I learned a valuable lesson in the month of January. You don't need an undergraduate degree in elementary education/special education with an endorsement in early childhood education and minor is psychology or a Masters in Curriculum Design and Instructional Strategies to play with a child. YOU NEED MORE! I've become obsessed with the idea of PLAY this month because my children seem to have been born with the missing play gene.
One on one, play is great. The child dominates and the mom uses all her creative juices to squeeze every possible educational moment from bouncing the Little People mom from the house to the grocery store to buy pretend strawberries. Add one more child, two more children, three more children. It goes from an educational play-based learning moment to all out biological warfare. It's loud, ugly, toys are flying, screams are being heard, babies are laying on the floor, and Max is coughing in other people's faces to defend his territory (I wish I were joking).
A wise man named Plato once said "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Oh Plato, why do you say such things? Well, I realized my degree is not enough. I need to dig in and learn about play. So I researched it...I typed in good old google and reviewed the play stages, read some articles by scholars, and good old blogs.
I was reminded play is innate to every child...and every animal. So why is it that my children cannot just simply play? I have these visions of making my homemade muffins in the kitchen while my children sweetly play blocks together and sugar plums are dancing overhead.
Why is play so difficult for my children?? After much pondering my question, here is my answer.
It's not difficult for my children. My children are experts at playing....absolutely brilliant in fact!! The way I'm viewing their play is all wrong...I'm giving them a F on playing too loudly, unorganized, with ugly conflict, and craziness when they deserve an A plus plus because they are teaching the "master" what play really entails...so...swallowing my pride...here is what I learned this month from my children:
1. Active toys create inactive children; inactive toys create active children. And we want the latter. Yes, this means really limiting screen time and encouraging children to play with toys that don't make sounds or light up (active toys). However, there's a consequence...a good one. The more inactive a toy, the more active, loud, and crazy the child. So, mom (my children say)...you give us blocks, buckets, and people? Then we will turn the blocks into space ships and zoom around the house blasting off bouncing off pillows, flying through, the air, and making every rocket noise imaginable with our mouths. Mom, that is play...and it is loud, crazy, and unpredictable. And mom...that's how I learn. Turn off the TV and I explore the Universe! We will become astronauts by placing buckets on our heads and traveling through the unknown, crashing into each other when the vortex appears and we get sucked into the black hole! You want to make those muffins, mom? Then give us our buckets, let us run and crash, and just go to your happy place while we are in space!
2. Conflict is *gulp* good!!! There are four children at my house. I have a 5 year old, 3 year old, 2 year old, and 1 year old. They all have beautiful and strong personalities. Not a single one backs down. Especially the baby. There is A LOT of conflict during play. I used to micromanage every sharing situation until I was hoarse at the end of the day. I had my "firehose" and was constantly spraying out "fires" during play. One day, I decided I needed a new approach. This is a whole another blog post but I did two things 1) allowed conflict to happen and the kids to work it out for themselves 2) started teaching social skills lessons, social stories, and role playing sharing when the kids were in GOOD moods. Children LEARN through play AND conflict. They learn to problem solve, be a leader, be a follower, share, take turns, plan, compromise. It is so necessary for kids to fight and learn the RIGHT way to resolve issues. What I learned through ignoring their conflict and stepping back? If the situation didn't get too carried away, they usually had a better solution for fixing it than I did.
3. Nature, building toys (blocks, trains, legos, etc) arts and crafts materials, musical instruments, and books are the best toys. Sorry Fisher Price! We love the manufactured toys too and trust me, we have them and enjoy them! However, nature is the best playground for kids. Its never the same and there is always something new to explore. The rest...its all about creativity, imagination, problem solving, and countless ways to play. Give Carlee a scissors and paper. She will sit for an hour and cut paper. She's not just practicing scissors skills. The paper have become her animals and she's building a whole zoo....with one piece of construction paper and one scissors. It looks like scraps to us but its play to them!
4. Get off Pinterest and play with my kids! I had that moment this month....and laughed. I realized that I actually spent more time ON pinterest, planning play scenarios, activities, projects, etc for my kids than I actually spent time playing WITH my kids! Now trust me, there is a place for Pinterest and I oh so so love it. There are even great ideas for play on there. But if the play idea takes longer than 5 mintues to gather materials and set up, SCRAP it! Instead of Pinterest for play, all you need is painters tape, puff balls, clothes pins, cotton balls, streamers, balloons, blankets, egg cartons, cardboard boxes. You don't know what to do with them? You don't need to. Your kids won't give it a second thought. And you are welcome :) You can go back to making those muffins now.
5. Play is messy. Let it be! Yes, I do think its good to have kids pick up toys when done playing but I've stopped having them pick up every toy as soon as they've gotten it out and started picking up once or twice a day. Yes, it can be a lot of work to pick up but the longer a child is engaged in play, the deeper play scenario they are in. This usually means a lot of toys are out to develop that play scenario!
6. Play is memories. At the end of the day, when Paul asks Sam, "What was your favorite part of the day today?" he always answers, "Playing with mommy". We could have gone to the circus and seen five elephants and two tigers. Sam still answers, "Playing with mommy". I am blessed.
In my desperate research about play, I came across an interview of Dr. Brown...an author and expert on play...I loved his answer. Thank you God for...play.
Dr. Brown: The exuberance that is my grandson Leo makes him my current #1 play companion. His innate humor, constant curiosity, ability to make life a playground is so contagious and pure that he sweeps me away. He takes me out of a sense of time, brings me joy, engages me fully, and does so in a climate of love. But I guess I can also muse that my favorite player is God, who somehow put this marvelous divinely superfluous process into the cosmos for us to embrace.
http://www.amazon.com/Play-Shapes-Brain-Imagination-Invigorates/dp/1583333789/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391579841&sr=8-1&keywords=book+about+play
Here's our play this January....
Little People going on log ride at Adventure Land
Sammy building a zoo
TOWERS! (Forgive the lack of pants...we're potty training)
Trick or Treat House (Noah was probably quite scary after 40 days on the ark)
Writing sight words in goo with a paintbrush
Made goo with coffee creamer and corn starch
Sammy loved the corn starch!
It smelled really good!
Snowball fight with puff balls!
You could hear "FREEDOM!" (Braveheart style) being yelled with each puff ball being thrown...
We did a unit on hibernating animals. I had 3 hibernating animals under that blanket!
Carlee swimming like a penguin during our winter animals theme :)
