1st Edition
Playful Education Using Play Therapy Strategies to Elevate Your Classroom
Playful Education provides a guide for you to activate the powers of play to boost your teaching practices and increase your effectiveness as an educator. Based on Virginia Axline and Garry Landreth’s play therapy, this book is an operational and practical guide on using play therapy to strengthen your holistic learning development and relationships with students. Chapters offer practical responsive interventions for children with behavioral and academic challenges and preventative practices. You will learn the purpose and goals of implementing play times, (i.e., PlayBreaks), with individuals and groups of students, skills necessary to facilitate playtimes, and how to transfer play skills to the larger classroom. Educators will learn the foundations of play therapy and how they can be used to guide play within a classroom setting. Expanding beyond the classroom, this book is loaded with playful activities to enhance child-teacher relationships and integrate play throughout the school.
Part 1: Play Therapy and the Role of Play in the Schools 1. What is Play Therapy and What Does it Have to Do with Schools? 2. The Power of Play in the Holistic Learning & Development of Children 3. Play & Development 4. Play & Self-Regulation 5. Play & Social Relationships Part 2: Activating the Powers of Play Between Teacher and Child: The PlayBreak 6. Bringing Together the Powers of Play to Activate Learning 7. The PlayBreak: A Special Playtime 8. The PlayBreak Attitudes 9. The PlayBreak Skills 10. Putting it All Together: The PlayBreak in Action 11. The Power of the PlayBreak: Case Study Part 3: Moving Play Into the Classroom and School Culture 12. Transferring the PlayBreak Skills into the Classroom 13. Integrating Play in School Culture: Building Partnerships with Parents, Teachers, & Administrators
Biography
Dee C. Ray is Regents Professor and Elaine Millikan Mathes Professor in Early Childhood Education in the Counseling Program and Director of the Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas. Dr. Ray also co-created and oversees the international certification program for Child-Centered Play Therapy and Child-Parent Relationship Therapy.
