*previously published by Carly & Adam
We can inspire playful learning in our classrooms through the activities we plan, the materials we offer our students, and through the books we read. Play can be fostered when we play a game, introduce a fun new tool, or when we offer students creativity challenges.
Students enjoy different types of play. Some will prefer physical play, while others might like creative play. Think about the different ways that you can infuse playful experiences into your classroom.
Books are a great way to provide inspiration and share playful ideas with your students. Any of these books could be a perfect read aloud selection or an introduction to a playful activity that you offer your students.
1. Run Wild by David Covell
This book will prompt students to put down their devices and head outside to explore the outdoors. The sights and sounds of nature are shared in this beautiful rhyming tale. Go outside for a nature hunt, search for insects and animals, or take photographs of plants and flowers. Look at the sky and feel the wind blow. Encouraging outdoor play will open new opportunities for students.
2. The Paper Kingdom by Helena Ku Rhee
A little boy spends the night in an office building where his parents work. There they pretend they are in the “Kingdom of the Paper King.” The parents tell a story of kings, queens, and dragons, entertaining their son while they clean the office. Students can create with paper too, folding, constructing, and imagining. Paper crowns, thrones, or swords, students can create their own imaginary kingdom right in your classroom!
3. Move! by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page
Full of different animal movements, this book will get students up and moving. Swinging, leaping, dancing, and climbing, students will have fun trying to do each movement. This book introduces some unusual animals and interesting opportunities to move. Incorporate animal movements for a brain break or as a playful way to line up for lunch. Make your own game where hopping, slithering, and flittering are the way to navigate through the classroom space.
4. How to Find Gold by Viviane Schwarz
Anna and Crocodile head out on an adventure to find gold. Together, they draw a map to find their gold. Crocodile draws and tells a story about pirate ships and sea monsters. They head out to sea on their adventure until they find their treasure. Students will love the chance to create their own map. Trade maps with a friend and see if you can follow their directions to find the riches. Imagine the pirates are after your treasure. Write a creative story to tell what happens. Act out the story. You can even make props and costumes to go with it.
5. Please Bring Balloons by Lindsay Ward
This story will activate the imaginations of your students. Colorful illustrations of a wonderful carousel and the notes written by a polar bear to a young girl. Together, they fly over the town before arriving at the North Pole for a polar bear party.
6. What If . . . by Samantha Berger
This story will inspire students to write, draw and fold paper to tell stories. The young girl shares the creative ideas she will try: carving her chair into an airplane, painting on her walls, and removing the floorboards. Drawing in the dirt or making shapes in the snow, there is no end to her creative imagination.
7. Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg
A fun book that shows kids that it’s OK to get messy. Vibrant and colorful, our mistakes can turn into something amazing if we open our imaginations. Papers can tear and paint can spill, but there are always new possibilities that come from an oops. What kind of classroom mistakes can we turn into something creative and beautiful? Scraps of fabric, broken crayons, or pieces of cardboard can be transformed into something new.
8. Also an Octopus by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
A playful approach to storytelling, this quirky book about an octopus will make kids laugh while also inspiring them to write their own creative stories or build their own purple spaceship out of found materials, or plan a parade with musical instruments.
Pick a book!
There are so many great children’s books that inspire play and prompt students to get creative. These books (and so many others) can amplify play-based learning while also focusing on the joy of reading. Silly books, colorful books, and imaginative books are perfect to spark some play in the classroom.
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