BlogCatalog

There are many different kinds of parent-blogs – from personal to practical. But rare is the blog that consistently provides inspiration to parents and teachers by encouraging them to exercise their imagination. That’s just what you’ll find at Spaghetti Box Kids.  According to the blog’s author, Anthony Vecchioni, he created Spaghetti Box Kids to be “a go-to resource that begins with the premise that your child is 10x more capable than you think.” The result of his effort is extraordinary.

Spaghetti Box Kids is an idea file – a repository of activities for parents and children that focus on learning through play. Anthony encourages creativity through the use of everyday objects and old-fashioned toys. He even encourages kids to build their own toys.

When parents and caregivers play with their children on a regular basis, Anthony posits, they are able to share and pass on a love of learning. Every parent can draw on his or her own experiences of play as they help to engage their child’s imagination. But there are times, when parents need new ideas to enrich their home learning environment. And enrichment is what Spaghetti Box Kids is all about.

I took a little time this week to get to know Anthony [avecchioni here at BC]. He arrived for our interview in a weathered #44 Chuck Foreman jersey, mentioning something about his relief at having found his lucky shirt. Fortunately for me, I had remembered to don my own #46 Doug Plank jersey, so we’d start the interview on even footing. (A little insurance never hurts.)

I did my best to keep the focus of our discussion away from football, and squarely on blogging.

MM: Tell me about Spaghetti Box Kids and your emphasis on 'learning through play'?

AV: I had the good fortune to be an assistant teacher at a daycare center while I was in college. I got to know all the children ages infant to 5 years old. It was there I saw the clear relationship between playing and learning. But it’s not only that kids learn through play. I'd go a step further and say that kids' ability to learn is heightened through play. During play, a child is interested and stays interested because she’s making connections and advancing her understanding. Her proficiency at absorbing and re-arranging concepts is accelerated.

MM: I noticed that most of your Spaghetti Box Kids activities encourage kids to play with whatever objects are on-hand.

AV: The reasoning behind that is simple -- my wife and I were in extremely humble circumstances when we started a family. The details don’t matter, except that using no special resources other than the practice of learning through play--in particular simple, old fashioned games and activities--we nurtured our son’s love of learning.

At an early age, based on examination, he was given 1st choice of any gifted school in the city of Chicago. By eighth grade he had mastered numerous fields of mathematics, and had taken 1st place in various city and state-wide scholastic competitions. He tested into one of the top high schools in the nation, was captain of multiple varsity sports, worked year 'round, was a National Merit Finalist, an AP National Scholar with Distinction, finished salutatorian of his class, and gained admittance into an Ivy League university.

Anyway--our son’s greatest achievement, aside from having a kind heart, isn't any award—it’s his love of learning. He genuinely loves to learn, to explore new things and figure out how things work. That appetite arose from a daily routine of old fashioned games and activities.

So, Spaghetti Box Kids is an effort to share those activities with parents, and to provide the rationale behind the value of playtime.

MM: One of the things I like about Spaghetti Box Kids is the emphasis on simple toys and pretend play. How do you come up with such imaginative ideas? And can you speak to the specific benefits of pretend play in child development?

AV: If you want to strengthen a child’s confidence in her own abilities to determine and arrange meaning, stick with simple activities. With simple activities there is no mistaking the source of stimulus. Your child turns a stick into a wand, for instance, and then sorts through the endless possibilities on her own terms. She’s the source of creativity. That confidence in creativity is a portable benefit. She can call on it anytime, anywhere. You can’t say the same for things like electronic gadgets, for example, in which case the gadget is always required (because it’s the source of stimulus).

MM: Spaghetti Box Kids has a wide variety of activities that can be customized to meet the needs of children at any age or stage. Is flexibility or adaptability a goal when you develop new ideas?

AV:Good question. From my perspective, adaptability is more of a result than a goal. If you shift the focus from toys to activities, the idea of adaptability opens up. For instance, how do you assign an age to counting activities? It starts with toddlers, but some of the world’s leading mathematicians spend decades advancing theories of numeric patterns. But, yes, I do try to explicitly indicate variations on activities--variations that accommodate different skill levels. Whether someone follows the variation exactly doesn’t matter. The point is to encourage the activity to become an instrument of exploration.

MM: Who is your intended audience? And what is your relationship with your readers? Is Spaghetti Box Kids more of an idea-file for parents and teachers or a place for an active exchange on parenting?

AV:My audience is parents with children ages toddler to fourth grade--mainly parents on the Internet looking for wholesome things to do with their kids. I also get a fair number of teachers who sift through my science and art content. Overall, I average about 125 visitors per day. I can safely say that less than 1% of readers leave a comment. They may come back often, or subscribe, but in the end they’re motivated to gather useful information.

MM: Because your posts are so thoughtfully conceived, I am wondering if you could talk a bit about how you develop material. In terms of nuts-and-bolts writing, do you follow a method to ensure a high standard of quality?

AV: Good questions. In terms of nuts and bolts, I try to keep to a compact subject matter. It’s like surveying a mountain from the distance. It looks so simple. But the closer you get to it, the more complex and varied it becomes. If I’m having difficulty organizing the material, there are usually two articles (or more). So I partition the material and hold to one subject at a time. That makes it easier for people who are searching for a specific thing to find it. Secondly, with a few exceptions, I always have an introduction and conclusion. That gives me a brief opportunity to surround the material with an approach or perspective. It allows me to address the question, 'Why does the content matter?' Lastly, I proof read. I make sure the information is easy to follow.

MM: If you were to identify a few issues in early childhood education that your blog helps to address, what would they be? (I am particularly interested in your thoughts on Montessori education or Waldorf schools, which teach through play and through experience, rather than simply in a classroom setting.)

AV: From the prologue of Play = Learning. . ., a book that emerged from a 2005 Yale conference of the same name, “ 25% of class time in the Los Angeles schools is now spent in either assessment or assessment preparation – in having children learn to fill in the blanks with rote answers. The classrooms that used to display children’s work and drawings now devote their walls to ‘testing tips’ designed to help children do well on standardized assessments.” I see the same thing happening in Chicago. An assessment-obsessed curriculum is draining the energy from education. I challenge you to find one teacher who is inspired by this approach. Of course the system needs improving, but there’s got to be a better way.

Yes, sure there are Montessori schools—great alternative … but have you seen the tuition for some of these schools? I have nothing against Montessori schools. They provide an excellent model for education. But I’m not going to promote something that has an economic barrier to entry.

Any parent can provide a more fulfilling environment right at home simply by turning off the television and getting rid of video games. That costs nothing. As for my site--it’s a supplement for parents. The main issues it addresses are attention span and the ability to stay focused. It does this by providing fun, wholesome activities that stimulate a child’s desire to explore something completely.

MM: Tell me about your blog's design and artwork? Why have you chosen that particular look or design?

AV: The design is always evolving. My wife is a great source of feedback. She’ll tell me if something is over the top, dull or just doesn’t belong. I’m a hobby photographer, so I have a lot of visuals on my site. In the end, the most important thing about design is that it doesn’t complicate a visitor’s experience. The site should be easy to navigate.

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Our interview reinforced my belief that Spaghetti Box Kids is a tremendous resource for parents and teachers. But I also learned from Anthony’s careful and methodical approach to writing and his commitment to quality content.  And his site design is uncluttered, which makes it easy to find information.

So, the next time my well of play ideas runs dry (or next time I need to improve my site design) I’ll plan on paying Spaghetti Box Kids a visit. It’s a blog that deserves its time in the BlogCatalog spotlight.