We launched Play Circle at DLWP this month, a new session for learning and play with little ones…
It’s a cold crisp Autumn morning, the ground floor gallery is flooded with golden sunlight and artist Renee So’s ceramic and textile works look stunning. On the bare wooden floor we have marked out a circle with brightly coloured lengths of cloth. The circle is geometry’s most democratic shape. Everybody joining the circle is included. Everybody joining the circle is equal. Welcome to Play Circle – DLWP’s new series of monthly creative sessions enabling toddlers to do what comes naturally to them: PLAY!
Storyteller Kevin Graal, our facilitator for this first Play Circle, says:
We don’t need to teach toddlers how to walk. They do it by themselves. When they take their first steps, we just need to encourage them and make sure they’re safe. In the same way, we don’t need to teach toddlers how to play. We just need to – ever so subtly – facilitate it. That’s why we’re introducing Play Circle at DLWP. We want to create a space in which toddlers and their adults can play together freely – without preconceived outcomes – but with light-touch guidance and inspiration from creative practitioners. We want to show that as well as the proven links between play and the development of cognitive and social skills, play also has its own intrinsic value as a way of finding out about the world and everything in it – including ourselves.
As the Roman poet Ovid said more than 2000 years ago:
“In our play we reveal what kind of people we are.”
Play Circle takes place on the 2nd Monday of every month with a session at 10.15am for members of the general public and a further session – expanding the play circle – for toddlers from a local early years setting. Sessions will be facilitated either by storyteller Kevin Graal or dance artist Anne Colvin together with experienced DLWP volunteers.
