At the Avocado Jungle we have some favorite blogs that are good enough often enough that we decided we’d like to share them with you regularly… our own personal best-of. We call it a blogshare. The following comes from Madeleine Brand’s blog “Parenting On The Edge” at madeleinebrand.com.

All Work And No Play
Madeleine Brand
May 3, 2009

I cracked open my NYT Mag today and found an article with real relevance. Not the creepy Quentin Tarantino photo spread. I mean the essay by Peggy Orenstein about how kindergarten should be about play, not work. As in homework. Studies have shown time and again that homework does not help kids until they get to middle school and beyond. It makes no difference, and yet most of our kids in public schools get homework beginning at age 5. You may say – well, it can’t hurt. But Peggy cites studies that show it does. In one, the children who were in the heavy testing/homework laden classes when they were little did worse academically in their teens than children who simply played. That may be because playing is really work — children are learning how to think, how to be imaginative, and how to develop their social skills.

For more on this idea, listen to the podcast “What to Expect from Preschool.”

And the astute Parenting on the Edger will remember that Peggy Orenstein was my guest on the first podcast. She wisely advised me to put on my clothes every day.