Playful Education: Using Play Therapy Strategies to Elevate Your Early Childhood Classroom

Playful Education provides a guide for you to activate the powers of play to boost your teaching practices and increase your effectiveness as an educator. Based on Virginia Axline and Garry Landreth’s play therapy, this book is an operational and practical guide on using play therapy to strengthen your holistic learning development and relationships with students. Chapters offer practical responsive interventions for children with behavioral and academic challenges and preventative practices. You will learn the purpose and goals of implementing play times, (i.e., PlayBreaks), with individuals and groups of students, skills necessary to facilitate playtimes, and how to transfer play skills to the larger classroom. Educators will learn the foundations of play therapy and how they can be used to guide play within a classroom setting. Expanding beyond the classroom, this book is loaded with playful activities to enhance child-teacher relationships and integrate play throughout the school.

Dee C. Ray is Regents Professor and Elaine Millikan Mathes Professor in Early Childhood Education in the Counseling Program and Director of the Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas. Dr. Ray also co-created and oversees the international certification program for Child-Centered Play Therapy and Child-Parent Relationship Therapy.