Illuminate Play Breakout Sessions
Saturday, November 7, 2026
Get ready to journey through three rounds of hands-on, imagination-fueled workshops — each with six unique sessions to choose from.
- Spark Sessions ignite your curiosity and set the stage for new ideas.
- Flow Sessions invite you to dive deep, explore, and let your learning move with playful energy.
- Glow Sessions bring it all together, leaving you inspired and radiant with fresh insights to carry back to your community.
Each round offers a chance to follow what calls to you most — whether it’s curiosity, creativity, or connection. By the end, you’ll leave not just illuminated, but glowing with the power of play.
Round 1: Spark Sessions
9:30 AM – 10:30 AM
Ignite your curiosity and kick off the conference with a burst of playful energy. These workshops are designed to spark fresh ideas, fuel inspiration, and set the tone for your learning journey. With six exciting options, choose the spark that lights you up.
Building Professional Relationships Through Play
Speaker: Celeste McIlhargey
Who says team-building games are a thing of the past?! This session is designed to be hands-on and completely participatory and will give you a chance to play and learn alongside your team or other participants and even potentially make some new friends. If you struggle to plan team-building games, or aren’t sure which ones are fun, or can’t quite picture how they work from a description – then this session may be useful to you as you will learn through participating. Or, if you’re only interested in the playing – this is definitely the right place for you!
Play Time in Australia – Incorporating Music and Movement in Play
Speaker: Deborah Wilson
Play is at the heart of early childhood education in Australia and is recognised through the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF v2.0) (Australia wide curriculum)) as the primary context through which young children learn, develop and make sense of the world. Purposeful play experiences foster children’s language, creativity, wellbeing, identity and social competence while supporting their cognitive, emotional and physical development.
Music and movement are powerful forms of play that naturally engage children in joyful, meaningful learning. Through songs, rhymes, fingerplays, dance and action games, children develop oral language, phonological awareness, listening skills, memory, self-regulation, coordination and a sense of belonging. These experiences invite children to actively participate, communicate, imagine and connect with others while building strong foundations for later literacy and lifelong learning.
Research in neuroscience demonstrates that music and movement activate multiple areas of the brain simultaneously. Rhythm, repetition and coordinated movement strengthen neural pathways that support language processing, memory, attention, executive functioning and emotional regulation. Singing and movement also stimulate both hemispheres of the brain, enhancing children’s ability to make connections, retain information and regulate their emotions. When children combine music with movement, they are engaging their auditory, visual, vestibular and proprioceptive systems, creating rich, multisensory learning experiences that support whole-child development. These experiences not only strengthen brain architecture during the early years but also foster confidence, wellbeing and positive relationships through shared joyful interactions.
This presentation will explore how educators can intentionally incorporate music and movement into everyday play experiences. Through a series of engaging songs, rhymes, fingerplays and movement activities, participants will experience firsthand how these can be used as invitations to play that capture children’s curiosity, encourage participation and promote rich learning opportunities. Practical examples will demonstrate how these experiences can be embedded throughout daily routines, transitions, group times and spontaneous play to support children’s learning across all developmental domains.
Play, Connection, and Emotional Well-Being
Speaker: Rochellie Lywin
Children communicate through play, emotions, behaviour, and relationships. In this session, we will explore how play and outdoor experiences can support connection, confidence, emotional well-being, resilience, and belonging. Drawing from my experiences working with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and mixed-age groups, I will share how child-led play, responsive relationships, curiosity, outdoor experiences, and opportunities for autonomy can help children feel safe, capable, and connected. We will reflect on ways we can support children through connection, co-regulation, and meaningful play experiences instead of focusing only on correcting behaviours. This session will include stories from real experiences, reflection, discussion, and practical ideas that participants can bring back into their own programs, classrooms, and communities.
Including the Voices of Children within Your Pedagogy
Speaker: Ginette Wilson
This fun interactive session will look at the importance of empowering children and how this is underpinned by Canadian Early Learning and child care Frameworks as well as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Participants will develop a knowledge base of innovative ideas and activities, including consultation methods that children can use with each other, which afford children meaningful opportunities for participation. The session will also look at how children can be involved in planning experiences that are based on their interests.
Round 2: Flow Sessions
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Dive into the rhythm of learning and let yourself be carried by discovery. In this round, you’ll find hands-on workshops that invite exploration, creativity, and connection. Pick the session that helps your practice flow with new possibilities.
Child-led Play through a Schema Play Lens
Speaker: Tricia Cameron
What if you could shift your mindset and take the opportunity during free play to slow down, observe the child, and think deeply about what you may offer to facilitate the children’s rich exploration of the world around them? This inspiring session will encourage you to view children’s play through a new lens. Children are naturally equipped to discover their world through repeated actions during play, using these repeated patterns of play, children are exploring one of 9 play schemas such as transporting, enclosing, connecting and trajectory. Educators can observe these patterns of play and how young children move their bodies and engage with simple open-ended materials. By becoming aware of the various types of play schemas and their defining characteristics, you can deepen your understanding of each child’s interests. Your observations can then serve as a foundation for planning and providing resources that further support children’s play intentions and honor their inquiries. Explore the power of play schemas as a framework for observing play and informing and enriching child-led play curriculum.
Architects of Play: Designing Intentional Play Spaces for Social and Cognitive Growth
Speaker: Michele Wellsby
In this presentation I will take a broad approach to play and the ways it can be used to optimally support social and cognitive development from infancy through early childhood. I will share research supported suggestions for ways to facilitate play to help support emotional, social, cognitive, and gender development. I will also discuss ways to help promote meaningful digital and risky play in young children. The main objectives are: 1) for attendees to gain a broad understanding of the ways that play contributes to social and cognitive development, and 2) to leave with at least one strategy or idea they will implement in play with the children they work with.
Let’s Get Moving: Embracing Outdoor Play
Speaker: Leanne Cornelsen
This workshop explores the many forms of outdoor play and the important role outdoor education plays in supporting children’s learning and development. Participants will examine how outdoor experiences foster confidence, problem-solving, resilience, creativity, physical development, and overall well-being. The session will focus on the educator’s role in creating responsive outdoor environments that encourage exploration, inquiry, independence, and meaningful engagement with the natural world. Participants will also discuss strategies for building strong partnerships with families and promoting understanding of the value of outdoor learning experiences in early childhood education.
Reclaiming Play: A Rights-Based Approach for Early Childhood Educators
Speaker: Cathy Belgrave
You already know play matters. But how do you hold onto that belief when schedules tighten, curriculum pressures mount, and play gets pushed to the margins? This workshop offers a grounding framework rooted in children’s rights — specifically the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child — to help you advocate for play with clarity and confidence. We’ll explore the tensions honestly, examine what it looks like to be responsive to children at each moment (knowing when to stand back, when to scaffold, and when to step in), and connect it all to a rights-based vision of what education can be. Come ready to think, reflect, and leave with something you can use on Monday morning.
Participants will learn to:
- Articulate the connection between children’s right to play (UNCRC Articles 12, 13, and 31) and their own daily classroom practice – moving from instinct to principled advocacy.
- Name and navigate the tensions that threaten play in their setting, with language and conviction to address the pressures that squeeze it out.
- Apply a responsive educator framework – moving fluidly between the roles of playworker, facilitator, and direct teacher — to better honour children’s agency while supporting their growth.
- Identify at least one concrete shift in their practice that upholds children’s rights to play, exploration, and voice.
Round 3: Glow Sessions
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
End the day shining bright. These workshops are all about reflection, inspiration, and carrying your learning forward. With six engaging choices, find the session that will leave you glowing with new ideas to bring back to your community.
When Play Gets Left Behind: Why Out-of-School Care May Be the Last Place Children Can Simply Be Children
Speaker: Jamie-Lee Wagler
What happens to play after kindergarten?
While young children are encouraged to learn through play, school-age children are often expected to shift toward productivity, structured activities, and academic expectations—even during the hours that should belong to them. Yet research continues to show that play remains essential throughout childhood.
This interactive session explores why out-of-school care is uniquely positioned to protect children’s right to play. Together, we’ll examine how meaningful play supports executive functioning, emotional regulation, resilience, creativity, friendships, problem-solving, and a strong sense of belonging for children aged 6–12.
Through hands-on activities, discussion, and practical examples from real out-of-school care programs, participants will leave with fresh ideas for creating environments where older children continue to experience challenge, joy, independence, and authentic child-led play.
Play for All! Intentional Planning for Inclusive Play Spaces
Speaker: Gina Blank
How do we create environments where children can flourish in their play? In this interactive session, participants will examine how intentional choices in materials, activities, and interactions, can support children’s play with others—considering the needs of children with disabilities and neurodivergent learners, in particular. Educators will be encouraged to re-think and change their approach to foundational practices such as serve and return and play provocations. This workshop is designed for early childhood educators seeking practical and inclusive approaches to play-based pedagogy.
During this session, participants will have a chance to:
- Identify how to support the adult-child and peer-to-peer interactions that children with disabilities or neurodivergence experience within play
- Plan inclusive play spaces with intention by reflecting on both children’s interests and neuro-developmental needs
Beneath the Play: Tracing Children’s Rights, Voice and Power
Speaker: Hester Laubscher
This workshop explores how children’s rights are revealed through everyday play experiences. Using the metaphor of a living forest ecosystem, this hands-on session invites participants to look beyond the surface of play and notice what is taking root beneath: children’s voice, agency, belonging, identity, emotional regulation, creativity, problem-solving, relationships, and power.
Participants will be introduced to selected articles from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in practical, educator-friendly language, with a strong focus on the child’s right to play and rest, the right to be heard, the right to expression, the best interests of the child, and the right to full development. Through loose parts, play scenarios, rights cards, and group reflection, participants will use the Play Rights Forest Map to trace how children communicate their rights through movement, repetition, pretend play, risk-taking, sensory exploration, silence, resistance, negotiation, and joy.
TBA
Speaker: Sally Haughey
Available Soon!
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