My Connections to Play

" Children learn as they play.  Most importantly, in play children children learn how to learn."
                                                                       O. Fred Donaldson

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

When I think about my childhood paly, two items come to mind.  The first being a yellow huffy bike that I received for Christmas at the age of 5. The second being this beautiful baby doll that had a dark skin color and long brown hair.  The yellow bike was quite special to me as I couldn't wait to get home from school to take a ride.  The baby doll was special as it gave me the opportunity to act as if I was a mom just like my aunt when she would come to visit us with her husband and beautiful baby girl.

When I was younger, most people were very supportive of play.  Of course we didn't have the technology then that we have now; therefore, we had to bew very creative in our play.  Just as they have house areas in classrooms now, I can clearly remember palying house with my two sisters.  On the side of our house, we had four trees and this is where our pretend house was.  Just about everyday of our summer break was consumed with us playing house.

It is so interesting to see how play has changed from my childhood years to now.  I also remember how hopscotch was such a popular game.  Now that I think about it, I see now that we were working our counting and number recognition skills, not realizing at that time. Back during that time, it seemed as if play wasn't a main focus in the lives of young childern. It definitely is now.