Articles

Recess, The Final Frontier

2008-05-28T18:38:01Z

[This post is the third and last in a series by Mark Powell. In the first two posts Mark described the incredible fort play phenomenon he observed while working at Lexington Montessori School in Massachusetts. Read them here and here. All three posts are edited extracts from Mark Powell’s thesis “The Hidden Curriculum of Recess”.]

Recess beckons well before it actually arrives. Its allure can be heard in children’s lunchtime conversations as they discuss imaginary roles, plans, alliances and teams with an appetite as hungry for play and its unbounded possibility as for food. For some …

Frowning and Fighting: The Laws of Fort Play

2008-05-16T00:30:00Z

[This post is the second in a series on fort play by Mark Powell. In the first part, he describes how the children at Lexington Montessori School in Massachusetts began building and playing in forts at recess. Both posts are edited extracts from Mark Powell’s thesis “The Hidden Curriculum of Recess” in which he writes in detail about the fort play phenomenon he studied while at LMS. A third post in this series will appear shortly.
*All names used are pseudonyms.]

As a lower elementary teacher at Lexington Montessori School in Lexington, Massachusetts from 1994 through 2002, I witnessed …

Pick-Up Touch Football!

2008-05-05T22:58:00Z

Pick-up touch football game isn’t completely gone. At my son’s elementary school (Hillcrest) in Oakland, it’s been a busy year for recess and after school touch football among the fourth graders. The year started with lots of excitement about playing football during recess. Soon I started hearing about some of the issues/problems: they couldn’t agree on the rules, ‘Jimmy’ hogged the ball all the time, ‘Sammy’ was terrible and no one ever picked him. I chuckled a little at these traumatic events, but was inwardly so pleased that the boys had to deal, mostly by themselves, with these …

Neighborhood Reviews

2008-05-01T00:24:00Z

See those house icons on the map above? Each one represents a home for sale in the Berkeley area. By clicking on one, you get a popup that gives you the address plus three links to:

details about the home
a form to submit a review of the neighborhood around the home
Neighborhood Reviews, if any have been submitted

Also, note that the “Neighborhood Reviews” located below the map lists all homes for sale in text.

Since we just launched this site, we need reviews! Once we have many reviews, this site will become a valuable resource for families seeking homes in Playborhoods.

So, why …

The Day Mr Grump Decided To Ruin My Personal Playborhood

2008-04-25T00:05:01Z

I had sincerely hoped that when this site publishes its first league table of Top 100 American Playborhoods, my little corner of the world would feature high up in the rankings. But I fear my neighborhood may no longer qualify.

The Freedom and Fun of Forts

2008-04-15T21:58:00Z

For some children recess provides the most important reason to come to school. With its promise of games of chase and tag, clique-bound conversations, solitary wandering and exploration, pretend and war play, recess provides reliable access to a scarce resource of immense value in the lives of children: spontaneous self-direction.

But at one school in Massachusetts, recess meant just one thing for many children: time to work and play on their forts.

Free Play On A Rainy Day

2008-03-07T22:15:00Z

Children whose homes have backyards or who live near parks or undeveloped land have wonderful opportunities for outdoor free play, but there are many, many children who live in urban neighborhoods or in apartment buildings who don’t have opportunities for outdoor play. And when it’s cold and rainy, children (and parents) everywhere need indoor places that support free and open-ended play.