Where We're Playing - Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network

Where We’re Playing

Nationally

Playful Learning Landscapes has infused cities across the nation and globally with playful learning opportunities by transforming everyday spaces and optimizing early education. To see where we’re currently playing nationally, click any of the red markers on the U.S. map below…

The Ultimate Block Party

Highlighting the importance and effectiveness of play-based learning, the Ultimate Block Party brought thousands of children and adults to Fort York, Toronto. These children and adults made cityscapes with blocks and created art and sculptures with paint, cardboard boxes, and plastic pipe.

The Ultimate Block Party

The Stepping Stones Museum for Children hosted an Ultimate Block Party to share their understanding that play is serious business. Engagement with playful learning extended beyond the activities and exhibits at UBP with a “playbook” that guided families through playful learning activities at home.

The Ultimate Block Party

Hundreds of families attended the Ultimate Block Party in Baltimore to embrace learning through play. More than 30 exhibitors offered playful learning experiences at Rash Field to build excitement around learning through play.

Boston: The Ultimate Block Party

This Mini-Ultimate Block Party hosted by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Boston’s Children Museum featured several playful learning activity play stations for parents and children. This event provided resources to aid parents and educators in learning the science behind play in school, at home, or in their communities.

Cambridge: Prescriptions for Play

We are collaborating with Pediatricians to create “Prescriptions for Play” for patients in hospital waiting rooms to extend to the home. The waiting rooms will include playful learning activities designed to decrease stress, promote social responsiveness, and enhance skills such as executive function, math, and vocabulary. Additionally, prescribing play will encourage parents and children to engage in playful learning at home to further build critical skills.

From Boulevard Math to Community Garden Math, Playful Learning Illinois has expanded over the last year to include 7 different installations in and around Chicago. Partnering with their local communities, Playful Learning Illinois was able to transform a variety of locations into places where children can play and learn.

Supermarket Speak

Supermarket Speak is a low-cost intervention that increases conversation quality between children and caregivers in grocery stores. Signs throughout the store prompt parents to talk to their children. These child-friendly prompts spark discussions about dairy, produce, and other items to enrich vocabulary learning and parent-child relationships.

Fraction Ball

Researchers at UC Irvine and El Sol Sciences & Arts Academy partnered in the creation of Fraction Ball in Santa Ana, CA. For Fraction Ball, the lines on a basketball court are painted to emphasize fraction and decimal learning by allowing children to take shots that are worth a fraction of a point with the goal of earning an exact number of points on a number line next to the court.

Playful Learning Sidewalks

A collaboration with the Department of Transportation, Department of Education and Early Learning, public schools, and a local university as part of the Safe Routes to Schools program. The project has adapted popular school routes into playful sidewalks. This effort will serve as a national model for other cities to infuse playful learning into children’s routines.

The Ultimate Block Party

Ultimate Block Party transformed Central Park into a playground for challenging caregivers’ attitudes about the relationship between play and learning. Over 50,000 participants engaged in 28 activities based on the science of learning and spanning eight play domains.

Projects like Urban Thinkscape, Parkopolis, Play and Learn Libraries and the Playwall have all gotten their start in Philadelphia. View photos here, and also be sure to check out our detailed Philadelphia map below with more information on Philadelphia initiatives.

At the Local Level (Across Philadelphia)

Projects like Urban Thinkscape, Parkopolis, Play and Learn Libraries and the Playwall have all gotten their start in Philadelphia. Click any of the red markers to see more information on each of our current Philadelphia installments of these playful learning centers…

Play Captains is a collaboration between community-based organization Fab Youth Philly and Playful Learning Landscapes that engages teenagers in facilitating play learning activities on Playstreets in North and West Philadelphia. Integrating playful learning affords children and teens the opportunities to build numeric, spatial, and literacy language while engaging in conversation centered around puppet shows, memory card games, arts and crafts, and reading activities.

Parkopolis is a life-sized board game endeavoring to enrich public parks and play spaces with opportunities to learn STEM skills. Using dice with whole numbers and fractions, children advance around the board, drawing cards that provide meaningful challenges and activities. Photos: Sahar Coston-Hardy

Urban Thinkscape reimagines an everyday bus stop in an under-resourced area as an interaction zone instead of merely a place to wait for a ride. A product of collaboration and co-design with the local community, Urban Thinkscape encourages playful interactions between children and caregivers that result in meaningful learning gains. Photos: Sahar Coston-Hardy

Partnering with the Free Library of Philadelphia, architecture firm DIGSAU and playground consultants Studio Ludo, Play and Learn Libraries transformed spaces at three libraries into “playbraries” aimed at promoting child-caregiver interactions. Language, literacy, and STEM skills are fostered by tangram seating and language games. photos: Halkin Mason

Inspired by Candy Chang’s Before I Die art project, the playwall asked communities how they played when they were little. Sponsored by the LEGO Foundation, this low-cost intervention sparked a new community conversation around the learning benefits of play and everyday games.

Internationally

Playful Learning Landscapes is expanding across the globe. Our team is currently in discussion with educators at these international locations to develop meaningful learning opportunities for children all around the world.