Welcome

Welcome to Possibilities™. We're here to help you make interest-based learning a reality for children and families where you live!

Possibilities, a project of the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, provides parents and practitioners the tools to identify their children's special interests and assets, to match them to exciting resources and opportunities in their child's home and community, and to promote participation in those activities. Possibilities encourages learning that is FUN and ENJOYABLE!


Project Background

Possibilities promotes CHILD PARTICIPATION in FUN ACTIVITIES based on individual CHILDREN'S INTERESTS. At the intersection of these three elements, FUN and LEARNING happen naturally!

The project focuses on identifying individual children's interests as the starting point for promoting participation in recreation, leisure, and learning activities in children's homes and communities. By emphasizing what children can do and what children have in common, the project's positive, capacity-building approach is naturally appropriate for all children, including children with disabilities.

For details about each element of the Project Model read here...

Project Model

Children's Interests

Interests are simply the things children like to do, things that they find exciting, motivating, and fun. In other words, they're the things that
"turn them on!"

Possibilities promotes children's participation in recreation, leisure, and learning activities by focusing on children's interests. Interests serve as the beginning point for selecting activities and learning opportunities a child can enjoy at home and in the community.

Possibilities has several special tools parents or other caregivers can use to help them identify a child's interests:

Spotting My Child's Very Special Interests: A Workbook for Parents is a colorful, inexpensive, easy-to-use workbook that takes parents step-by-step from interest identification through planning participation in terrific activities. A short video, Spotting My Child's Very Special Interests: A Guide for Parents, illustrates how a mother uses the workbook to plan interest-based learning for her young daughter.


The Possibilities Interest Assessment Interview Protocol is another easy-to-use tool to help parents or practitioners identify children's interests.

Fun Activities

Possibilities uses a process called community mapping to collect and provide information to parents about activities for child learning and fun that are available in the communities where they live. Community mapping is simply a way to answer two very basic questions:

  1. Where are the natural children's learning opportunities in our community? boys swinging
  2. How do we find and take advantage of them?

Possibilities uses a three-step process to map community activities:

  1. Identify the kinds of activities you want to map. These may include:

    Participation

    Participation is the third component of the Possibilities model. No matter how clearly we identify a child's interests and no matter how creatively we match them with interesting and fun opportunities and resources, no one benefits from this process until we make it possible for our children to PARTICIPATE—to become fully, actively engaged—in the interest-based activities we've identified together.

    Children's Interests + Activities = FUN. This simple formula holds the key to promoting children's PARTICIPATION in recreation, leisure, and learning activities.

    girls playing soccer

    Participation occurs in many ways. It can range from enjoying simple do-at-home activities to planning outings to community places like swimming holes, botanical gardens, athletic events, nature centers, amusement parks, bike trails, and more. Participation doesn't have to cost a thing! Both do-at-home and community activities that match children's interests are often easy and inexpensive. At-home participation for a young painter might include painting rocks to look like favorite animals, or the "rock hound" in your family might enjoy organizing his/her collection of rocks and minerals. When child interests are the foundation for choosing recreation, leisure, and learning activities, even the simplest activity can be a great success.

    The Possibilities for PARTICIPATION are endless.

Products

A variety of materials designed to help families promote children's interest-based learning and fun have been developed as part of the Possibilities project. These include a colorful array of printable Spotlights handouts ready to customize with information about enjoyable, interest-based learning opportunities in your community; videos that illustrate families' experiences with interest-based fun; reprints of journal articles discussing research findings about the power of interest-based learning; and a specially designed, fill-in-the-blank workbook and an interview protocol created to help families identify child interests.


Spotlights
Ideas Pages

An extensive collection of exciting, full-color, interest-based newsletters you can customize, download, print, and distribute to families in your community.


Download our Sample Spotlights to see how we describe and illustrate interest-based activity ideas.


Order one or more of our five CDs, each with a different collection of 10 editable Spotlights ideas pages.

More than 50 different Spotlights ideas pages are available. Spotlights highlight specific interest-based activities for children. Each two-page issue is packed with information and creative ideas, fun resources and exciting activities that build on children's interests. Each issue includes room for you to customize the Spotlights with the names, locations, and contact information for related opportunities in your community.

Customize a Spotlights with information about exciting and fun opportunities for children and families to enjoy interest-based learning in your community! It's EASY!

Download a completed example: Spotlights on Books

Here's how you can use the editable Spotlights you order:

Before you begin you'll need:

More than 50 different Spotlights ideas pages are available. Spotlights highlight specific interest-based activities for children. Each two-page issue is packed with information and creative ideas, fun resources and exciting activities that build on children's interests. Each issue includes room for you to customize the Spotlights with the names, locations, and contact information for related opportunities in your community.


Spotlights are available as full-color Adobe PDF documents on CD-ROMs and are ready for you to open on your personal computer, customize with information about resources in your local community, and save, print, and distribute to families and other community members. Your first seven issues are FREE!

Once you experience the power of interest-based fun, you'll want to order more Spotlights interest topics ideas pages. Each of our Spotlights CDs is loaded with 10 different Spotlights, plus complete details about adding custom information to make Spotlights useful and engaging resources for families in your community.


These ready-to-customize Spotlights are grouped into the five interest-category sets:

Set 1:
Animals
Set 2:
Arts
Set 4:
Nature
Set 5:
Sports
Animal Play
Animals
Birds
Bugs/Insects
Dinosaurs
Dogs
Duck Ponds
Fishing
Horses
Pets
Books/Stories
Clay/Ceramics
Crafts
Dance Classes
Dancing
Drawing
Music
Painting
Photography
Woodworking
Building
Chess
Climbing
Collecting
Dolls
Dress Up
Hiding
Sliding
Stacking
Swinging
Camping
Digging
Exploring
Gardening
Hiking
Nature/Environment
Rocks
Sand
Snow
Water
Balls
Baseball
Basketball
Bowling
Golf
Gymnastics
Jumping
Martial Arts
Running
Soccer

 

Possibilities Videos

Spotting My Child's Very Special Interests
This video takes parents step-by-step through a companion workbook to identify their child's interests and match them with fun, interest-based activities in their homes and communities. The video illustrates the benefits of interest-based learning by focusing on the experiences of one lively preschooler and her family. (Click the "Assessment Tools" link above, to view the corresponding workbook.)

Possibilities: A Mother's Story
This short video shows the experiences of a child and his family as part of their involvement in the Possibilities project.

 

Obtain other Materials About Interest-Based Learning from Winterberry Press

 

Interest-Based Assessment Tools

Spotting My Child's Very Special Interests: A Workbook for Parents
This easy-to-use, 16-page workbook helps parents identify their own children's special interests, match them with appropriate learning opportunities and resources, and make action plans for enabling child participation in interest-based activities. A companion video (listed above) explains how to use the workbook. This workbook is also available in multiple copies in both English and Spanish.

Interest Assessment Interview Protocol
Possibilities Interest Assessment Interview Protocol
This interview protocol facilitates parent identification of children's interests, selection of community activities, and promotion of children's participation in community activities. This product is also available in multiple quantities.

 

Project Evaluation

Research findings about child learning and participation in interest-based learning opportunities informed the development of the Possibilities project materials. Learn about the Research Foundations that form the background of Possibilities, as well as new findings that resulted from implementation of the Possibilities project. Read about Parent Feedback using the Possibilities approach and materials with their children.

 

Research Foundations

Findings from the evaluation of the Possibilities Project showed that:


Children's Interests

Recreation and Leisure Activities

Child and Parent Benefits


A forthcoming monograph by C.J. Dunst and D. Snyder includes the full evaluation of the Possibilities Project.

 

 

Parent Feedback

Feedback from parents participating in the Possibilities Project illustrate some of the positive outcomes for both children and parents.

 

Reference Materials

Dunst, C. J. (2001). Parent and community assets as sources of young children's learning opportunities. Asheville, NC: Winterberry Press.
Dunst, C. J. (2001). Participation of young children with disabilities in community learning activities. In M. J. Guralnick (Ed.), Early childhood inclusion: Focus on change (pp. 307-333). Baltimore: Brookes.
Dunst, C. J., & Hamby, D. (1999). Community life as sources of children's learning opportunities. Children's Learning Opportunities Report, Vol. 1, No. 4.
Dunst, C. J., & Hamby, D. (1999). Family life as sources of children's learning opportunities. Children's Learning Opportunities Report, Vol. 1, No. 3.
Dunst, C. J., Herter, S., & Shields, H. (2000). Interest-based natural learning opportunities. Young Exceptional Children Monograph Series No. 2: Natural Environments and Inclusion, 37-48.
Dunst, C. J., Herter, S., Shields, H., & Bennis, L. (2001). Mapping community-based natural learning opportunities. Young Exceptional Children, 4(4), 16-24.
Dunst, C. J., Roberts, K., & Snyder, D. (2004). Spotting my child's very special interests: A workbook for parents. Asheville, NC: Winterberry Press.