Naturally curious, imaginative and creative, children learn by pretending and imitating and messing up, by trying and failing and succeeding, daring and surrendering—in other words, by playing.
During three decades engaged in musical play with children, I have been advocating on their behalf with the maxim, “Play is the work of the young child." Through creative play children make sense of the world and their place in it. I applaud the Ultimate Block Party for their efforts to create a unique play experience for children, along with an opportunity for adults to understand that children’s learning is founded in play. Raffi Cavoukian Singer, songwriter, author, and Founder, Centre for Child Honouring
In 2009, a small group of educators, business leaders, authors and researchers formed Play for Tomorrow to champion the importance of play in the lives of children. Conceived as a multi-tiered social movement, the groundbreaking initiative aims to ensure that all children are provided with the competitive skills necessary to succeed in the 21st Century global economy as well as build a public dialog to underscore the value of play in fostering lifelong achievement and social, emotional and physical well being.
Play for Tomorrow was founded by a consortium led by the Temple UniversityLearning Resource Network Program; University of Delaware, College of Education and Human Development; Children’s Museum of Manhattan; and Learn, Johns Hopkins University NeuroEducation Initiative and Brain Science Institute.
Play for Tomorrow is committed to working towards affecting policy and education delivery and overcoming the disconnect between what we know about learning and how we are teaching. The organization’s mission is to change attitudes, beliefs and practices how children learn among families, educators, child-care providers, pediatricians and policymakers.
Our Mission
The Ultimate Block Party aims to create a multi-pronged social movement that champions the importance of play and playful learning in children’s lives. We seek to ensure that all children are provided with competitive skills for the 21st century global world and to build a public groundswell about the value of play for fostering lifelong learning in the sciences and the arts. Our mission is to affect policy about children and the way we deliver education in our society.
Click here to download a power point presentation about our mission.
Why Now?
The statistics are staggering. While we know that engaging children in learning through play and the arts is an integral part of how children learn, it is under siege. The major skills required for the 21st Century include collaboration, communication, content acquisition, critical thinking, creative innovation, and character. Research shows that playful learning provides an opportunity to build these skills in essential ways, yet:
- 40 million elementary school children will have no arts or music training in their schools this year. NPR2009. Fully 50% of children have no art training in 8th grade (NEA Report Card, 2008).
- Thousands of schools in the United States no longer have recess (Elkind, 2008). Researcher Anthony Pellegrini has documented how having recess helps kids learn. Turns out that the kids who miss recess the most are the poor kids who ironically need to learn the most to catch up to their more advantaged peers (NY Times, 2009).
- In last two decades children have lost an average of 8 hours of free play a week. The American Academy of Pediatricians call the decline of playtime a national crisis.
Read more about some alarming facts about play
Beyond the Block Party
The Ultimate Block Party is much more than a single event. Beyond the event itself will be the creation of several sustainable communications tools including a 21st Century web-based magazine called the Learning Resource Network, or L-rn. Inspiring a new way of thinking, L-rn will provide educators, parents, policy makers and others interested in healthy growth and development of children with timely, relevant topics. Becoming is an inspiring book that brings how accomplished professionals played and how this contributed to their success.
