Are you on Pinterest yet? If not here is a little information that should hopefully get you inspired to give it a try and start pinning and organising all that awesomeness today!
You can find The Imagination Tree on Pinterest here. Come and see what I am pinning over there each day!
Pinterest is an incredibly smart, user-friendly online tool for bookmarking all your favourite links in one place. Why it is so brilliant (and why it appealed to me within 5 seconds of looking at it) is that it’s so visual, with a heavy emphasis on large, beautiful pictures and little distracting text. Instead of bookmarking all those gems you find online using text links in arduous, long drop-down lists, Pinterest lets you pin one large image from each location to your very own boards, which are named and categorised in any way that you choose. You can then refer back to these and find all your favourite ideas at a glance.
Why is this so brilliant for parents and educators (in particular)? Well, with the plethora of wonderful play and learning ideas that are flooding the internet, you can now sort and organise them all into tidy pin-boards to add to and refer back to any time you should need to reference an idea. This is great for planning play times at home or using for your planning sessions at school, and storing up informative articles and useful information about policies and curricula to read in the future.
My favourite pin board at the moment is one I’ve called Good Old Fashioned Play! It’s a collaborative board that I have added some favourite play-based bloggers to, and is filled to the brim with brilliant, simple and child-centred ideas for play and learning. Not a worksheet or a computer screen in sight, but plenty of emphasis on enjoying the moments and keeping life simple and joy-filled!
I also have plenty of other boards arranged according to areas of learning in the curriculum, such as my Playful Maths board and Sensory Play ideas. Added to these I have some for keeping my life (a bit) more organised, such as delicious looking recipes, home organisation and kids’ birthday parties!
There are thousands of inspiring people that you can follow to see what they are pinning. So jump on, sign up today (it’s free, of course!) and join in the fun!
I’m excited to be featured by the Pinterest team today as part of their Pin it Forward UK campaign. If you check out their original introductory post you will find all sorts of fabulous background information about Pinterest and also a list of some incredible UK pinners that you should start following asap!
Click here to follow The Imagination Tree on Pinterest.
Tomorrow Emma from Mummy, Mummy, Mum (who also writes the inspiring Science Sparks) will be writing about why she loves Pinterest so much! Here is her Preschool Science Ideas board which I hugely recommend you start following straight away as she is always finding the most exciting experiments to pin over there!
Thanks for participating in Pin It Forward UK, Anna! Your have found so many amazing, creative inspirations for kids on Pinterest! It’s great to hear that you and your favorite bloggers have filled Good Old Fashioned Play with great ideas for learning and play. I love the DIY treehouse project for imaginative play time! Lauren, Community Coordinator
Thanks for the lovely introduction Anna.