LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
WORDS BY NICOLE SIPE
Publisher Mary Wynne Cox mary@cincinnatiparent.com Associate Publisher + Creative Director Katie Clark katie@cincinnatiparent.com
Editor Nicole Sipe nicolesipe@cincinnatiparent.com Account Executives Hannah Mohler hannah@cincinnatiparent.com Trisha Brand trisha@cincinnatiparent.com
Come Out and Play We are in the last couple of months at our play-based preschool. Come May, we will have to say goodbye to the community of families that welcomed us, wholeheartedly and unconditionally, when we moved to Indy from California almost six years ago. Next stop for my youngest son: elementary school! But I’m not going to write about how much I will miss our little cooperative nursery school. Not yet, at least. We are still in the thick of it: playing, getting muddy, gluing, painting, building and sharing on the daily. The other day, after I picked him up from another day of play, my son asked me why he doesn’t do any learning at his school. He has seen his older brother, a second grader, come home with worksheets full of math problems and assignments that have him creating slideshows about Antarctica. My youngest wanted to know why he wasn’t doing any real learning like that.
I tried to explain to my 5-year-old son that all the fun things he’s doing in school is learning. When he plays games, he’s learning how to take turns and cooperate with others. When he’s building with blocks, he’s learning simple geometry and logic. When he’s squishing slime, he’s being introduced to science. But that is what’s so magical about play: Kids are learning and they don’t even realize it. As you can imagine, our feature article in this issue, Let Them Play on page 16, is right up my alley. I am a big proponent of play in early childhood. (I’ve seen the benefits first-hand!) This article will share with you many reasons why play — that oh-so-important thing that doesn’t always look so important when it is happening — is essential for a child’s development. Fred Rogers said it better than I ever could: “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
Production Manager Karen Ring karen@cincinnatiparent.com Community Outreach + Social Media Sarah McCosham sarah@cincinnatiparent.com Digital Publisher Wendy Hasser wendy@cincinnatiparent.com Event Coordinator Brooke Litherland brooke@cincinnatiparent.com Billing billing@cincinnatiparent.com Contributing Writers Lisa Davis, Rachael Dupree, Rebecca Hill, Riane Konc, Laurel Price Calendar of Events calendar@cincinnatiparent.com
Cincinnati Parent Magazine is published monthly. Copyright 2020 by Midwest Parenting Publications, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited. Distribution of this magazine does not constitute an endorsement of products, commentary or services herein.
EDITOR
NICOLESIPE@CINCINNATIPARENT.COM
06
CINCINNATIPARENT.COM I March 2020
25,000 - 45,000 CIRCULATION CATEGORY
