My Connections to Play

My Connections to Play

Backyard Play Set

Fisher Price Little People

For me, play was a way to escape reality.  Solitary play was my preferred play.  I would spend hours in my bedroom playing with my Fisher Price Little People toys. My older brother and sister would be at a friend’s house or school, my dad worked a typical 9-5 office job, and my mother would do housework on good days, so I would be on my own to entertain myself.  On not so good days, my mom would sleep on the couch.  My mom fell ill from a reaction to a swine flu vaccination when I was four years old, so I preferred to play with toys that I could use my imagination.  On weekends, the neighborhood kids would run and play.  Since we had a pool in our backyard, our metal playset was between our house and another.  It was accessible to all the kids.  We would swing on swings and imagine flying to faraway places.  Imagination play was my escape from reality and a way to go to novel places and meet new people.

Play today is different from yesterday’s play.  Children still use imaginative play to escape reality and travel to new worlds.  Some still play with play figures, some read books, and some only watch television or play video games.  In my opinion, playing with figures, reading books, and playing on playgrounds allows for a child to freely use their imagination and creativity to travel to new place and meet new people while technology directs the children to the places and people.  Hopefully, with the assistance and guidance from teachers and parents, children will learn to develop a healthy balance between play with technology and unplugging and playing with low-tech or no-tech toys. Creativity and imagination are essential for school readiness and a lifetime skill.  Educator should offer children opportunities on a regular basis to freely explore and express their creativity and imagination.

Even though play was my escape from reality growing up, it was also my way of learning about the world around me, learning new skills, new concepts, and much more.  The Fisher Price Little People play sets were my favorite solitary and imagination play items.  I had other play items that made play important and memorable for me.  One year, my parents bought me a Texas Instruments Speak & Spell that I loved to play games on and challenge myself to learn to spell new and unfamiliar words. I still have that Speak & Spell and grew up enjoying grammar and spelling.  On her good days, my mom and I would play board games.  I would use my birthday money to buy a new board game, so my mom and I would have a new game to learn to play.  These games would be played when a friend would spend the night.  Today, I cherish the evenings that we get together with friends and play card games.  The conversation, laughter, bonding are irreplaceable memories that link back to the days of playing board games with my mom.