The benefits of play-based learning are huge, and we shouldn’t be depriving our children of it just because they are getting older.

Students often display a morbid curiosity that I feel I cannot ignore, but can I lean into it? Can I use this fascination in a way that engages students, but also humanizes them?

Perhaps some learning loss is to be expected during summer vacation, but there are reasonable concerns about how the break may weaken students’ reading and math skills.

I, among other things, define myself as a rapper, and it’s a fact of which my students are all too aware.

I avidly recall a second grade class that would excitedly huddle around my rocking chair for story time. Students scrambled around sliding chairs to the carpet where I read heartwarming and sometimes zany tales, they reminded me that story time was counted among the most meaningful and cherished moments of a child’s day. Story time is a child’s portal into endless worlds, kingdoms, and dimensions.

Try reading the poem as a group sitting in a circle. The poem is read with each person reading one word in turn.