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I’m a big fan of Christie Burnett who writes the fabulous play-centered, Childhood 101 blog. As a early childhood teacher and mom, she’s a passionate advocate for play. Now she’s publishing a gorgeous new eZine called Play Grow Learn.

Christie begins the publication by writing this, “I hope my journey will provide you with a little inspiration to pursue your own dream, and that Play Grow Learn will encourage you to keep playing. After all, it’s essential to the life and learning of our children.“

It is. Play is truly a child’s work and needs to be a daily ingredient in a healthy child’s diet.

So, when I saw Play Grow Learn, I bought it without reading anything about it, just knowing it would be great because Christie and her amazing contributing writers wrote it. Oh, the team of writers? Incredible. They are Vanessa Rough of Silly Eagle Books, Catherine Way of Adventures with Kids, Tricia Hogbin of Little Eco Footprints, Carrie George of A Little Learning For Two, Katie Fairlie of Picklebums, Shae Reynolds of Yay for Home, Elise Ellerman of Inspiration Surrounds, Creativity Abounds, Rachelle Doorley of TinkerLab, Catherine Oehlman of SquiggleMum, Debi Huang of Go Explore Nature, and Danielle Meinyczenko of Danimezza.

Play Grow Learn is 65 pages long with play ideas for all ages of children for both indoor and out, accompanied by gorgeous photography, and enticing design by Lime Design.

Christie begins the zine with an article about letting children choose and directing play. Other contributing writers share articles about a variety of ways to play such as playing with maps, using play scenes (see photograph above,) creating meaningful birthday traditions, using sticks, creating a backyard kitchen, storytelling, clay bead necklaces, and more.

The play scenes article, “Introduction to Using Play Scenes” by Kate Fairlie of Picklebums, shares the wonderful concept of creating a small, thematic (for lack of a better word) scene. Fairlie writes, ”A play scene is a little something special, set up to entice, encourage and invite a child to play.”

All this is only $4! You can’t even get a Starbucks coffee for that anymore and this is a 65-page digital magazine!

Order Play Grow Learn and Win

Imagination Soup readers have 48 hours to purchase their copy of Play Grow Learn to go into the running to win a fabulous prize. Order Play Grow Learn and enter the code SOUP in the discount field on checkout for your chance to win one of three creative paper packs.

But, seriously, just order it anyway. It’s $4 and it’s really worth waaaay more than that. You’ll love it.

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