Welcome to Preppy Play!

Hello Education world and welcome to Preppy Play. I look forward to sharing ideas with you about fun ways to engage your child in learning. I strongly believe in learning through play and love reading research and studies on the benefits of movement and learning (but there is more of that to come...) Today, I want to share with you a my journey into play-based learning.

I was that child that set up a classroom full of dolls and taught them lessons on reading, math and science. Each doll asked questions and I wrote on that white board like a champ!

Fast forward a few years. (OK more than a few but this imaginative thinker did play with dolls until she was pretty old). I left college thinking I would begin a children's fitness franchise. I began with my major being Sports Medicine for I thought that this would give me the base I needed to run a fitness company. However, about a semester in, I realized that I really wanted a more education related degree so I made the fantastic decision to switch over the Special Education. With this switch, so do did my career goals. I haven't opened a children's fitness company. (Yet!)

I returned home to teach as an inclusion teacher while I earned my master's degree in Behavioral Disorders. That is when my belief in play-based learning really started to flourish. I noticed a strong need for children to learn through play. My behavioral background in behavior allowed me to look for trends on children's learning and their need for movement. I try to design all of my lessons around the thought process that children need to move. I have even snuck movement opportunities to many of the worksheets that I have created.

Since then my love for play-based learning has flourished. I can adapt a board game, come up with a movement or sing a song for about any education standard. It is a blast! I look forward to learning from you and sharing some of my play-based ideas.