My Connections To Play

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” 

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Play is our brain's favorite way of learning."

-Diane Ackerman

Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.

-Fred Rogers

“Go and play. Run around. Build something. Break something. Climb a tree. Get dirty. Get in some trouble. Have some fun.” 

― Brom, The Child Thief

“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at play.” 

― Charles Schaefer

“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play” 

― John Cleese

“Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing.” 

― Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

“Play hard. Play, play, play like your life depends on it. Because it does.” 

― Dean Koontz

Do not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.

-Plato

Children learn as they play. Most importantly, in play children learn how to learn.

-O. Fred Donaldson

Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.

-Abraham Maslow

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.

-Kay Redfield Jamison

Play allows us to develop alternatives to violence and despair; it helps us learn perseverance and gain optimism.

-Stuart Brown MD

(I could not choose just three)

As a child play was everything to me!! 

Though I do not remember my childhood much before my 5th grade year, I do have little snippets here and there.

 For many years after my parents divorced we lived with my mother at my grandmother's house in Pennsylvania. My grandmother lived on a very steep hill; and we would spend hours rolling down the hill, climbing trees and wandering up through the woods to an open meadow. 

We would play Little House on the Prairie (yes I am that old!). 

We loved playing kickball, baseball and freeze tag; and back then I would even pick up frogs,

 and played for hours with them! My cousins would come over and we would have even more fun playing all our games with them. We imagined Indians used to roam my grandmother's property and we would dig into the bank of her driveway looking for lost items left by the Indians. 

We played all day, everyday, barely coming inside the house for lunch and dinner. We stayed outside until the very last second before going in to get ready for bed.

We didn't have video games and were not allowed to sit in the house watching television, there was not chance of obesity in my family. We had chores which had to be done before we could go play, so you can bet we hopped out of bed in the morning, ate breakfast and got busy with our chores, because we wanted to be outside playing with our siblings and friends.

We played unsupervised for hours on end and nobody thought our mother was a bad mother, she was very much the norm. We rode our bikes all over town and nobody worried about us. We fell and got hurt and it was just part of life, it was okay.

We would dance with my mother and my grandmother and laugh! We spent time cooking with them both and loved every minute of it. 

The joys of childhood is most definitely PLAY!!!

Today, children do not play the same. Many parents are afraid to let their children play outside for fear of their child being hurt or abducted. Parents also tend to place their children in multiple extra-curricular activities robbing them of their precious time to simply play. Children are very engrossed in television, video games and computers which usually require just that one child playing or watching alone.
I think play should last a life time. The play may not look the same or feel completely the same as it did when we were children, but we should never stop playing. What's the saying,  "you don't stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing".....I don't know who said that, but I tend to agree.




 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMwqMuRtGDs