My Connections to Play

Quotes about Play:

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." -Plato 

 “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.” -  Fred Rogers

I often played games in my sandbox. I could play house, become a chef, build a small town. I even had a worm farm in my sandbox.

My brothers and I when I was 7 years old.

I also played with dolls a lot as a young child. I was able to act out any story I wanted to. 


Play was an integral part of my learning as a young child. Whenever my mother tells stories about me as a child, she always mentions how imaginative I was. I remember using my imagination to create any story. My mother supported my imaginative play by providing me with resources to use while playing. I had toys, but she would sometimes let me use other things as well. For instance, even still today, I remember a time when I wanted to play hairdresser and she let me fill a squirt body with water so that I could 'do my dolls hair'. This is one way that she supported me through my play.

I think play is similar and different today with young children than it was when I was a child. I believe that children definitely still learn from play when given genuine opportunities, but I think that it is different for children today because children live in a different time. They have different kinds of technology and most of them have more access to technology. I remember being a child and having to earn t.v. time and even then it was mostly earning one show. I know a lot of children today who have unlimited access to video games, television, IPods, IPads and that is just to name a few. Although I am not saying every child lives like this but some do. There are many great benefits to technology and so many things that we gain from it. But I think when it comes to young children, we do them a disservice by exposing them to it too much and not giving them the opportunity to have genuine, uninterrupted play time.

I think play has played an important role in my life from the time I was a young child to today. Over the course of my life, I have come to find t that my learning style includes visual, auditory and tactile learning. Through learning this, I have come to find that tactile really can be a form of play for me as an adult. Sometimes learning things by being hands on means playing. Through field work and different experiences, I have learned this.