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  • PHQP_0018 More Hazard Mitigation
    2025/05/05
    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 分
  • PHQP_0017 Do The Scary Thing
    2025/04/28
    In PHQP 0017 Do The Scary Thing, Jeff explores the value of embracing fear to foster growth, sharing his experience of aiding a stranded dolphin and completing a grueling 50-mile walk. He discusses how doing the scary thing—whether big or small—sparks joy, builds resilience, and prevents stagnation, encouraging listeners to face their fears with intention and preparation. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0017 Do The Scary Thing Episode Notes CCBAG_0682 Doing The Scary Thing–The Dentist CCBAG_0672 The Scary Thing With Tiffany Pearsall CCBAG_1138 More Scary Thing Talk (Plus Lactation And Grilled Cheese) CCBAG_1128 Scary Thing Resources Childhood Happens Once #26 The Do The Scary Thing Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on with the show. So I'm basically a marine biologist now. This episode we're gonna get into talking about doing the scary thing and why that's important. And I had a chance to do a mildly scary thing yesterday, meaning new to me. I'd never done it before. And I think first time things kind of always fall under the scary thing category for us. And so I'm walking on the beach. It's just before sun up. And I see up ahead of me something along the shore, just kind of right there at the water's edge. And get a little bit closer and I realize it is a dolphin. And I think, okay, dead dolphin on the beach. I gotta call the turtle dolphin hotline and report it. And reach for my phone to start to do that. And then the dead dolphin splishes and splashes a little bit. And I thought, oh shit, this is not a dead dolphin. This is a live dolphin. See that marine biologist part. See, I can tell the difference between alive and dead. And this is kind of a bigger thing. And so I get the hotline person. I've got a call person that answers in off hours. And she says, oh wow, well let me get a hold of my direct supervisor and can you stay there for a while and help sort this out? I'm like, yeah, sure, I've got no place else to be. And so she messaged with her boss. She wants me to send her pictures and videos. And this dolphin, every minute or so, it's thrashing a little bit. And then she's like, okay, my boss is on the way. She's about 20 minutes away. And the rest of the team is gonna be there. Can you wade into the water and try to flip the dolphin upright, so it's kind of on its side, flip it upright so this blowhole is out of the water so that it can breathe. So this blowhole's out of the sand. I'm like, yeah, I can do that. She's like, be careful, it might thrash around and they've got very strong tails. I'm like, okay. And so I flip my shoes off and I wade out into the water and I get the thing flipped up on its side and I gotta hold it there with my leg to keep it from tipping back over again. So I'm holding it there and splashing water on it and saying, there, there, it'll be okay. Because I didn't know what else to say to the dolphin. And then the phone girl, she texts me back. She says, can you keep track of its breaths? And so I'm holding the dolphin up and keeping track of how many times it's breathing in a minute. And this goes on for about 30 minutes. And then the first response person shows up and she takes over. Look, dolphin probably died. I haven't heard back from them yet. They have very, very low survival rates when something like this happens. But it was a thing, a chance to do a little bit of scary thing because I'd never held a dolphin upright and counted its breaths before. So there's that. Early learning guy and marine biologist. It's a cute little blowhole. I'd be really happy if a little dolphin lived. Anyway, on with our one and only topic for this episode, doing the scary thing. Last episode, I mentioned that I was heading off on my 50 mile walk and I did that. I left about 4 p.m. in the afternoon and walked 25 miles in one direction basically and turned arou...
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    16 分
  • OOL_0083 Reflections From A Current Unschooler
    2025/04/22
    Annie Friday talks this week with Sequoia a young person who is nearing the end of her homeschooling and unschooling journey and transitioning into "adult" life. Annie first met Sequoia as a young person in a forest school program then later in the Flying Squad program designed to get young people out and about in their community. Sequoia and the whole squad of flyers were integral in speeding up Annie's own deschooling experience. Deschooling is the process of shedding the programming that comes through life in a schooled society. Sequoia shares her ups and downs and general reflections on her own journey through her school years of life. Thanks for listening! Links Share a comment or ask a questionSupport the show (and save 10%) when you shop early learning trainings at Explorations Early LearningVisit the show archives to browse and search all episodesMore AnnieMore CandisVisit Blue Bridge School's website or Instagram
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    47 分
  • PHQP_0016 Concepts As Loose Parts
    2025/04/21
    In PHQP_0016 Concepts As Loose Parts, Jeff explores concepts as loose parts. For example, kids use bubbles, kites, and tossed handfuls of sand to discover and learn about the wind. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0016 Concepts As Loose Parts Episode Notes Loose Parts Ideas Loose Parts Articles Loose Parts Handouts The Concepts As Loose Parts Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on with the show. So I'm out about in the neighborhood the other day and I hear from a secondary balcony, I hear this toddler voice yelling, look. And so I looked and there this little guy is blowing bubbles and he's very excited about it. He's visiting his grandma and grandma's got him this little bubble gun thing and he dips it in the bubbles and squirts it, squeezes the trigger and bubbles fly up in the air. And he doesn't have a lot of language. And I don't speak toddler as fluently as I used to, but we managed to communicate with each other that yes, he's making bubbles and yes, they're flying up in the air and yes, they're going fast and he's shooting them. And he's very excited to tell my dog Gigi about the bubbles too. And I was very happy for this interaction because one, I love the joy of discovery in young children, especially toddlers, because we forget sometimes how brand new to the world young kids are. Even six, seven, eight, nine, 10 year olds are still experiencing some things for the first time. And so when we can take a little bit of joy out of their discoveries, we should go for that ride. But also his exploration with the bubbles had a lot to do with what we're getting into this week, which brings us to topic number one, concepts as loose parts. So here's the deal. He was playing with bubbles and so they were loose parts, I guess for him, because a loose part is an environmental variable with which we can interact. And we did an earlier episode, I believe, about loose parts where we dug into that a little bit deeper. But loose parts don't have to be physical objects. And for him, what he was really playing with was the wind. Because the bubbles are great, but look, he's too, he's played with bubbles a lot in his life. But from later conversations with grandma, this was his first outdoor bubble experience. And it turns out, bubbles move a lot differently, a lot more actively when they're outside in a nice subtropical breeze. And so he was really using the bubbles themselves as a way of exploring the movements of the breeze. And that's kind of what we're going to be talking about, about physical objects, or loose parts not having to be physical objects. And I think it's amazing, because this is a way we can help kind of kids explore deeper and increase their understanding of the world around them. So, well, he was using a physical object, the bubbles and the bubble gun, to explore the wind. What he was really exploring was the wind. So loose parts can be concepts. Concepts like, oh, I pushed the wrong button. Concepts like gravity, up, cold, fast, windy, heavy, are all ideas they can explore with physical objects. And so talk about the wind. Now, his experience, there was quite a bit of a decent breeze this particular day. Now, someday he's gonna go outside with his bubbles, and it's not going to be breezy, and the bubbles are going to move differently. And then someday, maybe, if he's lucky enough, Grandma's going to take him outside on a really windy day, and he's going to see how fast the bubbles move in those conditions. And so there's lots of variables in the way we explore these. And so thinking about exploring ideas with physical objects, how do we go about, for example, exploring fast, or heavy, or windy, or gravity, or up, or cold, with physical objects? And so what our job as early learning environment curators becomes in those situations is we decide, okay,
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    12 分
  • OOL_0082 Building Executive Functioning Skills
    2025/04/15
    Nikolai Pizarro of Raising Readers joins host Annie Friday to discuss the relationship between adult caregiver/parent and child and the various ways we can support each other and growing or maintaining our executive functioning skills. Nikolai shares her vision of de-centering school and remembering the way all things are learned is relational. By focusing on relationship, we can support our young people learning with or without school. Building executive functioning isn't just about reducing screentime and creating tasks to keep kids busy. It's also about finding true meaning in our choice of activities and showing up as our authentic selves in our unschooling and schooling experiences. Thanks for listening! Links Share a comment or ask a questionSupport the show (and save 10%) when you shop early learning trainings at Explorations Early LearningVisit the show archives to browse and search all episodesMore AnnieMore CandisVisit Blue Bridge School's website or Instagram
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    40 分
  • PHQP_0015 Hazard Mitigation
    2025/04/14
    In PHQP_0015 Hazard Mitigation, Jeff explores the importance of supporting risk-taking in children's play by effectively mitigating hazards. He outlines three hazard categories and shares five practical mitigation strategies. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0015 Hazard Mitigation Episode Notes Hazard Understanding Danger, Hazard, And Risk 3 Hazard Categories 5 Hazard Mitigation Strategies Early Learning Physical Hazard Rating Matrix Field Book And Field Notes Notebooks The Hazard Mitigation Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. Thanks for pushing play. I'm Jeff Johnson on with the show. So I'm out for a walk the other day, as I want to do, and I walked by the local playground where I've seen kids doing things I've told stories about on this show before. And they're, the playground is, excuse me, full of cardboard. And I've got no idea where it came from. But they, the kids had a bunch of cardboard boxes, maybe somebody moved in the neighborhood or anything. And they had some of them, the ends open, and they were, they were put together to form a maybe 12 foot long tunnel. And a couple kids were building a suit of armor or robot or Iron Man suit or something out of them, covering themselves. And a couple kids were using hunks of cardboard to try to surf down the slide. And some kids were rolling around, hiding in the cardboard, and on and on it went. And continued my walk, came back an hour and a half later, walking by going the other direction. And just a couple kids headed for the, heading for the nearby dumpster with the last bits of cardboard. So somehow the cardboard showed up and was a wonderful play material for a couple hours. And then they tidied up and went on about their day. So that was, that was kind of great. I liked, liked seeing it. It reminded me of my, my well-spent childhood. So let's get into this episode. Topic one, hazard mitigation. And so we talked earlier about risk and how risk is important. How there are, are basically four types of risk. There's physical risk, which is what we consider the one we spend most of our time on. There's emotional risk, there's social risk, and there's cognitive risk. And one of the things that we want to do, if we want to support risk-taking, which we should, is to get better at mitigating hazards. So let's go through a little review of the terminology first. So danger is something that may cause harm. Again, my favorite example, a kitten. A kitten may cause harm. Hazard equals a danger not easily seen or predicted. So the, the teeth and the claws of that little kitten are the most dangerous parts. And so those are the hazards. Those are what makes the kitten dangerous. And a risk is something you can observe, evaluate, and choose. So if you're four and you've never held a baby kitten before. A baby kitten before? Isn't that kitten as a baby cat? Maybe baby kitten is redundant. Anyway, if you've never held a kitten before, you can evaluate that situation and decide whether you want to hold the kitten or not. Where hazard mitigation comes in is you, as an adult, informing that child about those potential dangers that they might not see or anticipate. You can say, okay, you can hold the kitten, but you need to be, need to be aware they've got, they got sharp little teeth in their little mouths and they got razor blades on the end of their fingertips, and you've got to hold them carefully. And if the kitten gets scared, or if you grab them too hard, or you antagonize him, he might try to claw or bite you. And so that is an example of hazard mitigation. Hazard mitigation might also be wearing long sleeves when you're holding kittens for the first time, because long sleeves kind of protect your arms a little bit from, from kitten teeth and claws. And so those, making kids aware of those things is really what hazard mitigation is about.
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    18 分
  • PHQP_0014 Heavy Work
    2025/04/07
    In PHQP 0014 Heavy Work, Jeff dives into the wonders of kids pushing, pulling, and hauling their way to growth. This episode unpacks how heavy work boosts strength and coordination, brings calm, and more. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0014 Heavy Work Episode Notes Heavy Work Heavy Work Simplified Heavy Work 5 Simple Ways to Support “Heavy Work” The Important Role Of Kinetic Chains In Early Learning PHQP_0006 Don’t Neglect Sensory Integration The Benefits of Playful Aggression DIY | Concrete Blocks Balanced And Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children The Heavy Work Transcript Welcome to another episode of the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson. Thank you for pushing play. On with the show. So, uh, oh look my slides are off. How untidy. Um, so I found a found a new dolphin bone at the beach the the other day to add to my loose parts collection. It's kind of broken down and battered but I kind of like it. I've got I've got five others two two other vertebrae and and a couple of a couple of ribs. So my plan is to eventually build build my own dolphin which I really look forward to. I find another bone every every eight months or so along the beach. It's been delightful. I'm pretty sure they're dolphins. 98% sure they're dolphins. They're not human and the we've got a lot more dolphins in the area than we do whales and they are mammal bones. So I'm assuming dolphins. If I find out otherwise I will let you know. So I'm excited for that growing collection of loose parts. Topic one for this episode is pretty much gonna be the theme of the whole show is heavy work. So heavy work is activity that pushes or pulls against the body or involves carrying and this is something that is really beneficial to kids. We'll get into that in a minute but this activity is just pushing pulling and carrying is is something kids are kind of wired and interested in and we should figure out how to how to work more of that into into their days. So heavy work involves creating force and defying gravity and so think about all the interesting ways kids apply gravity. Running is pushing really they're pushing their feet against the ground to propel themselves when they run. Jumping is pushing. Jumping is heavy work. Climbing is heavy work. Arms are pulling. Legs are pushing. So think about all those kind of activities. Hauling heavy buckets of sand. Pulling a wagon. Pushing somebody on a sled or pushing somebody who's sitting on a skateboard or riding a bike or riding rollerblades or climbing a tree. All of these kind of things. Digging is a form of heavy work and so it's all applying force and defying gravity. Pushing is applying force away from the body. Pulling, applying force toward the body. And carrying, moving while supporting something. And so these three things are a really big part of sensory integration and physical development. I mentioned heavy work in previous episodes but really for sensory integration there's a lot going on here because they're understanding their proprioceptive system, the awareness of their body in space. They're building their vestibular system, their sense of balance. They're learning to understand their interoceptive system, all of the feelings that they have going on inside of them. Plus they're building muscle strength and control, hand-eye coordination and not just hand-eye, hand-foot coordination, visual tracking skills, listening skills are often involved in heavy work and on and on it goes. And so there's a lot of good learning here going on. And the problem of course is heavy work requires kids to be up and moving and active and a lot of early learning programs are adverse to kids actively engaging their bodies. I mean, look, they might have scheduled physical activity time. Maybe it's free play out in the playground. Maybe it's adult-led calisthenics.
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    18 分
  • PHQP_0013 Navigating Change
    2025/03/31
    In PHQP 0013_Navigating Change, Jeff serves up a quick yet insightful chat about tackling change—offering practical tips to turn anxiety into lasting change. Plus, a groan-worthy dad joke to cap it off. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0013 Navigating Change Episode Notes Free To Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life The Navigating Change Transcript Welcome to Playvolition HQ Podcast, I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on with the show. So this is going to be a little bit of an abbreviated episode. I've I'm kind of crunched for time this week. I let it get away from me. And I've got to head out for a in-person gig in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I'm going from 75 here at the beach to I think the high temperature on my road trip, it's going to be 30 degrees. Kind of looking forward to it. I like a snowy cold Michigan. I don't know if it's going to be any snow, but looking forward to it. I say abbreviated episode because I've only got one thing on the topic. Although whoever knows how long it's going to go. Also, behind the scenes, this is the second time I've tried to record this episode because I was about seven minutes in when I realized I hadn't pushed record. And I've been making podcasts for over 12 years. So a little bit of a a learning curve still there for me. So our one and only topic this week is navigating changes and comfortable stages. So change is a challenge. Change is something that requires you to get out of your current state and do something different, do something new. And that can be that can be really challenging because it often leaves us feeling uncomfortable and anxious. And those are those are feelings that we like to avoid. And so we often put off change for just the fact that those things, those feelings might might pop into our day. And this goes for changing things up in your classroom, whether you're you're embracing rough and tumble play, which is also the title of Mike Huber's wonderful book. Or you're going from craftivities you see on Pinterest to a real process art station. Or the example we're going to walk through today is is starting putting together a mud kitchen in your classroom. You can deal with classroom stuff like that, or it comes into play in personal stuff, too, because I do a lot of trainings on on caregiver self-care. And one challenge for caregivers who are going from not taking care of themselves at all, investing very little time in self-care to making it a daily practice is it can get very uncomfortable. It can make them anxious. They're worried about failing. They're worrying about missing the day. They're they're beating themselves up because they didn't start this earlier. And and so it can come with a lot of discomfort in starting those changes. But we want changes to last, right? So we have to learn to navigate those feelings of anxiety or discomfort or whatever, whatever you're feeling with change, with feeling happening when change is going on for those things to to last. We have to work through it. So a caregiver example, right? So you're a caregiver. You decide you're going to start your you're going to start exercising more because, you know, you know, you need to and, you know, it's good for you. And so you decide, maybe I'm going to start walking three miles every day after work. That's great. Great, great idea. And you do it the first day, maybe the second day, maybe the third day you go a mile and a half, maybe the fourth day it's on your calendar. You miss completely because you got home from work late and you weren't feeling it, and so you skipped it. And then you start beating yourself up. I'm a failure. I knew this wasn't going to work. I shouldn't have tried this. And you let those feelings take over and you give up. People do it all the time. I've done it a bazillion times.
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    18 分