materials, bartered with others, and played with how to drop or land something successfully. Scientific skills, including testing, observing, predicting, problem-solving, utilizing resources efficiently, collaborating, and iteration, are all displayed when children or conference participants try this project.

Connecting play to scientific concepts is a fun and effective way to learn in the summertime or anytime. Play is an enormous vehicle for learning and libraries and museums are wonderful places for the discovery and exploration that bring together science, and literacy through play. Discovery World in Milwaukee, WI, offers this extensive list  of science activities that can easily be adapted for kids of all ages to use in playful learning.

Photo descriptions:
Photo1 – Bear Slide outside the Dokk 1, Aarhus Library
Photo2 – Participants at Playing with STEM and Literacy build a stable structure. But can it withstand the weight of the wolf? Or in this case: a book about a wolf?
Photo3 – Raw eggs are loaded into a landing contraption at NEXT Library Festival, Aarhus, Denmark.
Photo4 – A team of new friends collaborate on their ‘egg-stronaut’ lander, “NEXT Egg.”

About the Author: Liz McChesney served as the Chicago Public Library Director of Children’s Services and Family Engagement, where she earned numerous national awards, including the American Library Service to Children Distinguished Services Recipient. She now serves as the Community Partnerships Consultant to the Laundry Cares Foundation, where she helps build early learning in everyday spaces such as laundromats, WIC Centers, and family courts. She additionally serves as a Senior Advisor to the Urban Libraries Council and is a Senior Fellow at the National Summer Learning Association. In all these roles, play is at the center of her work. She has two books with the American Library Association, Summer Matters: Making All Learning Count (2017) and Pairing STEAM with Stories (2019). Her first picture book, Keke’s Super Strong Double Hugs, was published in 2020 and her forthcoming book, The Path Forward: Serving Children Equitably is forthcoming.

About the Summer PLAY Blog Series: This summer we are featuring some great PLAY resources with our 2023 Summer PLAY Blog Series, starring invited play partners as our content experts.  PLAY is important no matter what season it is…so NO SUMMER LEARNING LOSS here!  For 2023, we are reprising the Libraries & PLAY blog series.

Summer Blog Series 2023 – Summer, the Libraries & PLAY #2

Check out the next installment of our Summer Blog Series.  Remember, PLAY is important no matter what season it is…so NO SUMMER LEARNING LOSS here! Guest blogger Noah Lenstra, PhD, shares a summary and review of a recent book that highlights the intersection of play and public librarianship.

PLAY Book Review – The Library as Playground: How Games and Play are Reshaping Public Culture

Leorke, Dale, and Danielle Wyatt. The library as playground: How games and play are reshaping public culture. Rowman & Littlefield, 2022

Australians Dale Leorke and Danielle Wyatt recently wrote and published an entire book on the topic of the library as playground.

In this book they explore how games and play are reshaping the design, spaces, programming, and even the daily life of public libraries in Australia, Singapore, and Finland.

Having backgrounds in urban design and planning, Leorke and Wyatt are particularly interested in both permanent and temporary transformations in public library spaces, particularly things like gaming zones, makerspaces, escape rooms, LARPs (live action role-playing games), and other immersive play experiences supported by public libraries in those three countries.

The opening chapter – “Play in Public Culture” – sets the stage by discussing how play has become more ubiquitous as a concept. We now think a lot more about the importance of play in our daily lives, in our urban planning, in our leisure time, and in our digital culture.

This increasing ubiquity of the idea of play shapes how public librarians approach their work. Public libraries are not islands but instead reflect and shape public culture.

As games and play continue to become more central to our culture, the library as a broker and advocate for playful spaces, places, and nourishment grows in importance.

How has play and public librarianship been coming together in Singapore, Australia, and Finland?

Based on their ethnographic research, Leorke and Wyatt find that “play has become more prominent, more varied, and more expansive in library spaces” (p. 121).

The authors discuss how in Finland playful librarianship has included developing new library collections that include snowshoes, ice hockey gear, and trekking poles, which the authors say “echo[es] Finnish culture’s deep roots in the outdoors and nature” (p. 43).

Chapter 3, “The Well-Played Library,” features different modalities of games in libraries: digital games, tabletop and physical games, and immersive games.

Chapter 4 on “the spatial and temporal transformation of libraries” includes sections on gaming zones, children’s/teen zones, makerspaces, and playful architecture.

Chapter 5 on “partners in play” looks at how public librarians work in collaboration with those in the gaming industries in Melbourne and Helsinki, and it also includes a section on how library facilities seek to “integrate traditional areas for play in the city-parks, playgrounds, and public squares-into [library] spaces and services” (p. 87).

Chapter 6 concludes the book with a call to action to put play at the center of our understanding of public librarianship.

Anyone interested in understanding how play has become more ubiquitous around the world would find this book to be valuable reading. The book also suggests possibilities not only for the integration of play into public libraries, but also for any public spaces.

This is the first of two blog posts I’ll be writing this summer on recent books that highlight the intersection of play and public librarianship.

My next blog post will focus on Simple Positive Play at the Library, a new book written by an American public librarian that just came out in Spring 2023.

The Library as Playground: How Games and Play are Reshaping Public Culture. By Dale Leorke & Danielle Wyatt. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022. 149 pp.

About the Author: Noah Lenstra, PhD, is Director of Let’s Move in Libraries and associate professor of Library & Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  Learn more about Noah at noahlenstra.com and follow him on Twitter at @NoahLenstra.

About the Summer PLAY Blog Series: This summer we are featuring some great PLAY resources with our 2023 Summer PLAY Blog Series, starring invited play partners as our content experts.  PLAY is important no matter what season it is…so NO SUMMER LEARNING LOSS here!  Noah Lenstra, Director of Let’s Move in Libraries, is reprising his Summer, the Libraries & PLAY blog series.  This summer Noah will highlight recent books on the intersection of play and librarianship.

This summer, we are kicking off our 2023 Play Date Tour in Philadelphia, with hosts Studio Ludo and Smith Memorial Playground.  The Philly Play Date will tackle topics that lay the foundation for the whole 2023 Play Date Tour.

Preserving & Promoting
the Right to PLAY
Friday, July 14 – Philadelphia, PA
Smith Memorial Playground

Topics include:

• Why Play – How Play Impacts Social, Emotional, Physical and Mental Health Throughout Life
• Who Gets to Play? How Race, Income and Class Impacts Access to Play and Quality of Play
• Places to Play – Exploring Spatial Justice, Urban Design and Access to Play Spaces
• Play as Solution – Examining Play as It Relates to Public Policy and Advocacy & Play as a Source for Community Health Solutions

Speaker details and Registration information is below.

Meet Our Philly Play Date Experts

(listed in alphabetical order):

Jen De Melo, Vice President, Organizational Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, Kaboom – Jen has committed her career to ensuring that every kid has equitable access to high-quality and safe play opportunities. In her current role, Jen works to provide responsive and innovative program solutions that meet the varying needs of kids and communities. Her expansive knowledge of play solutions and their benefits stems from leading hundreds of play infrastructure projects across North America, managing programs totaling over $20 million in grant dollars, and creating new cutting-edge programs.

Rebecca Fabiano, Founder and Executive Director, Fab Youth Philly (Philadelphia) – For nearly 25 years, Rebecca has worked in various capacities across nonprofit and youth-serving organizations, served on boards and helped to build solid youth programs that engage, encourage, and create spaces for positive development. As an executive leader, she has successfully raised funds and managed program budgets; hired and supervised staff; developed and sustained strong community partnerships and designed award-winning programming.​

Alex Gilliam, Co-Founder and Director of Design + Learning, Tiny WPA (Philadelphia) – Alex is the co-founder of Tiny WPA, whose mission is to build better designed spaces and stronger, healthier, and more equitable places in Philadelphia by supporting citizen-led design improvements throughout the city as well as creating significant opportunities for residents to learn, earn, and lead in the design and making of their communities.  Alex believes that great design, rich learning, citizen-driven innovation, play, and equity building are not mutually exclusive but deeply interconnected. He is redefining the way youth and adults participate as citizens and leaders in the design and building of their city and communities. He is widely recognized as an expert on participatory design, loose parts and adventure play, placemaking, design-oriented workforce development programs, and K-12 design education.

Deb Green, Executive Director, Parent Infant Center (Philadelphia) – Deb is a seasoned early childhood professional with over 40 years in the field. For the past 10 years, Deb has served as the Executive Director of the Parent Infant Center (PIC), a nonprofit, NAEYC accredited and Keystone STARS 4 childcare and school age program.  PIC serves 350 children in an urban neighborhood in West Philadelphia and has a focus on nature-based education.  Deb has held several leadership positions in early childhood programs and has taught courses in Early Childhood Education at Community College of Philadelphia.

Daniel Hatcher, Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, Alliance for a Healthier Generation (Washington, DC) –During his time at Healthier Generation, Daniel has developed and led a national youth advisory board and helped create afterschool standards for healthy eating and physical activity. A nationally recognized workshop facilitator, he has spoken at education and youth development conferences in over 30 states and Canada. Previously, Daniel served as Director of Outreach at Youth Service America where he supported a youth advisory council and helped organize Global Youth Service Day.  In 2022, Daniel was certified in Mental Health First Aid and became a certified Nature and Forest Therapy Guide.

Zero Jones, Director, Smith Urban Nature Preschool (Philadelphia) – Zero is incredibly excited to be the founding director of Smith Urban Nature (SUN) Preschool!  With a deep commitment to liberatory practices, Zero has been dreaming of starting a school since their own childhood. They’ve been playing musically and artistically with kids of all ages for over a decade. They also research, present, and consult on self-directed education, expressive arts, and place-based learning. Zero loves playing a variety of instruments, as well as embroidering, reading, and keeping pet slugs.

Danielle Marshall, CDP, ACC, Founder of Culture Principals (Baltimore) – Danielle is an inclusive leader focused on systemic change work that promotes equity and inclusion.  She founded Culture Principles in response to a persistent need to operationalize Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion metrics, centering REDI goals and creating accountability systems.  She co-created and co-facilitates “Reimagining Racial Equity,” a learning intensive for business leaders to learn how to infuse the work of racial equity into their organizations and lives.  Previously Danielle served as a non-profit leader in the play and youth development field for 20+ years. In fact, she is a past member (and forever advisor!) of the US Play Coalition Steering Committee.  During her playtime, you can find Danielle traveling, knitting sweaters, and kayaking in all 50 states.

Tia Mathisen, Executive Director, Playworks Pennsylvania and co-founder of the Philly Children’s Movement (Philadelphia) – Tia is the new Executive Director of Playworks Pennsylvania and the co-founder of the Philly Children’s Movement. As a social-justice facilitator she is committed to educating families and youth on how to create a more just world for black and brown people.  A native of Birmingham, Alabama, and mom to three, Tia has lived in Philly for well over a decade and has planted intentional roots to call this city home. Tia was the executive director of the Mt. Airy Business Improvement District, the managing director for the Philadelphia Citizen and most recently the executive operations manager for B Lab Global. As a co-founder of the Philly’s Children’s Movement, she is a social justice advocate, and facilitator. She is an advocate of civic engagement as a vehicle to expand minds and improve society, and an optimistic believer in the common good. Her favorite childhood game was Duck, Duck Goose!

Patrick Morgan, First Deputy Commissioner, Strategy & Engagement, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation – In his current role, Patrick provides leadership for Business Development, Special Events, Leadership Development & Training, Performance Management and more. He initiated the creation of a citywide civic engagement strategy working with partners and community groups across public spaces. As part of this work, Patrick helped lead a partnership with the William Penn Foundation to pilot a new national initiative in Philadelphia – Reimagining the Civic Commons – which has now been replicated in Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, and Akron.

Michael Nutter, Former Mayor of Philadelphia – After serving almost 15 years in the Philadelphia City Council, Michael became the 98th Mayor of Philadelphia in 2008. He pledged to lower crime, improve educational attainment rates, and make Philadelphia the greenest city in America. Since leaving public service in 2016, he has remained active in public policy, government, and civic life. In affiliation with the National League of Cities, Mayor Nutter and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu launched Cities United, an initiative aimed at creating partnerships between cities, non-profits, and other stakeholders to combat violence and crime among African-American men and boys. He has also served on President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Advisory Council.  Mayor Nutter has been a political commentator for CNN and PBS Newshour and is a Senior Fellow and national spokesperson for the What Works Cities program through Bloomberg Philanthropies. 

Ivy Olesh, Vice President, Field Operations, Playworks (Philadelphia) – Ivy is passionate about public education and supporting school aged children through play.  She is an experienced nonprofit executive  with professional experience ranging from work with organizations in psychology and social science, to economic development, to health and wellness and her passion is helping organizations and projects scale through efficiency, good strategic planning and strong team culture.  Ivy is a proud parent and a civic leader, volunteering and serving on boards that focus on recreation, public space and play, public education and public art. She also served on the Board of Directors for Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse.

Peg Oliveira, PhD, Director, Gesell Program in Early Childhood, Yale Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University – Peg is an advocate for fair pay for early childhood educators, childcare assistance for working parents, and equitable access to high quality education for all children. Prior to her work with Gesell, Peg was a Senior Policy Fellow with CT Voices for Children as well as a consultant to the Office of Early Childhood and other child advocacy organizations. Peg is a member the Board of Directors of the Becket Chimney Corners YMCA, and was the founding director of 108 Monkeys, a nonprofit yoga service organization.

Harrison Pinckney, PhD, Assistant Professor, Penn State University – Harrison is an educator who is committed to the protection of souls of Black youth. He works with communities to understand how the racial identities of Black youth are shaped and seeks to understand how recreation can be leveraged to positively impact this process. A member of the steering committee, Harrison is a very active contributor to the Play Coalition, serving on our Play Research Team to provide expertise as needed and headlining our Play Conference and other partner events, most notably the groundbreaking 2018 keynote on the implications of race on play for youth of color.

Suzanne Flannery Quinn, PhD, Manager, KOMPAN Play Institute, Americas – At KOMPAN, Suzanne conducts research on active outdoor play on playgrounds.  She was formerly a Senior Lecturer and Programme convener of the MA Early Childhood Studies at the University of Roehampton, London, Froebel College, where she was a research member of the Early Childhood Research Centre. Suzanne is involved in international research on a range of issues related to young children, their families, and pedagogues who work with children and families, with particular focus on active outdoor play on playgrounds. Suzanne has expertise in Froebelian pedagogic principles, particularly those related to play, materials, activities, and environments. 

Danielle Scott, Founding Executive Director, Pincus Family Foundation (Philadelphia) – Danielle is passionate and devoted to the Pincus Family Foundation’s mission of serving children and addressing their challenges in Philadelphia and abroad. She is also a longtime supporter of Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse.  Danielle has a career spanning over 35 years supporting employers in politics, real estate, corporate and business law, event planning, fundraising, and art. The past 25 years have been spent with the Pincus Family Foundation, 12 of those as the founding ED.

Kira Strong, Executive Director, City of Philadelphia’s Rebuilding Community Infrastructure Initiative (Rebuild) – Rebuild is an over $500 million historic investment in improving parks, recreation centers and libraries across the City. The program focuses on physical improvements, promoting economic inclusion by ensuring diverse businesses have access to work on Rebuild sites, and engaging residents and stakeholders to help determine the future of their facilities.  Before leading the program, she served as Rebuild’s Deputy Director of Design and Construction.  Kira previously served as the Vice President of Community and Economic Development for the People’s Emergency Center, a non-profit community development corporation in Philadelphia.

Meghan Talarowski, PLA, ASLA, CPSI, Founder and Executive Director of Studio Ludo (Philadelphia) – Meghan believes that play environments in the United States can, and should, be better. She is a landscape architect and certified playground safety inspector with over 20 years in the design field. Her research is on the impact of design on play behavior and physical activity and has been presented at conferences worldwide. Her work has been featured by The New York Times, Popular Science, The Atlantic, NPR, Curbed, Landscape Architecture Magazine, and World Landscape Architecture Magazine.

Deb Valentine, PhD, Life Coach/Consultant, Thriving 4 Equity (Baltimore) – Deb Shine Valentine is an expert on the history of play and play spaces in Philadelphia. Her research explores how race, class and gender shaped the play and place spaces that were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries at the beginning of the Play and Recreation Movement. A former early childhood teacher and administrator, now a life and leadership coach and author, Deb integrates play, movement, and critical inquiry into her work with individuals and organizations in service of the vision of a world in which work and play are integrated in all aspects of human life opening new creative possibilities for all individuals and communities to experience joy and delight in being alive, while doing their big work in the world.

Reilly Bergin Wilson, Co-Founder and Board Vice Chair, play:groundNYC (Philadelphia) – Reilly is a co-founder and the current Board Vice Chair of play:groundNYC, a non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the city through play. play:groundNYC’s playworkers’ run an adventure playground, The Yard on Governor’s Island, as well as repurposed-material play programming in schools and public spaces throughout New York City.  Reilly’s research on playgrounds and children’s mobilities has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the US-UK Fulbright Foundation, and the American Councils. Her research and play advocacy have been featured in national and local press, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, CBS News, Truthout, USA Today, and DISEGNO.

Register NOW for the 2023 Philly Play Date, Friday, July 14.

Registration is $75/Person.

A special group discount rate $15 off per person is available to nonprofits, educational organizations and government agencies who bring at least 5 employees from their organization to a single Play Date ($15 off per person). Please email usplaycoalition@clemson.edu for further details.

NOTE!  You can register for as many 2023 Play Date Tour Stops as you want to attend (Philly, Louisville, Fort Worth and Virtual) – they are all unique!  There is a $25 discount for someone registering for all four Play Dates ($240/person).

Sponsorship opportunities are available. Please email usplaycoalition@clemson.edu for information.

The 2023 Play Date Tour

This summer the US Play Coalition is kicking off a series of day-long “mini conferences” across the country with content that draws inspiration from the location and the play experts and practitioners in that area. Each “Play Date” is unique, and participants are welcome to register for one or all of them!

Our 2023 Play Date Tour will bring PLAY to new places and provide opportunities to engage with the broader play community, connect play advocates, educate our national and global community and truly fulfill our mission to promote the VALUE of play throughout life.

Summer Blog Series 2023 – Summer, the Libraries & PLAY #1

“Play, Learn, and Read with Your Local Librarians This Summer”

Across North America, public libraries offer a wide variety of opportunities for all ages to play, learn, and read during the summer months. This blog post features just a few of the events coming up in Summer 2023.

A common theme is that nearly every one of these examples is a community partnership. Public librarians don’t work by themselves. They work with communities to increase access to learning, to play, and to reading. I encourage you to suggest a playful partnership with your local librarians.

On Saturday June 10, 2023, the Charles County (Maryland) Public Library teams up with the Charles County Department Recreation, Parks & Tourism for All Together Now: A Summer Learning Kickoff Party. The event, organized in conjunction with the National Recreation & Park Association’s Family Health & Fitness Day, will feature live music, field games, physical activities for all ages, STEM learning opportunities, and opportunities to sign up the library’s Summer learning challenge.

“Every summer, the library has a summer learning and reading program for the community. This year we wanted to partner with the Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism to combine reading and fitness,” stated Kenneth Wayne Thompson, Executive Director of Charles County Public Library.

Checkout some other PLAYful events planned this summer in libraries in Michigan, Alabama, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and even Ontario, Canada:

• In Michigan, an annual block party returns to downtown East Lansing every Thursday night and East Lansing Public Library’s Library on the Go mobile pop-up library will be there along with giant Connect 4, cornhole, giant Jenga, ping pong, giant chess and more. “It’s just a really nice vibe,” said Brice Bush, with the East Lansing Public Library. “It’s a great opportunity to be in downtown without worrying about traffic because the street is closed and it’s just nice.”
• In Alabama, Mobile Public Library invites all to join them for a wide variety of activities for all ages including special performances, reading challenges, crafts, games and more. The grand prize for each age group in the summer reading challenge is a bicycle sponsored by Adventure Earth.
• In Oklahoma, the Miami Public Library ends Summer reading with a pool party. Library director Callie Cortner said, “They fall into that summer slump where they are not really doing much of anything, so we want to keep them reading, so we challenge them, they earn prizes for reading, they earn prizes for attending some of our events, and then at the very end we do a big pool party for everybody that has completed their goals.”
• In Ontario, Grimsby Public Library holds a Summer Reading Kickoff Party on Saturday, June 3 from 2 to 4 p.m. This fun-filled afternoon features a parkour obstacle course from Play Project Parkour, balloon animals from Halaloo, First Words Workshop, Llama Tutoring, popcorn, face painting, giant board games, an art activity, button-making, seed planting, bubbles and more! There’s something for everyone thanks to an abundance of community partnerships.
• In Nebraska, Grand Island Public Library kicks off its summer programming on Thursday, May 25. The teen summer learning kicks off with after-hours party set for 7:45 p.m. Monday, June 5, at the library. The library closes and doors lock at 8, but teens ages 11-18 can enjoy laser tag, food and more until 9:30 p.m. No registration is required and, of course, it’s all free!
• In Ohio, the Wood County District Public Library invites its community to outdoor family playtimes held throughout the months of June and July at Wooster Green. At these events, families can enjoy group games, activities with different community partners each week, dance, listen to music, and more. To sweeten the deal, family playtimes with librarians coincides with the City of Bowling Green’s Food Truck Thursdays.
• In Wisconsin, dozens of community organizations gathered at Safe and Sound Saturday on May 13 in Milwaukee to help youth get involved in summer programs. The Milwaukee Public Library joined the Milwaukee Police Department, the Milwaukee Health Center, community leaders for a day of dancing, activities, and food focused on connecting youth to opportunities to play and learn during the summer months.
• In Indiana, a children’s street fair complete with superheroes will kick off the Lebanon Public Library’s summer reading program on June 5. A street block will be closed down to make room for a petting zoo, inflatables, trucks to touch, airbrush tattoos, carnival games, an obstacle course, a special activity for toddlers, a scavenger hunt, prizes, and food, including free shaved ice for children. In addition to connecting with librarians, participants at the library’s block party can meet representatives of area non-profit organizations who will set up booths along the street.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what public librarians have planned for Summer 2023. Join us to play, learn, and read all summer long.

We encourage you to share how you play, learn, and read with your local librarians! Tag @USPlayCoalition or @LetsMoveLibrary on Twitter and other social media to share, or email me at njlenstr@ucng.edu.

About the Author: Noah Lenstra, PhD, is Director of Let’s Move in Libraries and associate professor of Library & Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  Learn more about Noah at noahlenstra.com and follow him on Twitter at @NoahLenstra.

About the Summer PLAY Blog Series: This summer we are featuring some great PLAY resources with our 2023 Summer PLAY Blog Series, starring invited play partners as our content experts.  PLAY is important no matter what season it is…so NO SUMMER LEARNING LOSS here!  In June, Noah Lenstra, Director of Let’s Move in Libraries, is reprising his Summer, the Libraries & PLAY blog series.  This summer Noah will highlight recent books on the intersection of play and librarianship.

Summer Blog Series
Play and Design #1

Making Space for Play

In 2015, my family was transferred to London. We packed up ourselves, our one-year-old, our two cats, and embarked on an adventure in a new city for six months. Knowing no one, and with little guidance on how to transition from full-time career to full-time caretaker, I started researching my options.

Luckily for us, London is a city designed for families. There are black cabs with seats that fold up so you can push a stroller straight inside, plentiful buses and trains with priority seating, rooms in all public buildings for changing and feeding, well-designed and maintained playgrounds within walking distance of most residents, and my favorite of all, children’s centers in every neighborhood.

At that time, the British government believed strongly in supporting not only children, but also their caregivers. The environment of the city reflected that belief and investment. Things were zoned for us, designed for us, and considered for us. Most playgrounds had cafes, for caffeine and snacks, and restrooms with baby changes in all gendered restrooms. The children’s centers had structured play times for all ages, and adult support groups with tea and information on children’s development. A key part of that development is play, but the key to great play is happy caregivers that allow it to happen.

Making space for play is not just about creating a place for play to happen. It is about making space within ourselves, giving time and energy, showing children love and support, and engaging with them in a way that allows play to flow freely. But that engagement cannot happen if that caregiver is not filled up themselves. You cannot pour from an empty cup. And far too many caregivers are down to their last drop.

Shortly after returning from London, I started a non-profit, Studio Ludo, with the mission of building better play through research, advocacy, and design. Our studies of play behavior span over 100 play environments in the US and UK and include data on the play habits of over 60,000 people. Our biggest finding is that more than half of people in playgrounds are not children…but teens, adults, and seniors. This resonates with us in a big way. How do we support and bring joy to this undesigned for half? How do we replicate the types of environments and experiences that I had as a caregiver, helping them to fill their cups and give them space to play?

We believe that everyone deserves a great place to play. And everyone means not just kids, but caregivers too. We design playgrounds with whole families in mind, with restrooms, and benches in the shade, and cafes, along with open-ended scaled-up swings and climbing structures that invite adults in on the fun.

We also know that play can happen anywhere, which is why we recently opened our loose parts play library, the Playbrary, overflowing with art supplies, toys, recyclables, cardboard, games, and other loose materials (think baskets of pez dispensers and rows of typewriters). Interspersed in the fun are comfy chairs, free coffee, and staff trained in play and development, happy to provide some adult conversation or play with your child while you rest.

While this may seem like a little slice of play utopia for the young people in your life, we believe it is essential for the grownups too. Caregivers deserve care. They are in the trenches, raising a generation on very little sleep and reheated coffee. Let’s make space for them. They are deserving of all the praise…and maybe a little play too.

About the Author: Meghan Talarowski is the Founder and Executive Director of Studio Ludo. Meghan believes that play environments in the United States can, and should, be better. She has degrees in architecture and landscape architecture, almost 20 years of experience in the design field, is a licensed landscape architect, and a certified playground safety inspector. Her research focuses on how the design of play environments impacts physical health and social behavior of children and caregivers. She has presented at TEDx Philadelphia, ASLA, AIA, IPA, the US Play Coalition, and Child in the City. She was a winner in the 2016 international Play Space design competition, a winner in the 2016 Kaboom Play Everywhere Challenge, and a finalist for two projects in the 2015 Knight Cities Challenge. She is a member of the steering committee for the US Play Coalition and a member of the board for Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse.

About the Summer PLAY Blog Series: This summer we are featuring some great PLAY resources with our 2022 Summer PLAY Blog Series, starring two invited play partners as our content experts; Liz McChesney and Meghan Talarowski. Our experts will be sharing blog posts with you throughout the months of July and August.

For our landscape architect friends, we are excited to announce the REBOOT of our Online LACES Play Series!  Earn up to 9 LACES credits online and ON DEMAND through August 10, 2022.

Thank you to our partner – the South Carolina Chapter American Society of Landscape Architects. These fine folks work hard to ensure we can provide LACES CEUs for the relevant conference sessions. Glad to have you on our Play Team, ASLA-SC!

Check out the list of LACES approved sessions:

• “All Ages, All Abilities, All the Time” – Jill Moore White
  Parks today face the challenge of providing environments where all visitors can feel safe, secure and fully engaged. Universal design increases usability, safety, health and social participation. In this presentation, participants will discover how applying the principles of universal design ultimately contribute to social equity and social sustainability in parks.
• “Designing Everyday Spaces for Children” – Shweta Nanekar, PLA, LEED AP (BD+C)
  How do we modify current approaches to the design of everyday spaces to make them more child-friendly? Available literature on child-friendly environments is reviewed to identify empirical research and project examples that can help designers and planners to create spaces that cater to the “Whole Child.”
• “Future of Play: Technology Integration” – David Flanigan, CPSI
  We all know that kids are spending countless hours in front of a screen, not only for gaming and social media, but due to COVID, many kids are attending school virtually. What will the future be like for kids if they are addicted to their screens and don’t want to go outside and play?
• “Healthy Communities, Parks and Splashpads” – Sarah Shepherd
  As demographics, inclusiveness and health concerns evolve, aging facilities need to step up their game to keep communities engaged and active.  Explore effective community infrastructure through the lens of aquatic play. Discover how Splashpads increase park usage, promote inclusion and build social capital that help communities grow and flourish.
• “The Importance of Failure in Play” – Melinda Pearson
  Failure is an inevitable part of life. By creating play spaces that push boundaries in thinking and stretch the limitations of our bodies we create a safe play to explore our failures and learn great things about our growing selves and our budding potential in the process.
• “Inclusive Playground Design:  A Case Study of Three New England Playgrounds” – Ingrid Kanics
  This presentation will share the research results of interviews with parents of children of all abilities around the design of three New England Inclusive Playgrounds. We will share what design features they feel make a playground inclusive and how these playgrounds impact the life of their communities, families and children.
• “Making Connections: People, Places, and Physical Activity” – Ines Palacios, PhD
  Discover planning and design considerations to increase community connectivity, offer more enjoyable ways to be physically active outdoors, and create multigenerational destinations that promote people’s health, happiness, and well-being. Effectively champion and advocate for solutions to provide more affordable, accessible ways to activate healthy lifestyles and increase economic vitality.
• “National Study of Playgrounds (2020)” plus a 2022 update! – Meghan Talarowski, MLA, CPSI, and Deborah A. Cohen, MD
  The National Study of Playgrounds (NSP), a joint research project of Studio Ludo and Dr. Deborah Cohen, is the first observational study of playgrounds to compare the impacts of playground design on play behavior and physical activity across gender, age group, and socio-economic status.
• “Prototyping: Play Applied” – Aaron Goldblatt, Dana Schloss, Meghan Talarowski, Christopher Kircher
  Designers of all stripes occasionally use prototyping to test ideas and physical realities. This discussion advocates for moving the act from occasional to central to a practice and to understand it as an act of play. Designing through joyful exploration makes better spaces for everyone.

The LACES series is part of the online reboot of the 2022 Conference on the Value of Play: THE NATURE OF PLAY.

Summer Blog Series
Libraries & PLAY #1

True Play and Literacy Connect at the Library

Public Libraries across the country are pursuing play as a critical pathway to learning. Connecting play to the mission of the public library is just one of the many ways public libraries are moving beyond the bricks and mortar repository of books and into an active laboratory of experiential learning. This approach emphasizes risk-taking, problem-solving, and the four critical 21st Century Skills: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. True Play is one of the most compelling forms of play in public libraries.

The idea of True Play—embracing the child’s deep and uninterrupted engagement in the activities of their choice— was developed by educator Ms. Chen Queqin in the public early childhood programs of Anji County, China. Anji Play, Ms. Cheng’s approach to early childhood education centers around five fundamental principles: love, risk, joy, engagement, and reflection. This philosophy asserts the right to True Play is essential to every child and profoundly respects the capacity of the individual child to play and work with others. Programs that embrace this approach provide children with large and open-ended materials like ladders, tires, and planks to play with as they wish. Educators, including librarians, follow this philosophy and seek to create “spaces of love” where materials, the environment, and adult decision-making all respond to children’s needs and abilities, particularly their need to play without adult guidance, direction, or interruption. For that reason, educators who put this philosophy into practice observe children playing with the adults “hands down, mouth shut, and ears, eyes and heart open to discover the true child.” This approach allows children to take authentic risks, including physical, emotional, social, and intellectual challenges, to experience joy and maintain meaningful and authentic engagement.

The Madison Public Library has pioneered this critical form of play in community-based settings at its “Wild Rumpus” events. True Play events come from years of research, visits to Anji County in China, and the creativity of librarian Carissa Christner and the Madison Public Library team who has worked to bring these events to life at her library.

Says Carissa, “learning happens when you can explore something interesting to you at your own pace and time. For us, this was a meaningful connection to the five practices of Early Literacy: Talk, Sing, Read, Write, and Play.” At Madison Public Library, finding meaningful intersections in how people learn while respecting individual diversity is critical. Carissa says: “Play is the most universal and accessible early literacy practice for a diverse community of learners. True Play is critical to our equity efforts.” Holly Storck-Post at Madison PL is thinking about how to develop elements of True Play inside the library that will be meaningful for babies and toddlers. She is helping to establish Play Labs which combine aspects of Anji Play into spaces for the youngest library users. “Creating open-ended experiences inside the library for our youngest children helps us make our spaces accessible to the entire community.”

True play is offered in libraries across the country, including Washington State where Kitsap Regional Library Director Jason Driver says, “approaching play from a place of true respect for the child and the child’s learning is at the heart of this approach and critical for its success.” In Kitsap, True Play Jamborees are planned to “develop early problem-solving, risk-assessment, and collaboration skills, all while having a blast.” Says “Emmon Rogers, Youth Services Librarian: “during COVID, kids have had limited social and learning connections. We wanted to tap into play to develop kids’ ability to form social bonds and take physical and social risks, all necessary for healthy human development and learning. Anji Play allows us to build all these skills and helps develop critical social networks that have gone missing these past two years.” Also critical to COVID recovery is helping parents and caregivers relearn how to stay flexible and allow children to learn alternate paths to problem-solving. “COVID meant that only one pathway or tap root to social stability and learning was formed for kids,” says Emmon. “That was the family. At the height of COVID, our library’s greatest response was meeting basic needs like food. Now our greatest mission is fostering basic human social needs like connection, autonomy, agency, and social bonds.” Another aspect critical to the process of Anji Play is reflection. Reflection allows a child to close the learning cycle through digesting and understanding the play and its effects. Play stories are integral to the play process and can include dictation, writing or drawing the child’s stories, and photography or videography. Key to literacy development, the Play Stories develop numeracy, sequencing, vocabulary, inventive spelling, and narrative description. Professor Rebekah Willett, University of Wisconsin-Madison iSchool, and an observer of Madison Public Library’s True Play “The reflective component of Anji Play helps solidify some of the cognitive work that happens during play – both for the children and the parents. By pausing to observe and record play, participants can make explicit some of the implicit learning that happens during Anji Play.”

Bryan Wunar, CEO of Discovery World Science Museum in Milwaukee, WI, and noted STEM educator agrees: “Reflection allows learners to make meaning, analyze their actions and codify their learning. The type of reflection in True Play is also the habit of good STEM learners.” Reflection closes the learning cycle, and this process of Anji Play mirrors the Habits of Mind of a successful 21st Century learner. While True Play has many benefits for a growing learner, it is also a source of joy. Joy comes from risk-taking, problem-solving, working together, and being “in the flow.” Joy is intrinsic to learning and growing up to be a happy and well-adjusted person. Greg Mickells, CEO of Madison Public Library, may say it best: “True Play contains many elements fundamental to learning, including critical thinking, risk, and curiosity; but what I have witnessed with Anji Play is how important joy is to literacy. Having an opportunity that brings joy to learning should be an experience for all children.”

About the Author: Liz McChesney served as the Chicago Public Library Director of Children’s Services and Family Engagement, where she earned numerous national awards, including the American Library Service to Children Distinguished Services Recipient. She now serves as the Community Partnerships Consultant to the Laundry Cares Foundation, where she helps build early learning in everyday spaces such as laundromats, WIC Centers, and family courts. She additionally serves as a Senior Advisor to the Urban Libraries Council and is a Senior Fellow at the National Summer Learning Association. In all these roles, play is at the center of her work. She has two books with the American Library Association, Summer Matters: Making All Learning Count (2017) and Pairing STEAM with Stories (2019). Her first picture book, Keke’s Super Strong Double Hugs, was published in 2020 and her forthcoming book, The Path Forward: Serving Children Equitably is forthcoming.

About the Summer PLAY Blog Series: This summer we are featuring some great PLAY resources with our 2022 Summer PLAY Blog Series, starring two invited play partners as our content experts; Liz McChesney and Meghan Talarowski. Our experts will be sharing blog posts with you throughout the months of July and August.

Summer Blog Series – Libraries & PLAY #2

“Wash, Spin, and Play at the Laundromat”

Wash, spin, and…play? You may not think it, but all types of meaningful play are ‘bubbling up’ in the everyday space of laundromats. All across the country, local laundromats are teaming up to offer early learning through play in their facilities. The Laundry Cares Foundation, in partnership with the Too Small To Fail Initiative of the Clinton Foundation, supports this initiative to bring play to everyday spaces. The goal of the Laundry Literacy project is to bring transformed spaces, high-quality play materials, and beautiful children’s books along with trusted messengers from the community. Offering this to children who have a long dwell time during laundromat visits, a mundane yet essential family chore, allows for playful learning opportunities. “A core strategy of Too Small to Fail has been to transform everyday places into playful, literacy-rich environments that would delight and captivate children and provide support for their parents as well,” said Jane Park. Families typically spend about two hours at their local laundromat each week and return on a weekly cycle. “We see that the laundromat provides a critical space for families to continue their learning,” says Brian Wallace, CEO of the Coin Laundry Association. “Through Laundry Cares Foundation, we are transforming our space and outcomes for community kids. Play is essential to that effort,” Wallace continues. Literacy experts agree: “We know that play is learning; bringing play together with other early literacy initiatives and into everyday spaces is an impactful way to meet the needs of our communities,” says Brian Bannon, The Merryl and James Tisch Director at the New York Public Library where he oversees educational initiatives. Partnerships with public libraries to provide story times, open play, and play-based learning opportunities is an essential element of this work. The New York Public Library
has been fundamental in bringing early literacy activities to area laundromats.

Over 200 laundromats across the country have transformed empty corners or unused areas of their stores by installing a highly curated ‘kit of parts’ called the Family Read, Play, and Learn spaces. These spaces contain a child’s table and chairs, a small couch for a parent and child to read or play together, and many fun ways to learn and play. “Providing high-quality materials that encourage open play and exploration in a transformed space is essential for a lasting impact,” says Marisa Conner, Early Childhood Consultant to Too Small To Fail. Blocks, puppets, building shapes, magnetic letters, and a play washing machine are all a part of these installations and serve to increase child engagement and instances of play in the space. In fact, pre-eminent early literacy researcher Dr. Susan Neuman of New York University has been researching this project for over five years and has found that transforming the space of the laundromat alone can change outcomes for kids: children were observed engaging in thirty times more literacy activities in laundromats that include the prototype kit compared to laundromats without the kits. “Children are eager and ready to learn,” states Dr. Neuman, “and the laundromat can be a place of immense learning through play, books, and language.”

Ongoing learning initiatives are also rolled out through the participating laundromats. This summer, in partnership with author Sandra Magsamen, the laundromats have been promoting play connected to Sandra’s new book, I Wish Wish Wish For You. This is a national summer learning initiative of Laundry Cares in partnership with Sandra Magsamen Studios and Source Books Publishing. “This book is about all the dreams we have for our children. This is a critical time for us all to wish for our children and to hear and understand our children’s wishes for the world,” said Sandra as she launched this book and the World of Wishes Campaign at the National Summer Learning Association last fall. Through bilingual posters placed in participating laundromats, children are guided to build a city using the Read, Play, and Learn Space building blocks. Other prompts encourage children to find a bubble in the washers and make up a story imagining it taking off into the world. Liz Terrell, Early Childhood Consultant for the Laundry Cares project who worked on this national summer initiative, says, “Guiding play around this beautiful book and the environment of the laundromat helps children draw meaning and make connections, which is how children learn and grow.” Additionally, child-directed play in the laundromat is encouraged year-round. This play allows the child to take control of their play, own the ideas, and have power in the process.

In July the Laundry Cares Foundation offered a five-site Free Laundry and Literacy Day throughout metropolitan Atlanta. Free laundry was provided to help families get ready for the start of school and ribbon cuttings occurred in these laundromats’ on five new early learning sites. The day was filled with playful learning as children created their wishes and played with bubbles. “I like to play,” said eight-year-old Tala-hisha, “but sometimes I don’t get to because I have to help my Mom.” The new laundromat space will allow her and her family and other kids just like her time and space to dedicate to play and reading while the wash is spinning.

Other play initiatives in the laundries have included a partnership with Sidewalk Math that allows children a contract-free way to learn mathematical patterns while hopping, skipping, and jumping on math-pattern games placed on the laundromat floor. This was accompanied by a deck of math concept cards which were created by Highlights Children’s Magazine. The cards promote games that draw on math concepts such as shapes, sorting, and counting. The Highlights math decks were distributed to over 5,000 families across the country at the height of COVID. “The laundromat is a great place to learn math,” said Dan Naumann, Executive Vice President of the Laundry Cares Foundation, “Sidewalk math and the early childhood math cards are great examples of how guided play can promote learning in our stores. Laundromat owners know that transformed space is not only good for business, but it’s also good for kids, and that matters to us.” Philadelphia laundromat owner of The Laundry Cafes, Brian Holland, echoes that sentiment by saying, “play is at the heart of equitable learning in our communities. Using our everyday spaces-Laundromats- to help our children and our communities flourish is what matters most.”

For more information on how to bring play to a laundromat near you, please reach out to Liz@Laundrycares.org.

About the Author: Liz McChesney served as the Chicago Public Library Director of Children’s Services and Family Engagement, where she earned numerous national awards, including the American Library Service to Children Distinguished Services Recipient. She now serves as the Community Partnerships Consultant to the Laundry Cares Foundation, where she helps build early learning in everyday spaces such as laundromats, WIC Centers, and family courts. She additionally serves as a Senior Advisor to the Urban Libraries Council and is a Senior Fellow at the National Summer Learning Association. In all these roles, play is at the center of her work. She has two books with the American Library Association, Summer Matters: Making All Learning Count (2017) and Pairing STEAM with Stories (2019). Her first picture book, Keke’s Super Strong Double Hugs, was published in 2020 and her forthcoming book, The Path Forward: Serving Children Equitably is forthcoming.

About the Summer PLAY Blog Series: This summer we are featuring some great PLAY resources with our 2022 Summer PLAY Blog Series, starring two invited play partners as our content experts; Liz McChesney and Meghan Talarowski. Our experts will be sharing blog posts with you throughout the months of July and August.