"My Connections to Play"

          As a child we would spend hours exploring leaves, rocks, sticks , water and clay down at the creek.

           Coming from a family of 8 children there was always someone to play basketball with.

 My father was a wheat farmer so as young children we spent hours playing in the wheat trucks.

This picture reminded me of the times we would play in the driveway and use objects to pretend we had a  house and a neighborhood.  We would drive our tricycles on our made up roads.

PLAY QUOTES

"In childhood there is no distinction between play and work (Almon, 2002)"
"Pretend play requires extended uninterrupted time periods to develop complexity (Berger, 2002)"

HOW PLAY HAS CHANGED:
Forty years ago children used their imaginations more to play.  I lived on a farm and we made our own intertainment with whatever materials we could find in nature and we were able to spend hours without being interrupted.  Today, children have more electronic games and toys that do not allow them to use their imaginations or get as much physical activity, as well as less unstructured play.

We still play with board games, have yoyo's, balls, dolls, jacks, stuffed animals and wheeled vehicles, but the difference today is that we have video games, electronic games and such resulting in less cognitive thinking skills, less imagination and less physical activity.  I hope we can get back to more natural playscapes and reconnect with yesterday.  In the book, Last Child In The Woods Richard Louv states that, "direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for physical and emotional health of children and adults.  Play is just as important for adults as it is for children. 

INTERESTING STATISTIC:
Out of 15,000 school districts surveyed in 1999, 40% were eliminating recess or cutting back on it.  Only three states require recess and 10 recommend it (NYT).