PlayWisely

Last week Mason and I started taking a weekly, 30 minute PlayWisely class for the fall semester. As defined on their website, PlayWisely is the "fun, new innovative way to play while engaging your child's natural learning and movement ability". When I started researching the class, I learned just how important of a role "stimulating experiences play in developing a child's brain during the critical wiring period from birth through preschool". We signed up for this class with my friend Shelly and her son Hutcheson. There is one other boy in the class, Lucas, which is perfect because 3-4 kids/class is the ideal number to ensure each child receives the maximum benefit. It might be hard to believe that a weekly 30-minute session would be effective, but they stress that the intensity of these classes is the key. The child can accomplish so much in these brief sessions because of the pace and focus of the interactions.

Mason is enrolled in the Toddler 2 class (for ages 18-36 months and runner/jumper). Concepts at this level include age appropriate skills for attention recognition and memory as well as math, reading, language and communication skills. Age appropriate physical activities are also introduced for visual motor, gross motor and fine motor skills. Each class has a combination of flash cards and gravity-based physical activity. These aren't your typical flash card or physical activities. The flash cards go at a quick pace and have simple, but effective images requiring varying responses from the child on them. He's asked to use his right foot/left foot or right hand/left hand when he needs to identify an image. He surprisingly knows which is which - I think in his mind right hand/foot = the dominant one, and left hand/foot = the other one.  The physical activities are very focused on one element that will change each week. So far the first week was kicking and today was strength. There are stations set up so each child has their own to work at, and then they rotate. The class begins and ends with the flash cards and the physical activity is in the middle.

After the first visit I was very frustrated. I had never attempted such an intense activity that required so much focus from Mason and he didn't understand why he couldn't just play. Of course this challenged me to keep coming back so we can work on this and after just the second visit I can already see remarkable improvements. He now knows what to expect and seems to really enjoy this style of learning. It also teaches patience. Most of the flash card sessions are 1:1 with the instructor so two children have to wait their turn while watching another child partake in the activity.

I feel like I can't fully do this class justice. If you're interested in learning more, click here to visit their website or read this feature article published in a recent Dallas Child magazine.

Here are some pics from today!

Lucas in a 1:1 session and Hutcheson waiting patiently

Hutcheson and Shelly

Hutcheson identifying where the ladybug is on the patterned paper

The image starts in the center of a white page so the child can identify it, then gets harder to find as the cards progress.

Using his left hand. Although it looks like I'm doing it for him, I'm merely just assisting. He does all the work!

Today was strength, so he was pushing a weighted ball up a wedge towards me

Another pushing up the wedge exercise

In this activity there were different sized balls to carry up a wedge - this particular one was 5 lbs.!

All the boys at the end of the physical session

The class ends with alphabet and number cards in a group session. She goes through the alphabet quickly, then the sounds of the letters (which I realized I don't even know them all!), then counting with animals and other fun techniques.

Today's agenda