My Connections to Play

Just Playing Quotes:

Whoever wants to understand much must play much.
~Gottfried Bern 

Life is playfulness…We need to play so that we can rediscover the magic all around us.
~Flora Colao 

Play is the highest form of research.
~Albert Einstein 

Helpful sites:

http://thingstodooutside.com/ 

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/make-these-items-with-your-kids-and-go-play-outside.html 

http://www.livestrong.com/article/170633-kids-games-to-play-outside/ 

Essential Play Items:

I love nature, as a child all I would need is imagination and a friend.  We loved collecting nature items and turning them into pieces of art.  We built stick forts, we made mud pies, we threw pine cones and hit them with sticks for baseball, we used trees as bases for tag...  it was so much fun not having "items" to play with, but simply using our imagination.  Although, I do have found memories of using store bought chalk.  :)

Play was supported by our parents, a safe community and nature itself.  We were told to go outside and come home when the street lights came on.  We were not allowed to watch TV all day, or play with electronic devices.  Our parents did not entertain us, they gave us creative ideas for our own imaginative play.  I remember discovering the world through play and experimenting.  I made sense of the world through role playing and imagination.

Play today is SO much different.  Our communities are not as safe, electronic devices rule our children who are less physically active and use less imagination.  Children are maturing faster, and becoming independent from adults, not in imagination, but in worldly topics.  As a mother of two, I fight the battle to get my kids outside without an adult to entertain them.  

Play is SO vital to development of children on every level at ALL ages.  We are loosing our imagination and gaining technological skills.... is that a good trade off?