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Maggie Willman & Ashli Givens-Certified Playworkers

@rootedinplayorg

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🚸Empowering families through child-led play
🖥️Play resources for parents and teachers
🏞️FREE monthly Popup Adventure Playgrounds
🙌Let kids be kids

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Applications are OPEN for our FREE Thanksgiving + Winter Break Every Child Plays Camps!

Each camp includes three full days of child-led play, with plenty of time and space to build, create, move, get messy, make friends, and follow their own ideas.

Camps are open to Hillsborough County children in Kindergarten through 5th grade of all abilities and are supported by trained playworkers, a speech-language pathologist, and an occupational therapist. Lunch and snacks are provided.

A few important things to know before you apply:

• There are 15 spots available in each camp.
• There is one application for both camps. You can choose Thanksgiving, Winter Break, or let us know that either camp works for your family.
• Children may attend one camp session only. If either session works for your family, selecting that option may give your child more opportunities for placement.
• Applying for siblings? Please complete a separate application for each child.
• Spots are NOT first-come, first-served. We review the full pool of applications after the application window closes, so there is no advantage to applying first.
• Applications close Friday, October 2.

We often receive hundreds of applications for Every Child Plays Camps, so submitting an application does not guarantee a spot. We work intentionally to create an inclusive group with a mix of ages, abilities, and support needs, while prioritizing children who have not had the opportunity to attend one of our camps before.

Apply now at the link in our bio!

These camps are FREE for families thanks to generous funding from the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County. by @rootedinplayorg

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18 days ago

Most people assume motivation works like a faucet. You add incentives, you get more of it. Turns out the opposite is often true, and we’ve had the research to prove it since 1971.

Psychologist Edward Deci ran a simple experiment. He gave two groups of college students the same puzzle. One group got paid to solve it. The other got nothing. When the money stopped, the paid group walked away. The group that was never paid kept going. The reward hadn’t added motivation. It had replaced it.

That finding, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, has been replicated across decades of research. It’s one of the most counterintuitive results in all of motivational psychology, and it has everything to do with why children play, why they stop, and what we keep getting wrong about both.

Swipe through.

Deci, E. L. (1971). Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 18(1), 105–115.

#childledplay #letthemplay #motivation by @rootedinplayorg

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5 months ago

We use the word “childish” so casually that most of us probably don’t give it much thought. But once you start thinking about what we actually mean by it, it’s hard to stop.

Children can be unreasonable. So can adults. Children can be selfish, impulsive, loud, emotional, difficult, and silly. So can adults. These are human behaviors. Yet when we see them in adults, we use children as the insult.

That says something about how we think about children and where we place them in relation to adults.

Why do we need children to be our shorthand for the worst versions of ourselves?

#childledplay #justplay #childdevelopment by @rootedinplayorg

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4 days ago

Tampa grocery store sells smoothies to help fund adventure playgrounds, camps, and fun for kids across Tampa Bay 🥤🏆

Not only does locally-owned grocery store Rollin’ Oats makes fantastic smoothies (that are all less than $10). And this October, they’re hosting a smoothie fundraiser to give back to the community.

$1 from every “Rooted in Play Smoothie” sold will benefit the work of @rootedinplayorg helping kids right here in Tampa Bay.

Comment OATS to see their full smoothie menu + learn more about Rooted in Play

🥕🍊🍌The Rooted in Play Smoothie = passion fruit, bananas, orange juice, carrot juice, vanilla coconut milk, Garden of Life collagen, and a spirulina coco whip swirl.

⏰ Through October 31, 2026
📍1021 N MacDill Ave., Tampa, FL 33607

🧢 While you’re there, get yourself some of their FRESH new Rollin Oats merch!

#partner #rollinoats #tampa #erewhondupe #smoothie taken in Rollin' Oats Tampa by @rootedinplayorg

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7 days ago

Happening this Saturday! Special thanks to @unitedwaysuncoast for their support in keeping this event FREE to the community!

Will we see you there?!??
#stpetemoms #popupstpete #childledplay by @rootedinplayorg

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9 days ago

St. Pete families hit the jackpot this Saturday, October 10! 🙌 Two FREE events to fill your morning with creativity, exploring, and hands-on play—and hopefully wear everyone out for nap time. 😉

🎨 CHILDREN’S CREATIVE PLAY DAY
⏰ 9–10:30 AM
📍 Allendale United Methodist Church
3803 Haines Rd. N., St. Petersburg

Start your morning with NOMADstudio, Wonder Studio, Girls Rock St. Pete, the League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg Area, and Allendale United Methodist Church! @nomadstudio_org @thewonderstudio @grcstpete @lwvspa

Kids can enjoy:
🖌️ Hands-on arts and crafts
🚌 Painting the NOMAD Art Bus
🗳️ A mock election and civics play
🎸 An instrument petting zoo

This FREE event welcomes kids of all ages and their families. RSVP using the QR code on the flyer.

🛠️ POPUP ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND
⏰ 10 AM–noon
📍 Childs Park
4301 13th Ave. S., St. Petersburg

Next, head to Childs Park for Rooted in Play’s FREE, child-led adventure playground, with United Way Suncoast. @rootedinplayorg

Expect loose parts like cardboard, fabric, tires, and tape, giving kids the freedom to build, tinker, explore, and create on their own terms. Follow their imagination and see what they dream up!

Register using the QR code on the flyers found in my stories and on their pages!

The events overlap, but you can start at Allendale and still catch plenty of play at Childs Park! ☀️

Save this for Saturday and send it to your favorite parent friend. Which activity will your kids head for first? 👇 taken in Saint Petersburg, Florida by @rootedinplayorg

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10 days ago

We saw the Mike Tomlin Minecraft story making the rounds and immediately got stuck on one detail: this whole thing started because his children loved something he didn’t understand.

So he got curious.

He paid attention to what had captured them, started playing himself, and somehow that turned into a 12-year hobby and an entire Minecraft city.

There’s something really lovely about taking children’s interests seriously enough to wonder what they’re finding there. Especially when our first adult instinct might be to evaluate, limit, redirect, or decide whether something is “good” for them.

We don’t have to understand every obsession. We definitely don’t have to share it. But we can get curious about what our children love. We might learn something about them. And every once in a while, apparently, we might learn something about ourselves too.

The full story is worth a read. People: “Ex-NFL Coach Mike Tomlin Reveals Massive ‘Minecraft’ City He Spent 12 Years Secretly Building.” by @rootedinplayorg

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11 days ago

We saw a reel from @thegamereducator about avoiding weaponized incompetence in children, and it got us thinking about this through a play lens. Because before we can talk about children becoming capable, we probably need to talk about how they get the chance to feel capable.

Play is full of tiny opportunities for that.

Their reel is absolutely worth a watch, and we’d love to hear what you think about the connection to play.

Where do you notice yourself stepping in when a child might have figured it out on their own?

#childledplay #weaponizedincompetence #justplay by @rootedinplayorg

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14 days ago

A smoothie that tastes GOOD and does GOOD?! 💚🥤✨

The new @rootedinplayorg is officially at @rollinoatstampa and it’s available ALL October!

🍌 Passion fruit + banana
🍊 Orange juice + carrot juice
🥥 Vanilla coconut milk
✨ Garden of Life collagen
💚 Spirulina + Coco Whip swirl

And here’s the best part: $1 from every smoothie sold goes directly to Rooted in Play! 🙌

Rooted in Play is a Tampa Bay nonprofit working to protect childhood play by bringing free outdoor adventure playgrounds and inclusive pop-up play experiences to local parks—giving kids opportunities to build creativity, social skills, confidence, and independence through open-ended, screen-free play.

So basically… you get a delicious smoothie while supporting a local business AND a local nonprofit. Win-win. 💚

We tried it and it has officially earned our stamp of approval! 👏🏼

Go grab one at Rollin’ Oats this October and let us know what you think! 🥤✨

Follow @adventurouslittlethinkers for more tasty treats and community love 😊

#tampabay #familyfriendly #nonprofit #rootedinplay #thingstodowithkids by @rootedinplayorg

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14 days ago

Introducing the ROOTED IN PLAY SMOOTHIE! 🥤✨

For the month of October, $1 of each Rooted in Play Smoothie sold in the Tampa cafe will be donated to @rootedinplayorg!

This smoothie is made with passion fruit, banana, orange juice, carrot juice, vanilla coconut milk, Garden of Life collagen and a coco whip & spirulina swirl.

Rooted in Play’s mission is to ensure that ALL children have regular access to child-led play opportunities. This is achieved by offering pop-up play experiences for children in the Tampa community.

Learn more about our Tampa October Fundraiser smoothie and Rooted in Play at the link in our bio! taken in Rollin' Oats Tampa by @rootedinplayorg

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15 days ago

Yesterday, we read a recent Wall Street Journal article about The Yard, an adventure playground in New York City, and it stirred up some feelings.

We know this playground. Maggie’s taken her own children there. Adventure playgrounds like this one have deeply influenced how we think about play, risk, and the role of adults at Rooted in Play. Which is probably why the article bothered us.

When adventure playgrounds are represented by their most provocative moments, like the saws, the nails, the fire, all the things that make adults think, Wait, they let children do WHAT? We worry that the bigger story gets lost.

Because the thing we find most radical about adventure playgrounds isn’t how much danger children are allowed to encounter. It’s how much agency they’re given.

And you don’t need a junkyard playground or a bucket of nails to start giving children more of that.

Swipe through. We have some thoughts.

Link to article: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/new-york-parents-junkyard-governors-island-3abc689a by @rootedinplayorg

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16 days ago

Did you know Childs Park once had an ostrich farm…with ostrich races?

We didn’t either. And once we started learning about the history of the neighborhood where we’re holding our next Popup Adventure Playground, we found a whole lot more.

Before Childs Park had its name, the surrounding area was farmland and citrus groves. John Donaldson, who had been born into slavery in Alabama, arrived on the Pinellas peninsula with Anna Germain in 1868. The couple later purchased 40 acres, farmed the land, and raised their family here. Donaldson is recognized as the first Black person to permanently settle in what would become St. Petersburg.

By the early 1900s, streetcars and railroads were changing the area. And in 1908 came one of our favorite pieces of local history: the St. Petersburg Ostrich Farm and Zoo, where crowds actually came to watch ostrich races.

The Childs Park subdivision was platted a few years later, in 1911. Originally developed as a white residential community, the neighborhood would change considerably over the decades as segregation, discriminatory housing practices, and shifting residential patterns shaped St. Petersburg.

Today, generations of families have made Childs Park home, and the recreation center continues a long tradition of gathering and community in this part of the city.

On October 10, we’re excited to bring our Popup Adventure Playground to Childs Park. We’ll bring the loose parts. You bring yourselves.

And sadly, no ostriches. We checked.

#playstpete #stpetemoms #momsofstpete by @rootedinplayorg

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23 days ago