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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_0027 Coordination

    PHQP_0027 Coordination
    Jul 7 2025
    In episode PHQP_0027 Coordination, Jeff discusses coordination. Spoiler Alert--kids need to play more. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0027 Coordination Episode Notes 8 Sensory Systems That Drive Playful Learning DIY | Sensory Play Ramps Hands Grasp Gently Poster The Coordination Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson, thanks for pushing play. On with the show. So, I talk more about coordination. Again, I'm trying to teach myself to play the guitar and I'm an old guy and I thought I was fairly coordinated. But when it comes to putting my fingers in the right place at the right time and making sure the left fingers are in the right place while the right fingers are in the right place while my heel is keeping beat, it's very, very complicated. And it's very, very frustrating. And I'm loving every moment of it. And it got me to thinking about children and coordination because over the last couple years, I've been talking to caregivers, you know, about play and all the other stuff we talk about in this show. And one thing that continues to come up is a lot of long-time caregivers, people who've been in the field for 15, 25, 35 years are reporting frustration with how much less coordinated the children are than they used to be. Somebody in Australia referred to it as kids that got floppy hands nowadays. And I think that's a thing. And, you know, I think it comes from the sedentariness and the screen time and a lot of that. And a lot of the things we cover on the show would address it. But I just wanna spend a little bit of time talking again about coordination. So that's our topic, coordination. So coordination is the ability to execute smooth, controlled movements. And it has a lot to do with proprioception, which we talked about in a previous episode. But coordination also has to do with the visual processes and muscle memory. And there's a lot more going on than just proprioception there. And one of the ways we can, yeah, we're realizing other sensory systems too. I forgot this slide was there. Vision is there, touch is there, the vestibular system is there. All of this stuff is working together. And for all of those things to work together, that's vestibular, the sensory system, that's four of the eight sensory systems at least working together all at once, is they need a lot of practice. And that's what I'm experiencing with my learning guitar is that I've made improvements. But especially because I'm an old guy, I've got this old brain that doesn't make new neural connections nearly as fast as if I was six months old. It's taking a long time. So I can see those slow progressions, but what it takes is repetition over and over and over and over again. And that's what kids need when they're building their coordination and these sensory systems. So our coordination develops from the core out, from our center, and then the big muscles, and then finally out to our fingertips. And so one of the problems, and I've talked about this before, one of the problems, one of the roadblocks to this in a lot of early learning settings is kids aren't engaging in enough big body activity. And if we want them to be able to sit still and keep their hands to themselves and manage a writing utensil, when they get to school, they need to be doing a lot more moving in their early learning settings than they're doing nowadays. They need to be a lot less crisscross applesauce and a lot more rough and tumble play and superhero play and running and climbing and leaping and rolling, spinning, and all that fun stuff. So core outward, if you want to get fancy with it, it's from the proximal to the distal, from the core outward. If you want to impress parents or your coworkers, you can talk about proximal to distal when it comes to coordination development. And this naturally develops, again, via play and exploration.
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    12 mins
  • PHQP_0026 Avoiding Pediatric Occupational Therapy

    PHQP_0026 Avoiding Pediatric Occupational Therapy
    Jun 30 2025
    In PHQP_0026 Avoiding Pediatric Occupational Therapy, Jeff unpacks why more preschool play could help avoid school-age pediatric occupational therapy. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0026 Avoiding Pediatric Occupational Therapy Episode Notes Balanced And Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children The Avoiding Pediatric Occupational Therapy Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ Podcast. I'm Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on with the show. So, update on something I saw. So, episodes and episodes ago I reported on seeing something called the, I called the water punch game, the water bottle punch game. So, kids were, they had a partially full bottle of water and they were just holding it up and dropping it and punching it. And that went on, I saw a bunch of kids playing it and there were only a couple kids playing it. And then over the last couple months, I guess it's been, there's this one kid I see and this seems to be his go-to hanging out when his friends aren't really able to play, thing to do outside. And he's, he's really evolved as a player of this game or evolved the game, I guess. Now it's, it's multiple, multiple strikes on the bottle before it hits the ground. So, he'll, he'll toss it up the air, up in the air and then he'll bat it up and then it'll be coming down and he'll bat it with an elbow and then maybe get it with a knee and then maybe his heel and then he'll punch it farther away from him. So, it'll be four or five strikes before the bottle hits the gun. It's kind of like, like, like dribbling a soccer ball. And, and it's, it's really great. And this kind of relates back to the proprioception episode we did a little bit ago. This kid has a wonderful awareness of where his body parts are in space in relation to his other body parts, as well of, as well as where other things in the environment are in space. So, it's kind of neat to see that, that game evolve and change over, over time. On with the podcast, topic one, only topic for, for this episode is avoiding pediatric occupational therapy. So, what I'm talking about here is not avoiding it for those who need it. I'm talking about preventing the need for it, I guess is what I'm talking about. And maybe I could have worded the title different, but you know, it is what it is. So, occupation, pediatric occupational therapy is a wonderful thing and very valuable for kids who need it. And it would be nice if we lived in a world where fewer kids needed it. And over the, over the last couple of decades, there's been a huge uptick in the number of kids that are needing, needing this kind of, kind of therapy, this kind of assistance. Human children have never been more sedentary than they are now in 2025, something I say just about every episode. And that has, has made this uptick in pediatric occupational therapy necessary. When kids don't move, they don't build the physical skills that they need, the sensory systems they need don't get wired with their brains, and they have a hard time living in their bodies in the world. And that's basically what pediatric occupational therapy does, is it helps kids who are having a hard time navigating their bodies, navigate their bodies and the world a little bit better. But that's also what, what play does. Play is the evolutionary strategy for giving us all of those skills. And then we end up with kids who lack those skills, and then we have these therapeutic settings to, to help them catch up. But again, it'd be nice if we could avoid, avoid the therapeutic settings altogether. One of the reasons for this uptick is also more screen times, because we are usually sedentary when we are in front of our screens. And so shoving young children in front of screens has really done them a developmental disservice. And look, I'm, I'm pro screen. I, there are a lot of valuable things that can come from screens,
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    12 mins
  • PHQP_0025 Instead of NO

    PHQP_0025 Instead of NO
    Jun 23 2025
    In PHQP_0025 Instead of NO, Jeff discusses the value of following up a "No" with a "But" in order to better support playful learning. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0025 Instead of NO Episode Notes No links for this episode. The Instead of NO Transcript Welcome to the Playvolution HQ Podcast, I'm Jeff Johnson, thanks for pushing play, I'm with the show. So I was on a walk the other day and I ran across an Easter game, kids were playing a game of dodge croc. This is, you can imagine, dodge ball using a croc shoe, you know, those really ugly shoes, instead of a ball. Nobody wanted to run home and get a ball, so somebody kicked off their shoes and they were playing with the croc. And they were using a pinkish, purplish colored croc, I think crocs of any color will work if you want to play dodge croc. But I thought this was ingenious, it goes to show how creative kids are, how versatile loose parts are, and how kids are wired to make do. We don't need a lot of fancy toys to make play happen, we just need space and an environment and interest and kids will come up with all kinds of things for the props necessary to make their play work. When I do write up the dodge ball post for the Playvolution HQ collection of classic kids games, I will make sure to include dodge croc in there as a game variation. What are we going to get into next? Well, we've got one topic for this week, and that is no but. This kind of is related to the dodge croc, right? Anybody got a ball so we can play dodge ball? No but, I do have this croc, and that's the way they move forward. I think no but is a much better option when it comes to dealing with activities kids are choosing than no, because often times for adults we get in this habit of saying no and just putting things to a complete stop when kids are doing things that we don't approve of. Now, absolutely there are times when we need kids to stop what they're doing. It's okay, I mean I'm not saying never say no to kids, what I am saying is much of the time when it comes to supervising and keeping play safe and promoting learning, we can opt for something less than no, and I think no but is a good variation there, because it's easy for no to become the default response. Along those lines, my experience is also, since I do a lot of training and talking about caregiver burnout, saying no all day, no, no you can't do that, no you can't do this, no you can't do this, I can't have you, really has an impact on our mindset, and we start taking on the negative mindset of that no, and one of the strategies for reducing burnout just a little bit for caregivers is to create an environment where you're not saying no as much, because it truly does have an impact on your mindset. Maybe that'll be a future episode. So instead of no, we can start going with no but, and that curtails the children's activity and learning, just like no does, but it offers another option, and that's where it becomes valuable. So instead of shutting down the activity completely, it offers them a way to move forward with it with slight changes. And look, this is basically redirection, right? And I think it's more thoughtful if we think about it in these terms of looking for ways to support the thing, because oftentimes just basic redirection is they redirect, the child is redirected 180 degrees from what they are already doing, and what we're talking about here is making minor changes to what they're already doing so they can keep doing some version of it. I think that's the difference between basic redirection and no but. Yes, might be impossible, impractical, or inconvenient. That just happens. There are going to be, like I said, there are going to be those times where we do absolutely have to say no to kids, and no but could be that alternative. No but provides options and choice and a little bit more power and control for the kids instead of being redirected to something that may be 180 de...
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    15 mins
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