Since the COVID-19 restrictions began, there has been a resurgence of the need to play. Commercials tell many parents what they already know – play is educational. Children learn through their play, and play is good for everyone, no matter their age.
I’m now a grandma, and it is sometimes hard for me to remember some of the fun things I did as a child or did with my children – that was a long time ago. Then I watch my grandson hard at play, and it jogs my memory. Many times, children don’t need us to come up with an activity – we need to just follow their lead.
What did you do as a child? Did you play outdoors? Did you play board games? What did you do for fun? How did you use your imagination?
What are you doing right now to allow your child to exercise their imaginations?
We would use my mom’s pantry items and our old picnic table to set up a store. We would mix a pot of soup using seeds, weeds, dirt, and water. No one showed us how to play those things, but my mom let us use our imaginations – and we learned.
Children are always busy and finding things to do. They are learning life skills like sharing, loving, kindness, and empathy. They are building and creating – no instructions, just instinctively building and recreating things they have seen in the world about them. They are recognizing shapes, numbers, and colors in their environment. They are using math, learning vocabulary, and participating in science.
Mom’s plastic kitchen containers become recognizable shapes and are used to assemble trucks, cars, and houses, and anything else their little minds see. Boxes become ponds, bubble wrap becomes bridges, and rubber ducks become cars. Duplo® blocks become chimneys on blanket houses over a chair, and chairs with big boxes become a semi-truck that’s making important deliveries.
Sand tables become construction sites with little cars, trucks, and construction vehicles. They plow pathways, fill holes with water for “lakes” and construct a whole world that they understand and makes them happy.
And we can’t forget the ever-important outside play and learning about nature. I am reminded of many things my children did, which they are now passing on to their own children: hiking, skipping rocks on a pond, hunting for morel mushrooms or asparagus, going fishing, walking quietly through the woods looking for wildlife, and enjoying the beauty of nature in the budding trees and flowers.
This may all look like ‘just’ playing, but this is education. I wrote my senior thesis on the topic of play and imagination about 35 years ago. One of my major resources was a book by Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers) titled, “Mr. Rogers Talks with Parents.” It was full of good advice then, and it still applies today. “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
Albert Einstein said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” Knowledge is important, but we don’t ever want to lose the imagination we’ve been given. Children seem to have a pretty good handle on this imagination thing – they are natural learners. We, as adults, need to provide the environment they need to nurture this gift – and maybe take time to play along with them.
