Today, we are joining teens, parents, teachers, and scientists across America to kick off National Drug Facts Week by offering up my own shoutout for educating teens about drug abuse.  Sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Drug Facts Week is an official health observance designed to shatter the myths and spread the facts about drug abuse and addiction.

You will see a great deal of fantastic information on how to keep your kids happy, healthy, and drug-free on this website and others over the next week.  But in the meantime, we wanted to share that one easy way that may help prevent drug use is simply eating dinner together!  According to this recent press release by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, teens in families that have infrequent family dinners have an increased likelihood of substance abuse.  Eating together is not only enjoyable, but also seems to help promote a healthy lifestyle for your teens.  What an easy way to help keep your family safe and healthy!

A gigantic thank you from UBP to our sponsors (especially our Champions of Play – Goddard School & Sprout), exhibitors (more than 30 of them, plus fabulous performers, musicians, drummers and storytellers!), the Baltimore City Public Schools, our Play Doctors, volunteers, and the countless other ‘big people’ that helped to make the first ever Ultimate Block Party in Baltimore, Md., a terrific success. But most of all, THANK YOU to the families that came to Rash Field despite the chilly weather to play and learn together. From the moment you walked into our ‘playground,’ you embraced play with your children—and your involvement contributes to our excitement. We hope you carried away happy memories and some new ideas about how play, in childhood, connects to learning. We saw so many smiles, laughter, and shouts of excitement that it made all of the hard-work done by so many people over the last 18 months completely worth it.

Special guests U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his family, and Baltimore City Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Andres Alonso added to our excitement. Many thanks from the UBP family for the support of the wider educational community, and interest in playing and learning with the families of Baltimore.  Also, over 6,000 winter coats were distributed to Baltimore families thanks to Operation Warm.

If you missed today’s event, check out our PlayBook for more information about how you can incorporate play in the everyday lives of your families in new ways.

Here are some pictures in case you missed today’s celebrations of the arts and sciences of play:

Ultimate Block Party flickr

If you aren’t already following us on twitter, you can find us @UBPlay and we also suggest you follow our sister organization L_rn on facebook and on twitter @L_rn. L-rn is a new web portal for today’s families to have open dialogue with scientists and child development professionals to help improve the lives of ALL of our children. Stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter for more updates, blog postings, and announcements about future events.

Thank you to everyone, especially the children whose play makes the future brighter.

Written by Dr. Jennifer Zosh of Penn State University, Brandywine Campus  on behalf of Ultimate Block Party.

THANK YOU!

A gigantic thank you from UBP to our sponsors (especially our Champions of Play – Goddard School & Sprout), exhibitors (more than 30 of them, plus fabulous performers, musicians, drummers and storytellers!), the Baltimore City Public Schools, our Play Doctors, volunteers, and the countless other ‘big people’ that helped to make the first ever Ultimate Block Party in Baltimore, Md., a terrific success. But most of all, THANK YOU to the families that came to Rash Field despite the chilly weather to play and learn together. From the moment you walked into our ‘playground,’ you embraced play with your children—and your involvement contributes to our excitement. We hope you carried away happy memories and some new ideas about how play, in childhood, connects to learning. We saw so many smiles, laughter, and shouts of excitement that it made all of the hard-work done by so many people over the last 18 months completely worth it.

Special guests U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his family, and Baltimore City Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Andres Alonso added to our excitement. Many thanks from the UBP family for the support of the wider educational community, and interest in playing and learning with the families of Baltimore.  Also, over 6,000 winter coats were distributed to Baltimore families thanks to Operation Warm.

If you missed today’s event, check out our PlayBook for more information about how you can incorporate play in the everyday lives of your families in new ways.

Here are some pictures in case you missed today’s celebrations of the arts and sciences of play:

If you aren’t already following us on twitter, you can find us @UBPlay and we also suggest you follow our sister organization L_rn on facebook and on twitter @L_rn. L-rn is a new web portal for today’s families to have open dialogue with scientists and child development professionals to help improve the lives of ALL of our children. Stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter for more updates, blog postings, and announcements about future events.

Thank you to everyone, especially the children whose play makes the future brighter.

Written by Dr. Jennifer Zosh of Penn State University, Brandywine Campus  on behalf of Ultimate Block Party.

Are you coming? RSVP on facebook: http://on.fb.me/nuMKWt

For immediate release: September 8, 2011

Marylanders Serious about Play

Baltimore, Md. – Children learn essential skills by doing something they all know and enjoy: playing. And on Sunday, October 2 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Rash Field in the Inner Harbor, the whole city is invited to come together and celebrate playing—and the rich learning and growth that come with it—at Baltimore’s own Ultimate Block Party. The event comes on the heels of two other Ultimate Block Party celebrations—in New York City and Toronto, Canada—and makes Baltimore the third in a series of play celebrations in major cities across North America. Children and their families can take part in classic childhood pastimes—dressing up like railroad conductors, playing Four Square, flying paper airplanes, jumping rope and making art from recycled materials. And they can do yoga, make hip-hop music and play rock-n-roll baseball—and any number of other fun, family-friendly games and activities.

The Ultimate Block Party in Baltimore is hosted by the Ultimate Block Party and Port Discovery Children’s Museum, and sponsored by several local and national organizations: Baltimore City Public Schools’ Family Institute,  Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute, the Goddard Schools, the Walters Art Museum, T. Rowe Price, Sprout, Child First Authority, the Center for Jewish Education.

Family Institute, which works to provide Baltimore City Public Schools families with resources to support student learning in school and at home, embraced the Ultimate Block Party as a way to show that learning extends far beyond school. “The Ultimate Block Party is a great way to help families practice things that will support their students’ achievement –while having fun,” said Michael Sarbanes, executive director of City Schools’ Office of Engagement. “We believe our parents and communities play an incredibly important role in our students’ academic success, and this day puts that belief into action.”

“The Ultimate Block Party shares a common vision and understanding with Family Institute and the event’s many other sponsors that play equals learning—and does wonders to boost a child’s social, emotional and cognitive development,” said Susan Magsamen, president of the organization Ultimate Block Party (UBP) and director of interdisciplinary partnerships for Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute. “This event is as much about raising awareness of the learning that can happen through play as it is about letting loose and having fun.”

Founded in 2010, UBP is the result of leading scientists in education, psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science coming together with parents, teachers, school administrators and pediatricians who noticed a decrease in the amount of time kids spend playing. “Social, academic and economic pressures have led to an all-but disappearance of play in the lives of children,” Magsamen said. “But we know from our research that children learn best through discovery, imagination, play and collaborative learning.”

Organizers of the initial event were rewarded for their vision when more than 50,000 people from every borough in New York City, and even surrounding communities from New Jersey to Connecticut, came out in droves and spent the day at play. With the success of the New York event, cities across the country rushed to tailor UBP to fit their own communities. Baltimore is the first of these cities to actually hold an Ultimate Block Party event. So come out, Baltimore, come out and play on Sunday, October 2!

###

Contact: Robin Stevens Payes Ultimate Block Party

Cell: 240.351.5847

robin@wordsworkcom.com

Andria Washington

Port Discovery Children’s Museum

Phone: 410.864.2681

awashington@portdiscovery.org

Books plays a key role in exposing children (and adults) to worlds that exist outside of their everyday reality.  A recent paper published online in the journal Child Development examines what children learn from books.  Researchers from the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and the University of Virginia completed a set of studies examining whether young children could learn information about animals from a picture book and furthermore, could they actually transfer (or extend) this new information to a new animal example or even a real animal?  The researchers first showed 3- and 4-year old children photographs of animals (lizards or caterpillars)  – some of these animals were camouflaged by the background of the picture (i.e., a blue caterpillar in front of a blue background) and some of the animals were not (i.e., a blue caterpillar in front of a red background).  The researchers asked the children which creature was more likely to be eaten by a hungry hawk.  About 57 percent of the children chose the non-camouflaged animal.  Next, the researcher read a picture book to the child which explained how it was harder for a bird to find a frog that was the same color as its surroundings versus a different color.  Then, each child was shown photographs of camouflaged and non-camouflaged frogs and butterflies and asked which would be most likely to be eaten by that pesky hungry hawk.  This allowed researchers to see if children were able to learn from reading the picture book and also whether they were able to apply this new knowledge about camouflage to new creatures (i.e., the butterfly).  It turns out that the simple act of reading a picture book helped children to learn about the concept of camouflage and now 73 percent (compared to 57 percent before they read the picture book) of children chose the non-camouflaged animal when asked about which would be more likely to be eaten.

The researchers also asked whether the story was told in a fact-based way (i.e., factual based statements about animals and camouflage) and an anthropomorphized way (i.e.,  giving the animals feelings and intentions) – it turns out that children were equally able to learn from both kids of stories.  The final question that the researchers asked was whether children would be able to transfer the knowledge that they gained about camouflage to real, live animals.  This time, instead of showing children new pictures after reading a picture book, children were asked to find a ‘safe home’ for a real-life crab and a lizard and choose between two tanks – one which matched the color of the animals and one that did not.  While this was a little harder for kids, they were still able to transfer this brand new knowledge about camouflage to real-life examples.

What does this mean for you?  The fact that 3- and 4-year old children can learn about the biological concept of camouflage just from reading a book suggests that children are learning information about the big, huge world around us from the books that are right in our homes, schools, and libraries.  This means that reading books with your kids isn’t just a fun activity – it is helping them to learn about the world around them – even worlds that they don’t directly experience!  This explains why your little one may love elephants and know that they use their trunks spray water even if they have never seen an elephant before!  If you think about it, this isn’t so easy – in order for children to learn from books, they have to understand that the picture or illustration of an animal or objects on a page actually represents something in the real world. So before your next trip to the zoo, read a book about animals and then talk with your child about the fun new facts that you learned from the book and how it relates to the real animals you see in front of you.  Together, you and your child can explore amazing worlds full of whales, giraffes, and elephants – oh my!

Featured Article:

Ganea, P.A., Ma., L., & DeLoache, J.S. (in press). Young Children’s learning and transfer of biological information from pictures books to real animals. Child Development.

This blog was written by Dr. Jennifer Zosh, Assistant Professor at Pennsylvania State University, Brandywine

Check it out!

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/31/play.babies.smarter.parenting/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Recently, an article appeared in the New York Times that suggests testing actually helps us learn – in fact, more than just studying!  In a set of studies conducted at Purdue University (Kerpicke & Blunt, 2011), college students were asked to read a paragraph and then were asked to (a) study the information for 5 minutes, (b) draw a ‘concept map’ – or a visual ‘map’ of how the ideas presented fit together, or (c) take a test in which they had to write a short-answer description of everything they had just learned.  It turns out that the students asked to take a test retained up to 50% MORE information a week later!

What does this mean? If students are given the opportunity to make their own connections between facts and translate this information into their own words, it makes learning personally meaningful– and they are more likely to remember what they have learned later on! This is very different from re-reading material in order to memorize information or to identify key points (common in ‘cramming’ or study sessions). And remember—all tests are not created equal.  Do you think the researchers would have gotten different results if the students took multiple choice tests rather than short answer tests? Other researchers have shown taking multiple-choice tests repeatedly may actually promote false knowledge (the idea that they know the information when they do not! Roediger  & Marsh, 2005)!

What does this tell us? Asking open-ended questions that help students think critically and recall facts in ways that make sense to them can be a powerful tool for learning!

• After your child studies or does her homework, ask her to close the book and either write down or tell you everything she remembers.  Make it a fun ‘memory game.’  In fact, you should take a turn ‘playing’ too!  This will help her to see the connections that exist between the facts and also give you the opportunity to learn together.
• Try not to make testing all about grades and the number of items right or wrong – instead, frame tests as ways to learn!  If your child feels more positively about tests, he will likely be less anxious and his knowledge will be better able to shine!
• Moderation is the key! Pushing children too much can have an adverse effect on learning and their motivation to learn—so be responsive to children’s needs, interests, and abilities!

Featured Articles:

Bellek, P. (2011, January). To really learn, quit studying and take a test. Retrieved from, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html?_r=3&emc=eta1

Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011, January). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with concept mapping. Science. Retrieved from, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/01/19/science.1199327.abstract

Roediger, H. & Marsh, E. (2005). The positive and negative consequences of multiple choice testing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 31, 1155-1159.

This blog was written by Dr. Kelly Fisher, Postdoctoral Fellow at Temple University, and Dr. Jennifer Zosh, Assistant Professor at Pennsylvania State University, Brandywine