Stay, Play, Learn website (www.StayPlayLearn.org) is a project created by Box of Light and the Bloomsburg Children’s Museum to provide arts and science education to families at home during the time of COVID-19. This site offers films, lessons, educational challenges and connections to educators and teaching artists. These resources are gifts to our communities from teaching artists, educators and arts organizations throughout northeastern Pennsylvania.
Videos are sought in two areas:
1.The Caberet: SPL’s Performance Space
The Stay, Play, Learn project, spearheaded by Box of Light and the Bloomsburg Children’s Museum, is putting out a call for those who would like to share a story, sing a song or dance a dance with their community. We’re adding a Cabaret page on which we will post daily performances by our talented neighbors.
What are we looking for?
Tell us a story, play an instrument, sing a song or show us your dance moves. We are communities striving to connect during this time of social isolation and some ways we can connect are through our shared experiences (stories), our songs and our writings.
How will this work?
It’s pretty simple. Send us a video of you singing, storytelling, playing music. Do you like folktales? Tell us one of those. Did you have a funny experience trying to get through the grocery store? We think there are others who would commiserate. Have you written a song you’d like to share? Golden. We definitely want to hear that. This is us, reaching out, creating community through song, dance and words.
2. Videos for parents
We imagined Stay, Play, Learn as a site of resources for families. The videos we’ve posted so far have been aimed at children. But parents and guardians are also having to learn during this difficult time as well. Parents now need to be educators or the facilitators of education. They are trying in a rising tide of bad news to help their children feel safe and engaged.
The Bloomsburg Children’s Museum and Box of Light would like to ask your help in creating a set of video resources that will help parents navigate the rest at home phase of this pandemic. We’d like to ask you to think of creating a video that teaches parents. If you are a teacher, we’d love to see some tips on how parents can keep their child engaged in learning while at home. How can they create an educational routine? How can they make a math concept fun? If you teach reading, how can they help create a lifelong reader? And, if you help children deal with strong emotions, what can parents do to make this time emotionally easier for their children?
The videos need not be long. If you can give some tips in 5 minutes or less, that’s actually pretty useful. Don’t worry about production values. Parents are not looking for glitzy. They are looking for help.
Please note: these are not just for kids. These sharings will be for all of our community. All materials posted will be appropriate for a general audience. Sorry, we don’t do violence, anger or politics. This is a gift. Make it a positive one.
Feel free to email Ginny Weibel at [email protected] with questions.
Send your videos or links to Rand Whipple at [email protected].
Not sure how to videotape yourself? Feel free to email [email protected] with questions.