Joyce Hemphill

Hello! Welcome to my Author Page. Please allow me to share a bit about myself. I have a doctorate in developmental psychology from The Ohio State University and have 30 years of experience teaching undergraduate courses such as infant-child development, cognition, and learning. I retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012.

While I have valued the importance of play I wasn't publicly advocating it until my sons’ school district eliminated morning recess. Since that ruling I started organizing community play events, speaking and writing on the value of play, giving workshops on ways to play, and teaching classes on the importance of play. Currently I am a board member of the American Association for the Child’s Right to Play (IPAUS.org) and the Fox Valley (IL) Association for the Education of Young Children. I am also a Play Advocate with the US Play Coalition and write a “Playing from Scratch” column for their monthly newsletter.

The games and activities in our book, The Power of Playful Learning, is a sampling of the activities we offer at our play events and workshops. The idea behind them is simple: It doesn't have to cost a lot of money to have fun together. By using clean, safe, common household recyclables the design of the game is flexible and up to one’s imagination. When you are tired of playing it, modify it or put it in the recycle bin. As a teacher, collecting common recyclable materials, such as plastic caps from jugs or paper tubes, provides an opportunity for ALL families to contribute and have an active role in their children’s educational experience. In addition, each child can have his/her own set of manipulatives which s/he can take and use at home. And lastly, the making and playing of games strengthen and support what is being learned in the classroom – measurement, reasoning, decision making, strategy development, literacy skills, patience, persistence, following directions, the functions of simple machines, math skills, spatial skills, and many more.

Simply put … play is a powerful learning tool. Be playful.

YiP (Yours in Play)

Joyce