THE PRESHOW - July 14th

Get To Know Your Lovely Hosts!:

Every childhood expert knows how important play is to having a successful life, yet by the young age of five, most children are being stripped of the opportunity. More tests, more demands, homework, screens and online learning platforms coupled with less time to play, go outside, to tinker and explore has created a barren childhood landscape of lost creativity, curiosity, confidence and connection. We all know how good it feels to play, yet we have forgotten how...

The first-ever Play Beyond 5 Summit will help you reclaim true success for all of our children - and therefore society, culture, and future overall!

Come meet your hosts, Sivanne Lieber and Anandé Ferreira, as we share more about our backgrounds, why we planned this summit, the expert line-up and take you through some of our favourite moments from the interviews that you won't want to miss.

Day 1 - July 15th

(Re)Defining Play

Sessions Start 8am EST

The Brain Science of Play

Joy is a pediatric occupational therapist and has worked in multiple settings including: schools, daycares, homes, outpatient clinics, hospitals, parks, and other community-based spaces. Joy brings a holistic and developmental approach to working with a neurodiverse pediatric population. Joy believes that empowering others to grow and learn alongside their children is essential!

(Re)Defining Play

Teva Johnstone is a psychotherapist and parenting coach. She is passionate about respectful parenting and educational environments that foster the mental health of autistic and at-risk children. She creates online courses for parents on the subjects of autism, homeschool, and empowering children.

Rediscovering Your Play 

Rachel Maeitta is a mother of a teen, tween, and toddler, wife, preschool teacher, counselor, and parent coach, She understands the enormous responsibility of being a parent and trying to decide how we would like to parent. We want to be kind and loving and we want our children to listen to boundaries, we do not want to be too authoritarian and we do not want to be too permissive. She loves to listen to parents and support them to create life-long connections that will help bring joy, peace, respect, and playfulness to family relationships.

(Re)Defining Learning

Nicolette Sowder is the founder of Wilder Child and Wildschooling, representing one of the largest global, online communities of nature-connected parents and educators. Her experience as a teacher for Teach for America in a traditional classroom strengthened her resolve to help design nature-bonded, visceral learning experiences outside of those four walls. She is committed to furthering the outdoor education movement through her work as an educator at Strong Roots Natural Learning Community. She finds her center, inspiration and a lot of eggs on her 60 acre farmstead in Michigan where she Wildschools her two daughters. She also leads a Kids Moon Club, a year-long journey through all of the lunar cycles, to help families realign to nature’s calendar and rhythm.

How Play Informs Lifelong Learning 

Gina Heath is a mama of 3 beautiful ones, including a little boy who joined us just 4 months ago. She is also a performer, a globetrotter, a homeschooling mom, and now a parenthood and relationship dynamics educator and cofounder of LifeLab. In her work she helps parents and couples to break outdated patterns, especially focusing on the next iteration of trauma work that the world is shifting into - the opportunity to create trauma informed relationship dynamics between parents and kids. She offers families a roadmap for functional relating (which is helpful for those of us who grew up with dysfunctional families). Every day she seeks to embody what she values with her family in their tiny home on wheels.

Many Ways to Play

Nadia Erlendson is a parenting coach and educator mentor who believes that together parents and educators can carve a path towards youth liberation through joyful, consent based relationships. Nadia supports the inner listening and the building of confidence it takes to show up in bold ways for our young people. She currently lives in the mountains of Thailand where she unschools her two children ages 3 & 7.

Day 2 - July 16th

Reclaiming Play

Sessions Start 8am EST

Playing as an Infant 

Jo Wilson is the founder of Aqua Sensory, international swim tutor and expert in baby sensory swimming. Her passion is nurturing families and bringing more awareness to sensory discovery play in water.

Playing as a Toddler

Holly Peretz, OTR/L, is a Pediatric Occupational Therapist, mum and the founder of the Toddler Play Conference as well as the Playful Pod membership community. Her work aims to help toddler parents build lives that "bake in" the science of what makes kids thrive without adding to parental mental load.

Playing as a Child 

Sholeh Shahinfar is a board licensed Speech Language Pathologist and Founder of Valued Voices. Sholeh uses her gift in holistic Child Communication Development to empower children to connect to their authentic voice – helping them grow mentally and physically and form stronger relationships through self-expression. She works closely with entire families to ease the stress of the unknown and find and implement solutions to any communication challenges a child is experiencing. Her practice is deeply rooted in the belief that we’re all connected, and that only through our connectedness can we reach and impact children to uplift their voices in the world.

Playing as an Adolescent

Marlowe Weingart brings 25+ years of expertise in team-building anchored by fun, interactive training to decrease burnout and turnover and exponentially increase engagement and productivity. She believes that life is too short not to enjoy every minute of it!

Playing as an Adult

Emma Tempest is here to play with your brain to build self-love, fight imposter syndrome and help you get unstuck through positive psychology coaching. She helps stressed out humans bring the power of play to their busy lives while healing their inner children by tackling perfectionism one playful action at a time.

Playful Parenting

Lawrence J. Cohen PhD is a psychologist and the author of Playful Parenting and The Opposite of Worry.

Day 3 - July 17th

Re-envisioning Play

Sessions Start 8am EST

Authenticity & Play 

Lauren Coglieanese Keck is a wisdom student, sharer of what she is learning, mystic, ever-evolving daughter of life and the stars, storyteller, conscious parenting coach, healer, wife, mother, dog mom, playful painter, and yoga and poetry enthusiast, seeking to participate in the emergence of new ways of being and loving.

Play in the in Between Moments

Anandé Ferreira is a pediatric occupational therapist, speaker, guest lecturer, consultant and play enthusiast with a special interest in playfulness and sensory integration. Recognizing the critical role of caregivers in their child’s play and development, Anandé supports and empowers caregivers, schools and organisations with knowledge and practical strategies to enable children to reach their full play potential.

Finding Ways to Play Every Day

Naomi Smiley is the founder of The Moms Revolution and certified Life Coach. As a Mom of 2, she quickly realized that Mother's need an output. She was able to grow a community empowering Mother's and reminding them of their voice. As they say, it takes a village and she is happy to have a space for Moms.

Playfulness Throughout Our Lives

Simone Nofel is a Behavior Analyst turned Holistic Health Practitioner who specializes in childhood epigenetics with an emphasis on nature connection. Simone aims to empower caregivers and educators to take control of their own health and happiness in order to serve the generations to come.

Play is Work and Learning

Sivanne Lieber is a mama, progressive educator, trainer, keynote speaker, and parent coach. But most of all, she is a PLAY enabler. Following nearly two decades in the classroom she now supports children through her work as The Joyous Parent. Sivanne helps parents move from struggle, isolation, and winging it to feeling supported, confident and self compassionate so that they can raise children without resentment.

Free to Learn

Peter Gray is a research professor of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College, who for many years has been studying and writing about the ways children learn through self-directed play and exploration.