Today we're welcoming Nicola Howd, the founder of Play in
the Past, to Blooming Curious.
Nicola, who is originally from the UK, where she completed undergraduate studies
in history, now calls Perth home, where she has been teaching grades one to three.
This is where she saw the magic of the early years brought to life by the
many amazing educators she worked with.
And this is also where she met where her love for hands on learning grew,
and she saw first hand the importance of allowing students to do history.
For little people to make sense of the world around them, they have to hold
it in their hands and play with it.
And so, Play in the Past was born just three months after
the birth of a little boy.
It started with one kit for hire, and today is a thriving educational
experience for little learners.
And as Nicola says, it's a true blast in the past.
Welcome to Blooming Curious Nicola.
Hello, thank you for having me.
It's so nice to see you here and have you on the podcast.
I've been following you for the longest time on social media and seeing
all these fabulous gadgets and old, artifacts that you have and bringing
to schools, which is so exciting, especially for someone like me.
I mean, I usually know what those old things are, but I know
that for kids now they don't.
So let's start.
With you giving the listener some background and what inspired you to start
Play in the Past, especially crazy woman, so soon after the birth of your son.
I know, it was, it was a short turnaround really.
But Play in the Past had been an idea that was brewing for a while.
I taught in year one for three years.
And at the school I was at, year one was part of an early years campus.
And so it's just, was just this magical place of early years learning
and play , and hands on experiences.
It was truly the making of me as a teacher, being able to teach there.
And the more I was teaching in year one, the more I saw how
important it was for little people to have those hands on experiences.
They needed to hold their learning in their hands, but
they needed to play with it.
And we were doing a history session, which was my passion when I was younger.
And we had a typewriter and , the magic in their eyes, their curiosity,
it was just, you wanted to bottle it.
You know, that's what you want in your lessons.
Every lesson that you do, just that sheer enthusiasm., And so I had
that nugget of an idea, like I would love for other educators to have
access to these resources, which is quite tricky to have a wide range of
vintage items costs a lot of money.
And you've got to source them, you've got to store them, got to
worry about them getting broken.
So a good alternative for that was to hire them.
And so the little idea grew and grew and I finally did it and put it out
there and it's gone gangbusters.
And yeah, here we are today, even running incursions and offering
a blast in the past for lots
of little people.
That's amazing.
So you've just said, how you acquired these artifacts.
So tell us a little bit about that because I know I was teaching
year two, for example, and that's part of the curriculum, you
know, the change in technology.
And so it's really hard if you don't have a collection of old
items to bring into the class.
What we used to do, we used to say to the kids, look, can you all go and ask your
grandparents and bring in something old?
And it was amazing because we got so many of these artifacts, from their
grandparents who were in the war and, a piece of rock from, someone's
grandparent, , I think it was from Mount Etna that erupted in Italy and
this piece of rock that landed on their grandparents doorstep, and that's when
I also saw, gosh, this is so interesting.
And the kids really found these artifacts that they don't
see today, so interesting.
So how did you go about acquiring all these artifacts?
All the magic, I have done a lot of shopping and I'm now, I'm now
on a self imposed ban of op shops because as I'm sure all teachers can
relate when you go into an op shop,
you've got your teacher brain and you look at everything as
a potential learning resource.
And so that's what I did.
I knew I wanted to have items that linked to various concepts, so
entertainment, communication, toys.
And so that's what I was looking for.
I went out and deliberately sought out some of these magic items.
Every kit started with a typewriter.
And then a range of telephones and I just was able to like a magpie
was finding all the treasure at op shops and then bringing it in.
And then for our incursion, I knew I wanted some very special items.
And so I would go to an antique shops and look for very deliberate
items that I was, I was hunting down.
And recently I've had lots and lots of donations.
Lots of people, lots of grownups, educators that they've maybe had
to empty mom and dad's house and they've got all these treasures from
memories from their childhood and they don't want to get rid of it.
They don't want to throw it out, but they don't want to
keep it in their garage either.
So I've been very lucky to have some very special donations that I've been able
to share and give a new lease of life.
And when they go out into classrooms, I'll come out of my incursions.
So yeah, a lot of shopping.
A lot of shopping.
That is so good because you know, I have a husband who has no emotional
ties to any objects at all.
And we've moved from different countries and then I'd open a box, he says,
are you still taking this with you?
I'm going, of course, it belonged to my grandma.
I'm keeping this, you know, so I can really relate to that.
Those old things have real value and also an emotional connection for so many
people and if anybody's listening and you've got some artifacts from the past
and you don't want them and you're no longer allowed to be a hoarder, please
pass them on to Nicola whose details we will share at the end of the show.
Tell me Nicola, what does an incursion look like?
So you get invited to schools, they need you there.
They need the artifacts.
What does an incursion typically look like?
Yes.
Well, magic from start to finish.
So usually a teacher will be exploring that concept with their class and they,
depending on our availability and their programming where they'd like to have that
incursion.
Some really like to use it as a hook.
Others prefer it at the end of their unit as a finishing off moment.
And what I would do is I've got, my car is stock chock full of items that
are sorted by concept, and we've got four rotation stations that I set up.
And then when the students arrive, we have a very short mat session, a little bit
of an explicit teaching session there.
And what I do there is I model some comparative language
because the curriculum in early years wants us to compare.
Change and continuity over time.
And so I model that language for children.
And then we do a group activity together called a tangible timeline.
And we've got five telephones that are all jumbled up and I choose five
students to hold up the telephones and then together we sort and order them so
that we're creating a timeline together.
So.
It follows very much that I do, you know, I'm showing using the language
and then together we, we use the language together to create the
timeline and I'm able to do a bit of a spot check on each telephone as well.
So the first phone, the oldest phone is our rotary phone.
That's heavy, it's big, it's trickier to use.
And then as we go along that timeline, we see some of those
changes that have happened.
And so once we've completed the timeline, I set some expectations and we split
off into four groups and they'll rotate through the four stations.
And that's, we have our telephones and communications.
We then have technology and typing.
So that's where we have all of our music devices.
We've got records, CDs, and a range of cameras.
We've then got my favorite, which is the home corner.
And so we've got dress ups and lots of vintage things from the home.
And then lucky last is the toys and books station.
So lots of vintage toys that they can play with and explore together.
It's pure magic.
A magical experience.
And I was just thinking about when I was doing that unit in year two,
yes, the kids brought stuff in from home, but when you don't have those
artifacts, physical for the kids to handle, I was doing a similar thing to
you, but I had to use pictures of the telephones, from the oldest to the latest.
And even though they were arranging those photographs in order of the timeline,
I'm telling you it will have absolutely nothing on actually using and holding
those objects physically in their hands because that's that whole concrete
understanding before the abstract right.
So what an amazing opportunity that is for children to actually have that experience.
So good on you.
One of my recent sessions at the end, I do a bit of a conclusion
and tell me what you discovered.
And one learner put their hand up and said, I just didn't realize how heavy
the old telephone was going to be.
And it is, it's really heavy and you can feel the metal underneath.
They need two hands to hold it.
And of course, they wouldn't have known in the real world,
the weight of that item.
They wouldn't have known that if they hadn't been given
the opportunity to hold it.
You don't get that information or that sensory feedback
from a picture or a video.
So it is such a special experience for them.
And that was really going to lead to my question.
Now it's going to ask you, what impact does this have on children's
learning and understanding?
And so I think you've already just explained that.
I mean for them to hold that in their hands really cements that understanding of
the changes in that technology for them.
So amazing experience.
Can you share a memorable reaction apart from that one that a child had when they
were interacting with your artifacts.
Do you have, I'm thinking you must have so many from the different excursions
that you've done or incursions rather.
It's one of the best parts of it because I can see the children, they're so curious
and they're like, what is this thing?
And I've got in our home corner an old bug spray.
And it is a lot of the grownups that come along don't immediately know what it is.
And so there's this, they hold it up and they're looking on the quizzical look on
their face and they'll say, what is this?
And my response is always, it's funny looking I wonder
what do you think it might be?
And then you get these wonderful random guesses about what this thing might be.
And one was the pancake smasher.
We've had flamethrower because this item is so far from what they're
used to that they've got to go to the weirdest places of their
brain to come up with these ideas.
And then when I tell them it's a bug spray, they're like,
And then we talk about how it's different from what we would use today.
Today we use a spray can and it goes in the bin when we're done.
I don't know what you're talking about.
I wish you had it there because I'm thinking aerosol can.
No, clearly not.
Yeah, and it's like a, it's got a little canister and it
looks a bit like a bike pump.
And on the end it's got a very small hole and you pump it.
And it will spray out the, the, the end and it is, it's so different
to what we would use today.
And just that no idea of what, you know, I've got no prior experience with anything
else that looks like this that I can draw on to understand what this item is.
Like they have to be told, I have to tell them, but they go through that process
of elimination of what it could be.
Before they go, Oh, bugs, bug spray.
I see, I see that.
So yeah, the bug spray is a great one.
Incredible.
So because of obviously the era we live in, and it would have been true for all
children, I think, throughout time is if you don't have schema, because you have no
prior knowledge and no prior experience, that is going to be very hard for you to
actually understand what this is, and so I think those physical objects again once
more really make that concrete for kids.
As you were talking there, you were using wonder questions, I noticed, and
it makes me think that your artifacts are essentially provocations that
inspire questioning and wondering.
And for me, I immediately see them as a catalyst for inquiry projects.
So once the students, and I guess this is gonna be different for every school
and every teacher, but once they've had this incursion, what have you found
are the usual next steps for educators in terms of capitalising on children's
curiosity around these artefacts?
My hope is that when they go away they're able to share the items that
they had seen before and the items that they hadn't and then comparing
them to what they would use today.
When you think about the function of an item, what we use today and what
are some of the changes that have happened and what else could it be?
And what might be, what might come next?
And so that's my hope that after the incursion, they're able to really take
those concrete items to then build on their concepts of what if and what else.
So, yeah, that's my hope that when they move forward, that they're able
to build on those concrete experiences, being curious about what might
come next or what else was there.
Because certainly these experiences that you're providing for children
are certainly those wonder.
experiences wondering about those objects and what they were used
for in the past and what they are.
So my thought was just that I wonder how educators then take the knowledge
and the experience from this further because it would be really really sad if
all they did was have the incursion and then okay, that's over next thing now.
My hope would be as well that these experiences that they have with your
incursion, that that would be the trigger for a whole learning experience into,
well, how do we find out about objects?
How do they work?
What were they in the past?
What were they made of?
How have they changed?
How do we use the same type of technology today?
That would be an amazing, teaching sequence, wouldn't it?
And so you're right.
I guess we just , hope that educators do take this as maybe even a first step,
and not a last step, but a first step into an inquiry process and a unit of inquiry.
A trigger, like you say, a provocation to provoke curiosity.
It's a provocation to me the minute, we were talking and, and when I was
looking at your website, I thought these are provocations and what a
perfect first step into inquiry.
Sometimes they're I guess there's a scheduling issue potentially there.
You know, I've only got so much availability , and often to get
an incursion at the very beginning of your term, which is typically
at the start of a new project, can sometimes be a little bit tricky.
The logistics of that can be tricky.
And I know educators would rather have the experience at some
point, even if it's less desirable in the sequence of programming.
Maybe Nicola, you're going to have to expand.
There's going to have to be more kits and more of you.
More incursions and more artefacts out there for teachers and students.
And that's what's great about having the kits as well, because sometimes an
incursion is just too big of a thing, whereas teachers can individually
hire those items and keep them for two to three weeks or even longer.
And they can use them in their classroom in a way that suits their
learners or their learning program.
They could have it set up in a, in a home corner, or they could bring it out
very deliberately for their sessions.
It can be used in a way that suits them as well as offer, obviously
that we offer the incursions too.
So we've got options for both styles of learning as well as programming
and the need for the students as well.
Oh, that is an amazing option.
So, And I can see by your language as well, and I'm sure that when you spend
time in the classroom, how did you see the role of inquiry or was that something that
was quite active with you evolving in our current educational space especially
around hands on artifacts and hands on learning because I think as educators
you and I both know how important hands on learning is in the early years
especially but not just in the early years I think older children right up
your year fives and six, I think they still crave those experiences and
many of them when I've gone into those classrooms, many of them have still
not solidified their understanding.
So many of them still need concrete materials to help their understanding.
Do you think that there is a place for this type of inquiry based
learning, because I know that there's a massive backlash and people want
all the explicit instruction and that's why I was just so happy and so
impressed with you saying, well, you have that explicit instruction lesson
it dovetails all the way through where you're teaching them exactly the language,
the I do, you do, we do scenario.
And then on top of that, they have this wonderful inquiry experience.
Do you think that's the way the schools are going?
What a question.
Because I, I definitely, especially in the time that I've been out of the
classroom classroom adjacent at this huge push for explicit teaching and
inquiry based learning is not the thing.
And does it have to be one or the other, you know, there surely there is
a way, and my incursion shows there is a way to have both, in a way that is
helpful for students and their learning.
We do need the horse before the cart.
You do need prior knowledge and skills to be explicitly taught, but you also
then need the opportunity to use them and practice them and develop them.
So let's, if we're standing at the front of the classroom, reading
from our script, is there enough opportunity to practice that skill.
Because if we don't, then that information is going to file in and
it's going to drip back out again.
We need to find that balance.
And I think with teachers and educators are so time poor that when we get given
a program, read this every morning,
it can alleviate the finding of resources and that time, whereas inquiry can
sometimes be or feel perhaps more time consuming and the collating of
resources and that allowing of time and space for children to make those
connections themselves can feel tricky, difficult to plan your time when I
know there's somebody holding you accountable for every second of your
contact time, especially these days.
So I understand why some educators it doesn't fit for them because of the
pressures that they're feeling, but , we've got to make space for it as well.
The opportunity to touch and play and hold and explore is just as important as that
explicit teaching of skills and content.
There needs to be an opportunity for both.
not one or the other.
They do work well.
They do.
They totally do.
We know that.
Those of us that have been in the classroom and that successfully use
both strategies side by side, we know for a fact that they work well.
And we also know for a fact that you need both.
It's not an, and and or, it's a both and more, isn't it?
And I do wonder we are so accountable as you said for our time and our contact
hours I was in a workshop with Kath Murdoch recently where she said don't
be seduced into the shallow waters.
And to me, that was truly profound because I thought of the reason why we teach.
We teach so that children can have these experiences.
We teach because we want children to have those experiences.
We don't teach because we want to have those experiences or because
we want to have an easier life.
life.
Although that would be wonderful.
But I think if we've made those decisions to be educators, that
is a massive responsibility.
And it's not for the faint of heart, for sure.
And we have to provide these experiences for children, especially if we're
saying we're educating the whole child.
If we're educating the whole child, then we need both and more.
That's just what I feel very, very strongly is that we can't
take these experiences away from children just because it's so much
easier for us to read from a text.
100%. I know, I've heard a lot.
I keep my ear to the ground and I hear a lot of teachers, when
I go into schools, they say,
I'm not allowed golden time anymore.
Our pre primaries can't go out to eat five minutes early together.
We have to, it's teaching time during our contact time.
And you know, there are so many opportunities that are missed
because they don't fit into our programming schedule, but are so,
so valuable for our little people.
They need, they also need those experiences.
Pre primaries need time to eat with their peers in a communal
space to learn those protocols.
And then they need time for free play.
They need that just as much as they need to practice their sounds explicitly.
And like you say, both and more are achievable.
And let's calm down and let's find a path where we can offer both because
we know that both experiences and opportunities are so important for
learners, especially little ones.
Couldn't agree more.
And what you said about, , the older children too, because I've recently
offered a upper junior incursion for mostly year four fives and
looking at early settlement of WA.
And to do the same thing, to bring learning, to put it in their hands,
give them a hands on opportunity for learning about history.
So instead of going, getting on the bus and going to the
museum and walking around, they actually get to do gold panning.
Panning for gold.
They get to dress up as convicts and do it.
I also bring my home corner and dress ups to that incursion.
And that is always their favorite station year five, boys and
girls in dress ups, role playing, experimenting, exploring the items.
They love it because they probably haven't had dress up since year one, pre primary
maybe depending on their school context and they're all suddenly allowed and
encouraged to play in a very imaginative way and they love it and I was surprised,
you know, I was hopeful that they would enjoy that station, but I was so surprised
that it was their favorite consistently going from any different school to school,
year 4 to year 5, the role play, the dress ups was their favorite station.
So year fives really aren't that old.
They're old in the context of primary school, but they're still
kids, they still want to play.
They still deserve those opportunities for play as well.
These kids are only 10 years old, right?
Yeah.
They're 9 and 10.
11. They're still kids.
They still like to play.
They still want to be with their mates and their friends and just, enjoy
themselves and they love the whole dress up thing and having hands on experiences,
because it's not as though they're 18, you know They are just little children
and we forget that as you've said.
Nicola now, I understand that you Obviously have this fabulous business
where you can bring your artifacts to people, but not everybody's lucky enough
to live here in Perth and have play in the past, come and deliver kits to them,
or have you come into their classrooms to deliver your program to them.
So what advice would you give educators who want to incorporate hands on
experiences, history focused activities in their classrooms, but perhaps don't
have access to you and your materials?
Well, we do have a virtual incursion that we're able to share and we've done a few
of those recently, which has been great.
So I can get into classrooms, but the difficulty being it's virtual, it's
not hands on, , but still an option.
Otherwise I would always recommend using, requesting some of your budget, To collect
some really key items that you can make space for in your resource cupboard.
Hopefully there is some space and some budget.
For a rotary phone, a typewriter, and a an old camera, just a few key
pieces that you can keep and all of your school community can use.
Another option is some historical societies and libraries do
also hire out museum boxes, so definitely investigate them.
I don't know how much Touch and play can happen with some of those so
question that query that another option
like you said, you've done is you send out the request to families.
What items can you have that we can bring in?
But having clear expectations with the children as to what they can touch,
how they can touch and play as well.
Because having those concrete items are just their memories that they can hold in
their hand and their moments from history that they can explore in the moment.
So those would be my top tips for getting some hands on history in your school.
I think those are fabulous tips.
Just last week I went to a Antique shop and they had a rotary phone and I thought
oh Nicola I'm sure she has this and then I also thought oh if I was still in the
classroom I would definitely buy this.
The teacher brain, you can't turn it off.
Whenever you're in the shop,
I can use that and I can use that.
Candlesticks and gosh, old copper pots.
You just have to open your eyes and just wherever you go.
And of course, I also think Facebook Marketplace.
Amazing.
You can just find absolutely anything.
So, so that's an amazing thing.
Absolutely.
If you could introduce Nicola just one artifact, only one, from
your magnificent collection into a classroom, what would it be and why?
It would definitely be the rotary phone.
Definitely.
Because there's so much curiosity that happens.
And interestingly, I always hear "That's the phone the minions have."
So they've seen this phone before, but they've maybe never used one.
And it's such a, it is a real sensory experience for them.
They've got to, if they pick it up, they can feel how heavy it is.
They've got to learn how to hold the handset because today
everything is speaker phone.
You know, kids don't do this when they're pretend phone calling, they'll do this.
And often they'll hold it upside down and the cords coming out the top because it's
such a different experience and they don't have a real world concept or experience to
relate it to because it's so different to what they use and then having to spin the
dial when they don't, there's no screen to tell them what numbers they've pressed
and just going through that experience
, and process of discovering how this worked, then raises so many questions
in terms of what do we use today?
How did we get from this phone to this phone, and what are some of
the changes that have taken place.
How did we get from here to here?
And then I wonder what's going to be next.
And often they'll say at the very end of our incursion, when we're talking
about what we've discovered, they'll say, I wonder what it will be next.
What, what, what's going to be next on the timeline.
And so yeah, rotary phone.
Go get them.
Fantastic.
Listen, and I'm going to ask you one last question, what do you hope
that the children and teachers take away from your experiences that
they have with play in the past?
I hope that they see that it is worth your time and a little bit of effort
and energy to offer these provocations and for play to be a massive part
of the learning that happens.
And what so interesting is I see children at first, they may be a bit anxious about
playing because they're usually not, old things are very special and very precious.
And you look, you don't touch, they're behind the glass, but that we can
say, give permission to little people.
No, you can pick it up.
You can learn by playing with this.
It is a valuable experience and it will enrich your learning.
So I hope that they see that there is a way to bring play alongside
your explicit teaching model and that it is incredibly valuable for
little people when they're learning.
And it's so much fun as a grown up too.
I often invite parents to come as parent help and They have a blast.
They love it.
And the teachers are like, wow, I had one like that.
And in that moment, your memory as the adult with this concrete thing is
then shared with your little people.
You get to share that memory and go down memory lane with them, which is
a really special experience to offer.
Just looking at you, you're so animated when you talk about this.
And that is, I think, why I would love people to understand that when we talk
about play in this context, we don't mean off you go, go outside and just
play, which is 100 percent absolutely unstructured play is absolutely 100
percent essential and necessary for children's cognitive development, physical
development, emotional development, language development, the list goes on.
But this type of play is intentional learning by play where kids are
physically involved touching and moving and exploring objects or
concepts or whatever it might be.
These are the kinds of hands on learning experiences that are playful
and intentional and deliver excellent results for kids because they can now
have hands on experiences, build their schema, get excited, get curious, and
really it makes such a difference, so much better than a picture when
you can actually handle the object.
Nicola, , I know a lot of people probably know about you and if you
don't know about Nicola, seriously, this is the time to get to know her.
Tell people where can they get hold of you, get hold of Play in the Past and
book you up for incursions into their schools and perhaps get your kits.
Where do they go?
How do they get hold of you?
The best place to find me is Instagram.
I hang out mostly on Instagram and we've got lots of pictures, images, reels
for you to see our incursion in action.
And we've also got our website, playinthepast.
com as well as facebook, all over Facebook groups, so please,
if you find me, send me a message and we'll can find a way to get
Play in the Past for your kiddos.
This has been an amazing chat and I really hope that everybody, especially in
Perth, anybody listening who's in Perth, you are such lucky ducks to have Play in
the Past, get Nicola, get her resources, get them into your rooms if you can.
Book early for next year, I would say, right?
That's my advice to all of you.
Nicola, I want to just thank you so much for being on Blooming Curious today.
It has been an absolute blast having you here talking about these wonderful
opportunities for children to have hands on learning experiences.
I think what you're doing is amazing and I wish you the very best of luck and I
hope your business just keeps going from strength to strength because this is
exactly what children and schools need.
So thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you.
so much for having me.