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Playvolution HQ Podcast

Playvolution HQ Podcast

By: Jeff Johnson
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 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 Parenting & Families Relationships
Episodes
  • PHQP_0020 Schema Play Basics

    PHQP_0020 Schema Play Basics
    May 19 2025
    PHQP 0020 Schema Play Basics - Jeff explores the fundamentals of schema play, rooted in Piaget’s cognitive development theory, highlighting how children’s repeated behavior patterns, like throwing or enclosing, reflect an innate curiosity that drives learning, physical development, and sensory integration, and offers practical ways adults can support these behaviors by creating play-friendly environments with open-ended materials. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0020 Schema Play Basics Episode Notes Schema Play Theory Transforming Schema Filling And Emptying Schema Going Through Schema Back And Forth Schema Orientation Schema Enveloping Schema Transporting Schema Positioning Schema Rotation Schema Enclosing Schema Connecting Schema Scattering Schema Trajectory Schema The Schema Play Basics Transcript Welcome to Playvolution HQ Podcast, I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on the show. So I've really been overjoyed, I guess is the word, happy. Pulled out of my normal stupor of disdain for life. No, that sounds too serious. No, there's been a lot of kids outside playing in the neighborhood lately. And about a year ago, there was a lot of kids outside playing in the neighborhood. And then like the three kids that apparently initiated all the outdoor play moved. And now it's back up again. I was taking the dogs out for a walk the other day and I kind of counted on our short walk through the neighborhood. We passed, I think it was like a group of 14 kids all running around playing some sort of tag game that they'd invented. And there were bikes all over the places and they're left and not stolen. And there are balls and bats out and there's kids climbing trees and building swings with found objects and all kinds of chaos. And it's delightful and it's good to see because there's so much value in that kind of outdoor play. And for a long time, I didn't see a lot of it. And I don't know if it's just a pocket of it here in my corner of the world or if it's going on other places. If you're seeing more kids outside being kids the way me and my cohort did back in the 70s and 80s, I'd love to hear about it. So let's get into other things. Topic one, only again, only one topic for this week. Schema play basics. So we're gonna kind of delve into an overview of schema play, I guess. And then in future episodes, I want to probably dig into some individual play schema and go into them in more detail with more examples and those kinds of things. So let's get started on this. So schema play theory is rooted in PSJA's cognitive development theory as a starter point. So that's where it's philosophical slash research basis is. That's where it's thought origins are, I guess. And what a play schema is, is a repeated behavior pattern in children's play. So it's something you see kids doing over and over again. Maybe exactly the same way, maybe different ways. Maybe you observe the same activity in different locations. Maybe there are different variations of the gauge in it. These are usually things children are kind of driven to repeat because they benefit from them in some way. And we can dig into that a little bit deeper. So they're driven by this internal curiosity to do these things. And that drive seems to be kind of an innate thing. Nobody teaches them this drive. They just do it. And as we get into this, you'll notice that there are some things kids just tend to be interested in at certain stages in their development. Not all kids all the time, but lots of kids lots of the time. And we'll dig into a couple of these in a minute. So there's this curiosity and it seems to be kind of inborn. I would call it, I'd describe it as an evolutionary strategy for figuring out the world. It's what a lot of schema is. A evolutionary strategy for knowing, an evolutionary strategy for figuring things out, for exploring.
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    19 mins
  • PHQP_0019 Programming Consistency

    PHQP_0019 Programming Consistency
    May 12 2025
    PHQP_0019 Programming Consistency delves into the value of consistent early learning programs. Jeff outlines a six-tier hierarchy—vision, mission, philosophy, policies, procedures, and practices—to ensure clarity and alignment for staff, kids, and parents. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0019 Programming Consistency Episode Notes The 6-Tier Programming Consistency Hierarchy Mission Statement Vision Statement 3 Valuable Tips For Writing A Mission Statement Compose A Sensational Philosophy Statement | 4 Tips The Programming Consistency Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on the show. So, I've got a new scary thing I've started working on. I did the 50 mile walk and now I needed something new so I've decided I'm gonna learn guitar. Now, I have no sense of rhythm. I have no musical sense. I have very, it appears, uncoordinated fingers but I decided this would be a great old guy thing. I can practice a little bit at a time. It's gonna build my proprioception. It's apparently good for the old brain to learn new habits like this and it's gonna be fun. So, stay tuned for updates on my progression. I ordered the car, I can barely say guitar, ordered the guitar the other day. It arrived, the amp hasn't shown up yet. It's a nice little Squier Stratocaster. I've decided, I've made sure Tasha, my wife, knows already that I'm not gonna get real good at playing this guitar because I don't wanna have to buy leather pants and deal with groupies and have a heroin addiction. But I should learn to play a song or two. It's gonna be fun. So, let's move on into things. Topic one, the one and only topic for this week, program consistency. So, let's dig into it. I meet a lot of confused caregivers. So, picture somebody working in a toddler room with a co-worker, maybe they're the lead teacher, maybe they're not and they wanna make a change but they don't have their co-worker on board and so they struggle or they struggle because things are done one way in the toddler room and a different way in the preschool room and then a third way in the school age room. And not just age-based differences but really philosophical differences for the way kids are dealt with. Or maybe somebody is a member of a professional organization that says one thing in their shiny, glossy, three-fold handout and does other things in practice. It's really hard to know where you stand in a lot of these situations. And one thing having a consistent program, one thing program consistency does is it lets everybody know where they stand and that can be valuable. So, what am I talking about? I'm talking about continuity and predictability for programs. And we're gonna get into this in a minute but ideally, an early learning program and we'll focus on child serving programs, programs providing child care right now. These programs want to be consistent. They want to be predictable. They want parents to have a unified vision of what their philosophy and mission is because then everybody's on the same page. Everybody is trying to work towards the same thing. Everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing. But when programs lack that, when one room does things one way because that's the way Ms. Kim has done things for 35 years and somebody new comes into the classroom next door and wants to try things differently and that's okay too because hey, we got people to show up for the job so just having warm bodies here might be enough. It can get really confusing for kids, parents, and staff. And so continuity and predictability come from having that program consistency that I'm talking about. So here, a little over a year ago, I put together a six-tier hierarchy of I think about what we need structurally in programs to have this consistency. So let's kind of go through those. So starting out, we got a vision, a vision statement.
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    15 mins
  • PHQP_0018 More Hazard Mitigation

    PHQP_0018 More Hazard Mitigation
    May 5 2025
    In PHQP_0018 More Hazard Mitigation, Jeff draws on his recent 50-mile walk to explore hazard mitigation, sharing practical strategies for reducing unseen dangers to make risky activities safer for children and educators. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0018 More Hazard Mitigation Episode Notes PHQP_0015 Hazard Mitigation PHQP_0004 Learning Is Risky 5 Hazard Mitigation Strategies Understanding Danger, Hazard, And Risk Hazard The More Hazard Mitigation Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing Play on with the show. So I'm just back from another road trip out there doing live in-person early learning professional development training. Was up in Minnesota, Rochester, Minnesota, talking to family child care providers. Great group. I've been with them before. And Minnesota, back in the days when I was just getting started as a trainer, was really supportive of that. And so I saw some faces that I've known for a long time and some wonderful, wonderful early learning professionals, which was great. I love doing stuff online, but getting out there and seeing people in person, especially from the olden days, was good. So on to this episode, we're talking about hazard mitigation some more. Now, we've talked about it in the past. I wanted to spend this episode going over specifically hazard mitigation in relation to the 50 mile walk I did a few weeks back. Because I think it's an example of the kind of the thought process that we can use when we mitigate hazards. When we're considering doing scary things, like I talked about last episode, in our own lives or in supporting children and doing their scary thing and taking risks. And so to recap a little bit, a danger is anything that could cause harm. Lots of dangers out there. A hazard is a danger that is not readily seen or predicted. And so in early learning settings, one of our primary jobs is hazard mitigation. We're trying to see the things that could cause harm to children that they're not going to anticipate or predict readily. And then a risk is a choice. It's a choice to do a thing or not to do it based on your experience, based on your knowledge. And it's something that could or that may or may not cause harm. So risks are choices. And we don't need to worry about risks in our early learning settings as much as we need to worry or think about hazard mitigation. And so you can think of hazard mitigation as making the scary things less scary. So again, it comes up for playgrounds, for example. Good hazard mitigation means that before kids head out to the outdoor play space, that somebody does a playground check. They make sure that there's not cat poop in the sandbox and there's not broken glass in the resilient surfacing under the slide. And that the fence is secure so that there's a gate open so the two-year-olds don't wander off. And those kind of things, you know, making sure the swing chains are bolted tight and that the slide isn't too wobbly. All of those kind of things are making the playground less dangerous for the little kids that are going to be out there playing and exploring. So hazard mitigation, making scary things less scary. Now, with my walk, one of the first things I had to consider was the when, the timing of it. I couldn't do it, I lived down on the Gulf Coast. I couldn't do it in July or August because the heat and humidity would kill me, even in the evenings. There's a lot of evenings, nights in the summer when it only gets down in the 80s and it's like 90% humidity. So I needed to do it, if I was going to do it, I needed to do it before the beginning of May, middle of May. And otherwise it was going to have to get put off until October, September, October, November. And so the scheduling was important, but also when in the day I did it. Because the sun can kick your butt down here. And so my plan to mitigate hazards that were kind of...
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    16 mins

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