My Connections to Play

Quotes about play

“Play is the beginning of knowledge.” Anonymous

“It is paradoxical that many educators and parents differentiate between and time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.” Leo F. Buscaglia

My Connections to Play

The role of play in my life was the central focus of my days. I spent all of my playtime outside, when the weather permitted. The minute I got home from elementary school, I would eat the snack my mom made and be outside. I wouldn’t come in until she called me to supper. I did not own many toys. My toys were my mother’s pots, pans and spoons. When I was very young, I remember banging on them and pretending to be in a band. I would pretend to cook and arrange and organize dishes in the kitchen. I would lead my siblings in singing church hymns and nursery rhymes, while making music. My mother would let me dress up in her clothes, high heels and hats. I would prance around the house with my sister. I remember putting on her gloves, carrying a purse and pretending to go to church. I would carry on lengthy conversations with myself and my sister. I loved to swing and play hopscotch at school. I could spend all day on a teeter totter or merry-go-round. My family spent two weeks every summer at the lake. I loved to explore, swim, hike and fish.  

My father was a carpenter and made us child-sized furniture at a time Little Tykes wasn’t even thought about. My grandmother gave me a doll, and my parents set up a little house in the long washroom of our home. I was always the mother, a doctor or a nurse. We had a little table and chairs, doll bed, stove and refrigerator. I loved playing house. This was my favorite place to be in the winter. I could dress and undress my doll for hours.

My mother stayed home and kept children, while other mothers went to work. Our house was always filled with other children, so we always had someone to play with. When it was warm, I played church and school in the street, lining up the neighbor children on the curb and teaching them things I thought they should know. My father built a small playhouse in the backyard and I spent many hours decorating and hosting clubs. I spent long hours playing card games with my grandmother in her kitchen. When my cousins visited, we would play tag, explore and ride bikes. I played jump rope and chanted all those little jump rope poems. I was very good at Double Dutch. My mom gave me jacks for Christmas once. She taught me how to play with them on the kitchen floor.  

During the long summer days, my little brother, sister and I would explore the neighborhood, picking up bugs, turning over rocks hoping to see a snake. We would play with horned toads and chase grasshoppers and butterflies. We often found tarantulas. We would kick rocks and cans. We would play with balls and pop bottles. We would play cops and robbers. Nights would be filled with trying to catch fireflies; smashing them between our fingers and watching our fingers glow in the dark. We would go outside, sit in the dirt and make mud pies and grass and rock stew. We could walk around for hours, swatting at weeds with sticks. My sister was a great tree climber, but I was very afraid of heights. There was a small pond at the end of our dirt road, and we would go there every day to see what we could see. We would pick dandelions and blow them in the wind. My favorite plants were the cattails in the pond.  We would try to catch the frogs and often brought home box turtles. We would blow bubbles and chase them. We rode bikes everywhere. While studying the ground, I once found a dollar bill buried in the dirt. You would have thought I won the lottery!

Play was a vital part of my childhood. My family did not watch television. I can’t imagine spending hours in front of the boob tube, texting on a cell phone instead of talking, playing video games instead of board games and sitting for long periods instead of running, riding bikes and organizing neighborhood baseball games. I easily went a mile from my home most days. It was natural to be outside. Most people were back then. These days, our children are missing out on so much real play.

Play today

Today’s free play among children is virtually nonexistent. Play is scheduled and organized by parents and adults. Play is often considered a waste of time. Play is expected to end in some resulted learning experience. Every minute of every day of a child’s life seems to be planned and scheduled. Parents buy more and more toys, trying to keep their children entertained. Children aren’t allowed to freely explore because of stranger danger. Children often don’t know each other, because our society is so mobile. Neighborhood sports have been replaced with organized games. When I ask my first grade students what they play, I always get the same answers: PS2 or X-Box. Children don’t understand or use their imagination. Children just don’t know how to really play anymore. Research shows that play is vital to healthy physical, social, emotional and cognitive development. As a society, it seems that more we stress learning, academics and testing, the more dismal our scores become. Increasingly schools are denying preschoolers and kindergarten children to play and expecting them to sit, read and write all day. Maybe if we let our little kids be kids and allow children to play, they would be more committed to their formal schooling experience. I recently read an article that said students who do not have formal reading and writing in kindergarten aren’t as smart and aren’t as successful in life as those who attend a formal kindergarten. I wonder what Plato, Socrates, Einstein, George Washington or Abe Lincoln would have to say about that?