My Connection to Play

The Importance of Play

What play Represents

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” – Carl Jung

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw

http://www.oneperfectdayblog.net/2013/02/21/quotes-about-the-importance-of-play/

Essential Play Items

I absolutely love play dough. It allows you to create real life things and allows others to see how certain things look to you. It also helps to strength the muscles in your hands. 

Playing in water is the best thing ever as a kid. Water can become so many things; soup, tea for tea party, bath for birds and fish, etc. Water also helps children to expand their thinking. Water can become a number of things and how children play with it helps with development.

The Support of Play

When I was child, my cousins and I were always outside, especially in the summer months. My grandmother would keep all 6 of her grandchildren while our parents were at work. From the time we woke up and ate breakfast my grandmother would send us to the backward to play. She would buy several things for us to play with to keep us busy. We didn't really need any toys, we were the type of children that create our own games and use whatever we could that was available outside. My grandparents and parents encouraged us to play together everyday. Playing together taught us how to appreciate one another's talent. We always built onto someone else's idea to make our play experience for exciting. 

Today children do not know how to play. I watch a lot of the children in my class when it's time to play, whether we are in the gym, outside, or in the class, a lot of them do not know how to. Many children talk about video games and explain how they work. We had video games when I was a child, we played them, but it was a last resort. Being outside or even in the house creating things showed that we had more of an imagination than the children today. Our parents told us to figure things out which caused us to think and today many parents take over for their children, not allowing them to experience the greater parts of learning which is exploring. 

As a child I think I learned a lot through play and was able to learn from other children. Our imagination rocked and I wish the children today would get the chance to grab hold to "playing" in an educational experience without saying it an educational experience.