Playvolution HQ Podcast

Written by: Jeff Johnson
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  • Summary

  • The Playvolution HQ Podcast dives deep into play and early learning, from loose parts and power play to school readiness and curriculum. This weekly, short-format show goes beyond the resources available at playvolutionhq.com, delivering original content like DIY ideas, terminology deep-dives, commentary, news, early learning history, and more.
    Explorations Early Learning
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Parenting & Families Relationships
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Episodes
  • PHQP_0007 Humans Are In Motion Learners

    PHQP_0007 Humans Are In Motion Learners
    Feb 17 2025
    In PHQP 0007 Humans Are In Motion Learners, Jeff explores why movement is essential for learning, creativity, and emotional regulation. He discusses how modern children are more sedentary than ever and why early learning environments should prioritize child-led motion. Drawing from Brain Rules by John Medina, Jeff highlights how active engagement with the world wires the brain’s sensory systems and supports deeper learning. He also shares a simple trick for stopping kids from over-pumping soap and reflects on the excitement of a rare Gulf Coast snowfall. Jeff hopes the episode holds up despite forgetting to wear his glasses and a fumbled outro transition. Plus, don’t miss the Dad Joke of the Week! Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0007 Humans Are In Motion Learners Episode Notes Avoid Making Loose Parts Less Loose The ‘Loose’ Refers To Open-ended Flexibility And Freedom Create A Loose Parts Mindset | 3 Tips The Theory Of Loose Parts Physical Domain Digging | The Playful Benefits Beware The Preschool Chair The 5 Best Reasons To Ditch Flashcards Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School The Humans Are In Motion Learners Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on with the show. So, first up, my dog Gigi was very happy the other day. We got some snow here at the beach where we live on the Gulf Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America, I don't care what you call it. It doesn't happen here very often. She was very excited. She likes going to the beach, but we ended up with about seven, eight inches of snow, and she was a very happy dog. Back when we lived in Iowa, she would go out when it was below freezing and make herself a little snow nest and lay there for hours. So, she was glad to have a snow experience, which brings us to topic one, bright, shiny objects. For a lot of people here along the coast, it was a bright, shiny object moment because a lot of them didn't have any experience with snow. Snow is really rare here. We had seven inches a couple weeks ago. Last snow before that that was 93 and 63 and five snow events in 130 years, if I did the math halfway close to right. It's not much snow. So, we had interactions with lots of humans, very young humans and older humans, who had no memory, no experience with snow. So, it became a very interesting variable in their environment, which if you recall a couple episodes ago, we talked about loose parts as being variables in the environment with which people could interact. There was a lot of interacting going on, a lot of kids and adults building their first snowmen and tasting snow for the first time. I was talking the day before the snow hit. I was talking to a little eight-year-old girl, and she was very excited to taste snow, but not the yellow kind. She made sure I was very clear on that because she's heard you're not supposed to taste the yellow snow. And so, these variables in our environment are really important and something we should look for, whether we're planning them ourselves or whether they just kind of plop themselves into our environment, because it's a chance for a new experience. If you've never met snow, you may have theories about what snow is like, but you don't have any actual hands-on experience. I saw kids out, not a lot of winter clothes here on the coast either. It gets a little bit chilly, but not cold. And so, kids out with multiple sweatshirts on and like every pair of sweatpants they had on and socks on their hands for gloves and having a good time with it. It's that experience is where the learning happens for kids and adults. One of the takeaways for us with this kind of thing is to remember how new the world was to us when we were young children, because I think a lot of times we gloss over that. We forget the fact that little kids, even three, four, five, six, seven,
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    18 mins
  • PHQP_0006 Don’t Neglect Sensory Integration

    PHQP_0006 Don’t Neglect Sensory Integration
    Feb 10 2025
    In PHQP 0006 Don’t Neglect Sensory Integration, Jeff delves into why sensory play is essential before academics. From running and jumping to twisting and climbing, Jeff explains why early learning settins should focus more on wiring children’s sensory systems. He also explores the eight sensory systems and discusses distinguishing playful aggression from violence. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0006 Don't Neglect Sensory Integration Episode Notes Sensory Integration Auditory System Gustatory System Interoceptive System Olfactory System Proprioceptive System Tactile System Vestibular System Visual System Tactile Discrimination Visual Discrimination 8 Sensory Systems That Drive Playful Learning 6 Critical Aspects That Clearly Distinguish Playful Aggression From Violence Podcast Archives The Don't Neglect Sensory Integration Transcript Hey, welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on with the show. So a couple of neighborhood kids were playing a game they invented. I love self-invented kid games. I think we need to provide kids with more time to get bored and have to figure out their own games. So there's about four or five of them hanging around the neighborhood playground. Mostly boys. There was a couple of girls there, it was probably, you know, mid-afternoon, after school kind of stuff. And they had a water bottle about half full of water. And the game was, you hold the water bottle out in front of you with your fingers, and then you let go of it and you try to punch it before it hits the ground. And it was, I mean, everybody takes turns and cheers if you got it, you know, moans and groans if you didn't. A lot of them, if they missed the punch, they tried to get it with a kick. And it was, I mean, it's a form of power play, right? They're showing their physical prowess or lack thereof. And lots of laughs, lots of fun, lots of good times with a simple water bottle. We talked about defining loose parts a while ago. And this is one of the wonders of loose parts, this wonderful game using nothing but their imaginations and a half full plastic bottle of water. Yay for play. Moving on, topic one for this episode. We've got core value part six, which is sensory integration should not be neglected. And I think sometimes the whole takeaway here I want you to have is that we rush through the process of sensory integration onto academics before kids are physically ready for it. And slowing that down would actually help them learn the academic stuff more efficiently when they were physiologically ready for that. So sensory integration should not be neglected. And we do neglect it when we prevent rough and tumble play, when we don't provide enough time for kids to run and jump and twist and spin and move their body in interesting and complex ways. We are neglecting their sensory integration. Human children have never been more sedentary than they are right now in 2025. And it's a problem. It impacts their development. And so early learning programs should be looking for more opportunities, more ways to put kids into motion so that their eight primary sensory systems, which we'll get to in a bit, have a chance to wire to the brain. The sensory systems are the only way their little brains can connect with information. The only way the brain gets information is through those systems. And if those systems aren't fully wired and integrated and automated, it's hard for their little brains to collect the information they need to survive and thrive in the world. Kids are driven to wire these systems. And the way they do it is by moving and touching and interacting and engaging. And so the more sedentary you're asking kids to be in your early learning setting, the more you're actually slowing this sensory integration. The more you're doing to prevent a lot of the up and active, hands-on, engaging,
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    18 mins
  • PHQP_0005 Relationships Are Foundational

    PHQP_0005 Relationships Are Foundational
    Feb 3 2025
    In PHQP 0005 Relationships Are Foundational, Jeff highlights the critical role of relationships in early learning environments. Discussing caregiver burnout, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and strategies for building strong emotional connections—even with challenging kids—Jeff explains why secure relationships are more important than ABCs and 123s. Plus, he shares a fun DIY project for creating paintbrushes, advocates for caregiver self-care, and wraps up with a Dad Joke of the Week that will make you smile (or groan). Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0005 Relationships Are Foundational Episode Notes Secure Relationships: Nurturing Infant-Toddler Attachment in Early Care Settings Caring Relationships: The Heart of Early Brain Development Continuity Of Care Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs Abraham Maslow Continuity Of Care Social-Emotional Domain Caregiver Self-Care Delightful And Durable 2-part Epoxy Paintbrushes The Relationships Are Foundational Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. Thanks for pushing play. I'm Jeff Johnson on with the show. So, um, an astute viewer was wondering about my shirt and every episode so far I've been wearing a black t-shirt. That's because I mostly wear black t-shirts or white t-shirts and uh, actually for the podcast I was gonna wear my black t-shirts. It's not, it may be the same black t-shirt for every episode. I don't really keep track of them. I've just got a stack of black t-shirts, probably a different black t-shirt, although there might be some black t-shirt overlap, but I just usually buy a bunch of the same black t-shirts and then I wear them until they are worn out and then get some new, some new black t-shirts. This makes life a lot easier, wear the same thing all the time. Um, moving, moving on from that important bit of information, topic one, core value part five, relationships are foundational. They're the core of what's going on in early learning programs and I think a lot of times caregivers feel pressured and pushed to not focus on relationships because there is such a push towards early academics and school readiness that sometimes we are pushed towards attending to those things more than we do the one-on-one here and now interactions with kids and that's a problem because we are, we are social animals. We need physical contact. We need to feel safe and comfortable and valued and appreciated and loved by the people around us and in a lot of early learning programs when staff are feeling pressured to keep up with paperwork and checklists and learning outcomes and school readiness activities and STEM and being rigid, um, learning environments and all of this, we, we forget about the soft, cuddly aspects of, of this work with young human beings. The social side of things, the relationship side of things are more important than the ABCs and one-two-threes and, and look, last episode, we talked about learning risks and how those are important. It is very, very difficult for a young child to put them out, put themselves out there and take a physical or social or emotional or intellectual risk if they don't feel a foundational sense of security and, and comfort in their environments and so building strong emotional environments is the basis for all the ABCs and one-two-threes that come after it, but sometimes we flip-flop this. We focus on the ABCs and one-two-threes first instead of on, on building and maintaining those relationships. Building relationships saps emotional resources. It's a big cause of burnout in this profession. There's not a lot of research done on this. Best numbers I've been able to find and, and these are old is that 30 to 40 percent of caregivers leave this work annually because of burnout-related, um, issues and that, that, the, that emotional giving they do all day long is part of that burnout because caregivers are wonderful at tuning into the needs of others but fall short a lo...
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    15 mins

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