My Connections to Play

As I thought about this week’s blog, I spoke to my mom. I had different toys I liked at different times so I needed to narrow down my list to when I was four or five. Once I spoke to my mom, I confirmed what I had thought and that is the toys I enjoyed at the age of four and five were my Cabbage Patch dolls and my Smurfs. My sister was 2 at the time and I enjoyed ‘playing house’ with her as well. A quote I found in an article I read by Rollins (2012) that comes to mind in reference to my play as a child, was one by Maria Montessori that states, “play is a child’s work.” Although I cannot recall the author or the whole poem right now, there is something I read once that discusses what takes place in the different learning areas in the room and how when a child says he played all day, he truly was in his mindset working and learning.

When I think about play now versus play when I was younger, I realize how much has changed. Today children are on computers, playing video games, or watching television. I have often heard people make reference to these things as babysitters for children instead of parents interacting with their children. When I was a child my television time was limited and I did not have a computer in my home until later. My sister and I played in our play room or outside in the yard as did the friends we had. The adults in my life would perform one of two tasks during play, participate along with me or watch. This tells me that my play was self-initiated and I directed the play experience (Berger, 2009). I would like to hope that in collaboration with the parents of the children I teach that my students would go back to play and spend less time with technologies. I would also like to hope that my classroom is child-centered and play is the most important element in my classroom. There are too many skills developed through play to go without play experiences. Children develop problem solving skills, fine motor and gross motor skills, social skills, and emotional skills just to name some (Almon, 2002). This summary of play leads me to the second quote among a list of quotes on play I found (Jeanneweier, 2012), it states “play is the beginning of knowledge (Dorsey, 2012).”

As I reflect on my own play experiences as a child and what I have come to the unfortunate realization of play today, my hope is to help advocate for more play opportunities both in the classroom and at home. The quotes that I used here represent what play should be now as much as it represents play for now.

Almon, K. (2002). The vital role of play in early childhood education. Gateways, 43. Retrieved from http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/GW43almon.pdf

Berger, K. S. (2009). The developing person through childhood (5th ed.). New York

Publishers.

Jeanneweier (2012). 25 quotes about the importance of play. Retrieved from

http://move-with-me.com/blog/25-quotes-about-the-importance-of-play

Rollins, S. (2012). Theories About Play in Early Childhood Education | eHow.com retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/about_5444159_theories-play-early-childhood-education.html#ixzz211FMFNFR