My Connections to Play

Summarizing Play

"Play provides the ultimate curriculum for social, physical, and cognitive advancement. Secondly, by using materials, interactions with others, and mastery of tasks and skills to progress through levels of play, children develop a sense of control of their environment and a feeling of competence and enjoyment that they can learn. Finally, play provides a natural integration between all the critical brain functions and learning domains that are often missing with discrete teacher instruction. Recent brain research shows that this integration is very important to development" (Wardle, n.d.).

"Play helps children weave together all the elements of life as they experience it. It allows them to digest life and make it their own. It is an outlet for the fullness of their creativity, and it is an absolutely critical part of their childhood. With creative play, children blossom and flourish; without it, they suffer a serious decline" (Almon, 2002).

The Role of Play

As you can see from my quotes, I am a firm believer in the role of play, both active and otherwise, in a child's development. No child should have to sit all day or not have the opportunities to create, explore, and imagine. If I had not had play in my life, I would not have discovered who I am. Through play and imagination, I realized that I love art and I love writing stories and coming up with fictitious characters and settings. God showed me a part of who I was through playing. Below you will see three things that were essential playthings in my life...

Art supplies were my everything! I used them to write and illustrate stories and books, to make gifts for the people I loved, you name it. 

I absolutely loved board games, and still do to this day. I grew up as the youngest of ten children, so there was always someone to play with, LOL!

Legos fueled my creativity. I loved building things, making up stories that went along with my constructions.

 

What Was Play to Me?

Play was not just an essential part of my life, but a requirement. My parents fully believed in children being children. We played outside as well as played with games and things in the house. One very fond memory I have of playing is during the summer, after breakfast and some cleaning up, which was usually around noon everyday, my mom set up a big, red Igloo cooler filled with ice water on the porch and put enough plastic cups on top where there would be enough for each of us, and sent my siblings and I outside to play. She would lock the door, and we had to use the restroom before leaving out and it was mandatory that we spent at least a whole hour outside playing. We would make up games, and play things like freeze tag and racing. We double-dutched in the driveway, and played Frisbee across the street. I would pull up weeds and rocks and put them on the grill pretending to cook greens and cookies. Sometimes, Mama would come to the door with Popsicles or Freeze Pops and big cups of Kool-Aid, especially the times our neighbors came over to play, too.

At that time, all my friends' parents believed the same way my parents did. Children were not meant to be cooped in the house all day, "in grown folks' business" as my Mama would say. In school, recess was never taken from us except as a punishment, which quickly got our behavior better for the next day. As a matter of fact, we had two recesses--one in the morning and one in the afternoon. 

How Is Play Different Now?

Play is much different now than it was when I was growing up. Technology has brought about a new age, one in which a child's idea of play is now less imaginative when it used to be more imaginative. Where my friends and I used our time creating things to do, now my students have things created for them. Does that mean that they are not playing? I'm not sure about the answer to that; I just believe it is defined differently now, just as so many things are. With new ages come new definitions and new approaches.

References

Wardle, F. (n.d.). Play as curriculum. Retrieved from                                             http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=127

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

Relationship Reflection

Relationships are  very important to me because I believe the word of God. He created Eve so that Adam wouldn't be alone. When he put Noah in the Ark, he saved Noah plus his whole family and each animal was saved in pairs. I definitely don't believe that we are supposed to go through things by ourselves, both in the natural world and the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, we have Jesus as our brother, God as our father, and the Holy Spirit as our comforter. In the natural we have friends, parents, siblings, other family members, coworkers, and more. 

I have a positive relationship with my parents and my mother-in-law (who I call Mama just like my birth Mama), who are only a few of many. My parents are incredible people and they raised me to do what is right at all times and to love God. I love them very much. As a child, I gave them a hard time, but they loved me anyway. Recently, I repented to them for my behaviors growing up and it made our relationship stronger. Forgiveness will do that. My other Mama I love dearly. She is a strong woman of God and loves me unconditionally, even though my relationship with her son hit a rocky road; she doesn't hold that against me. She told me I'm her daughter whether I stay with my husband or not.

Relationships can definitely be challenging to maintain and to develop, depending on the person. Trust is a major factor in both the development and the maintenance of a relationship. Without trust, dependability, loyalty, integrity, and forgiveness it is impossible to keep a relationship on high ground. Of course, problems and circumstances come, but if you can have those things the relationship will last, unless God says otherwise. Having these things mutually is what makes a relationship a partnership. When each party gives 100%... a partnership manifests.

Knowing these things about relationships and knowing my own experiences with relationships, I know that my profession as an early childhood educator will be impacted. I have seen the benefits firsthand of how smooth the road can be during the school year when you have a positive relationship with parents, and I have also seen the the bumps, scrapes, and bruises--long days and long nights--associated with negative relationships with parents. Not just the parents, but with the administration, colleagues, community, and the students. Every positive relationship you can develop is beneficial to the child's growth and development.