Click to view the conference schedule.

The Art of Play and Wonderment Conference is returning for its fourth year, and will be held at Corlears School in partnership with Brooklyn College.

This year's conference, centered on the theme The Power of Play: Seeking Joy, is designed to provide a space for early childhood educators, EC special educators/early interventionists, leaders/directors, professors, and poets to gather and reflect upon, celebrate, and share what we bring — and wish to bring — to our early childhood classrooms, professional practice, and research. In particular, we will examine how play, joy, inquiry, and wonderment impacts and inspires meaningful teaching and learning.

The conference kicks off June 2 at 4 p.m. with an opening reception, keynote speakers, a film screening and a Q&A panel of play experts. Refreshments will be served. Capacity is limited, but a virtual-only option is available.

The full-day conference on June 3 runs from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Breakfast and lunch will be served as well as a closing reception with refreshments.

CUNY students get 65% off at checkout using the discount code STUDENT; be sure to use your student email when registering. Limited package deals are also available upon request.

Lastly, we will be offering professional development certificates of attendance.

Have questions? Email wonderment@corlearsschool.org.

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Keynote speakers and presenters include:

Dr. Kenneth Barish, Clinical Professor of Psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is also on the faculty of the Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and the William Alanson White Institute Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program

David Elkind, Ph.D., is currently Professor Emeritus of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. His research and theorizing have been in the areas of perceptual, social and cognitive development where he has attempted to build on the work of Jean Piaget. Professor Elkind’s bibliography now numbers more than 500 items and includes 19 books, book chapters and articles. Perhaps Elkind is best known for his parenting books The Hurried Child, All Grown Up and No Place to Go, Miseducation, and The Power of Play.

Dr. Tovah Klein, Director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development and Adjunct Associate Professor. Her research, teaching and applied work is focused on young children's social and emotional development, parental influences on early development, and parents' experiences raising young children, including the challenges of combining work and family. She also studies children’s play as a means to communicate and process emotions and stressful experiences.

Richard Lewis, author, artist and poet, is the Founder and Director of The Touchstone Center for Children in New York City. Since its founding in 1969, the Center has been a leader in the arts and education field. In addition Richard Lewis has written, edited and published a variety of books centered around poetry, the imagination and the natural world

Dr. Silvia Juarez-Marazzo, LCSW, NCPsyA is a professor, educator, child-parent psychotherapist, and clinical social worker. Her work has been centered on a deep love and respect for the internal world of the child. In 2010, Silvia discovered, through the deeply transformative experience at the Infant Parent Mental Health Fellowship at the University of Massachusetts, led by Dr. Ed Tronick that creating cuentos, or short illustrated stories for children, could give a powerful voice to the Latino-American immigrant mothers with whom she has worked for the last twenty-five years.

Other presenters include Dr. Lisa Dubinsky, Dr. Shaheen Usmani, Dr. Beth Ferholt, Dr. Herman Jiesamfoek, Dr. Shequana Wright-Chung, Dr. Patsy Cooper, and many more.