My Connections to Play

My Connections to Play

Quotes

If formal instruction is introduced too early, too intensely, and too abstractly, the children may indeed learn the instructed knowledge and skills, but they may do so at the expense of the disposition to use them.     Lilian Katz

Play seems to be important to our development and survival that the impulse to play has become a biological drive.  Like our desires for food, sleep, or sex, the impulse to play is internally generated.                           Stuart Brown

My baby I have had since I was two with my little Cathie doll that my mom made for Christmas one year.

I climbed many trees and played stick pony or motorcycle.  Leave piles in the holler was fun.  I do not have any hollers here so a little imagination with my pictures is needed. 

            

My brothers and sisters and I were always outside.  Most of the time we had a variety of chores that we had to do.  Like carrying rocks and hoeing the garden which was about two acres in size.  My siblings and I always made a game out of it.  There was a lot of us so we had to use our imagination during play and chores.  We would pile leaves in the holler and swing on grapevines to fall into it.  Our slide was the holler bank beside a fallen tree which was a bridge that we climbed across.  We would find fallen branches that we would use as our horses or vehicles.  Our inside game was very real to us.  We made birth certificates for all our stuffed animals and babies.  Some of them got married and had children so we had marriage licenses.  A whole city was generated to include a post office, church, gocery store, and school.  I was always the teacher if you can imagine that.  My parents always told us to “get outside”.  When I was in elementary school we had an a.m. recess, a lunch recess, and a p.m. recess.

A lot has changed since then.  Children are pushed more and more to learn academics and recess is maybe one time a day.  There are a lot of video games out there as well.  I still tell my children to get outside, however they do not have the wooded playground I had growing up.  My husband built them a treehouse slide.  For climbing and entertainment.  They used a lot of imgination on this and a lot of neighborhood children have used it.  We live in a fairly safe neighborhood, however we have had drugs and gane relate incedents.

   

I feel that play should be a part of everyones day.  The old, the young, you, me, we all need what play will give us.  Stress relief from a hard day, developmental growth, and feeling young can be achieved through play.

Have you played today?