My Connections to Play...
“Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.”
― Jane Yolen, Touch Magic
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker
“It's never too late to have a happy childhood.”
The first quote I picked to summarize what play represented for me in childhood because I don't remember "playing". I remember reading. For me, that was my escape, my fun time, my adventure time! I loved it and wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein was by far my favorite book!
The second quote I picked because since childhood, I have fortunately realized that play is vitally important. But because I did not experience this a lot when younger, I am trying to understand and experience it more and more as an adult. This is what helps me as a teacher :) I love to sit and play with the kids and experience new and fun things together with them. I never knew I would get so much back from giving in this way!
This and all of the others Shel Silverstein wrote were also my favorite reads. I really love Dr. Seuss and anything that had to do with poetry or rhyming. I spent hours reading every day!!
I didn't have a doll until I was 8 or 9 years old, maybe older. But when I got one, it was the BEST out! Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage. They were the first "real" dolls you could get because they had a birth certificate, a signature, and a name! You could also become it's mother by sending in their birth certificate, WAY cool :)
I feel like most of my family before I was 8 did not support play necessarily. I do remember times where I was allowed to play outside and make mud pies. But I really do not have a lot of other memories. I mostly remember being at my grandmother's house and reading books. She ordered every book series she could. So I read and read and read! After my father and mother split and my father re-married, play started taking on different meanings and roles and I really didn't like it. I was not used to being pushed out of the house to play. I didn't like playing with the other kids, and I really didn't like getting dirty. But the older I got the better I got. I loved being outside and doing cartwheels and playing with water. That became and still is my favorite thing, water play.
I think play today is different from the play in which I engaged with as a child because there was a lot more freedom. During the summer we were not allowed inside the house at all unless we were eating lunch or going potty. When the street lights went on, that's when we had to go home. Today, a lot of things have changed because of crime and city populations growing. We also did not have a lot of toys or gadgets or any electronics at all. We never watched the TV or played video games, because they didn't exist. So our play was imaginative. That is what I think we lack today, the ability to imagine things on our own. We rely so much on games, gadgets, electronics, and the internet to give us ideas.
There is something very simple and beautiful about a child who plays with a hose and nothing else! I feel we have bombarded our children with what we think will make them happy instead of encouraging them to explore the world around them.
Cortnee :)
