NEXT STEPS IN LAUNCH OF OUR PLAY BASED FILM DOCUMENTARY
Last month, January in the warm, sunny mountains of northern Los Angeles an eager group of educators and parents gathered at Westland School to pre-screen a rough edit of documentary film, PLAY IS THE WAY.
David Krishock and Laurel Tucker, Founders of the Bright Day Play and Bright Day Foundation, who funded production of this film, sum up this initiative by saying, “Our project began as a book but quickly evolved to a film to more easily reach the billions of educators and parents worldwide. Everyone knows that play is important for children, but few know just how important play is to the cognitive and emotional, the physical and social development of children. Our children, the ones we love the most!
By working with medical doctors and education experts we learned that there are smarter countries in the world, and many of them use play to better develop their children. With our film production crew we traveled the world, 8 smarter countries, and 20 locations, speaking with dozens of experts, and playing with hundreds of children. This film will take our audience to places they have never seen before – to best-practice schools and play centers that demonstrate in tangible ways how play is the best way for children to learn, to learn everything, and enabling them to build a lifelong love of learning. Today, globally, children are suffering from play depravation, what doctors refer to as a medical emergency, a global crisis – but through our films message there is a solution – and play is the way.
Our film calls for a modern revolution – for parents and educators to advocate for more play and play-based learning in schools – to demand much better for our children, and to do so now.”
The film screening at Westland School was introduced by Head of School, Melinda Tsapatsaris. And her message to her guests that evening underscored “the importance of the message related to play and play-based learning” – as well as her and her staffs pride in “being included and involved in the film project”.
David Krishock thanks Westland School. Westland School was one of 20 film participants, but the one that helped anchor the film project. David Krishock further states – “we could not have successfully completed this film project without Melinda, and the help, support, and guidance of the entire Westland School community. In total we worked at Westland for approximately a months’ time – so in addition to Melinda and her top team we salute the parents that allowed their children to participate, those parents we filmed explaining the school’s academic approach, the teachers that provided classroom access so we could capture the students magical learning moments on film, and the school support staff that made our film crew always feel comfortable.”
The pre-screening brought waves of emotion, roarous laughter and tears of joy, educators and parents witnessing a film expression of their academic philosophy as well as their amazing children engaged in incredible moments of dreaming, doing, and learning.
Stay tuned for more updates as the film is completed, continues global pre-screening, and ultimately finds a home on streaming platforms and in theaters. To find out more about the film, and local viewing opportunities reach out to us at [email protected] – or call us at +1 818 914 6541.
About Bright Day Foundation
Bright Day Foundation is a USA government registered 501c3 nonprofit charitable organization. Our mission is to help educators and engaged parents better understand the critical nature of play in the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development of all children. Our goal is to create a modern revolution, acting now to reinvent an antiquated early childhood education system and embed the radical notion that play is the best way for children to learn.
Bright Day Foundation advances its mission and goal by:
Creating, producing and distributing instructional content for adults – i.e. our feature global film documentary, PLAY IS THE WAY!
Distributing how-to classroom learning aid for teachers – i.e. our PLAY. THEME + PROJECT based preschool CURRICULUM.
Donating play tools to underserved schools, tools that inspire play and learning i.e. our BRIGHT DAY BIG BLOCKS donated via our TITLE WONDERFUL giving program.
We are here to help the world, to help your children Play, and by doing so Learn! Bright Day Foundation is transforming children’s lives through Play!
