photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Those of you who have met me “in real life” know I’m nothing if not enthusiastic (and, I’ll admit, sometimes overly so.) I’m a chronic abuser of the word AMAZING (sorry, Bud) and I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with multiple exclamation marks (!!!). But within minutes of exploring PlayfulLearning.com after a tweet by my friend and colleague Alec Couros, I knew it was one of the most amazing, important, relevant, fun, original, and powerful websites about elementary learning I’ve ever seen!!!

Ok, so this is why…

Playful Learning is the brainchild of Mariah Bruehl, a full-time mom who happens to be a well-educated, well-read, experienced classroom teacher, administrator, curriculum developer, artist, entrepreneur, photographer and all-around SuperMom of two adorable daughters aged 4 and 6.  (Those are not her kids above; the wonderful images in her Flickr Stream are not Creative Commons licensed so I can’t use them here.) She has turned her home and its surrounding environs into a wonderful place of learning and exploration. The best part: she’s documented it ALL for you to use at home or in the classroom!

(not shown: categories of  Well-Being, Dramatic Play, and Seasonal)

You must experience this website. Mariah beautifully guides her children’s exploration of these topics, asking questions, taking photos and shooting videos along the way, documenting every step of the process, resulting in absolute gems like these:

Everything about the website is first-class. The design, the content, the navigation, the purpose, the photography, the subjects, everything. But … you may be thinking … what does this possibly have to do with an elementary computer lab?

Quite a bit, actually.

My friend and colleague Gary Stager often chides me for “using too much software” in my lessons. While that may seem somewhat preposterous (after all, I have 26 computers in my lab, and they’d be useless without software), I know exactly what he means. My lessons need to be more hands-on, more personally relevant, more constructivist, less “computer-y.”

And now, thanks to Mariah, I have the means. Her site is The Mother Lode of lesson ideas!

photo credit: Hamed Saber

As I surf through her site I see lesson after lesson that I could, with readily available materials and some simple modifications, use in my lab. Imagine an entire class of students, lying on their backs in the cool green grass of our school athletic field, passing digital cameras between themselves to take photos of the sky, to be brought into computer lab and annotated, perhaps into a Voicethread then shared with the class? How about teams of students heading off in search of ant colonies, armed with a tasty crumb or two, to observe (under my watchful eye of course), photograph and report on what they see and encounter, perhaps recording the experience with one of our Flip Video cameras?

The mind boggles!!!

PlayfulLearning.com is easily one of the most important websites I’ve reviewed this year, if not ever in the history of this blog. It is inspirational, exemplary, easy-to-understand, fun, and generally awe-inducing. It is going to help me tremendously as I plan lessons for the coming year. Even if I can use one of Mariah’s ideas a month, I’ll be heading in the right direction – one that centers on the learner, experiencing the world around them, and using technology to make that experience even more meaningful.

Can you tell I’m already excited about getting back to school?!?

-kj-