Play Today....

Play today...

I was sitting on the playground at the end of the day, taking a break from phone calls and emails and paper work.  This is my favorite work! Sitting with the children, listening, watching, and thinking about their play, their language, their voice and their amazing ideas!

When adults come to play children know. We must exude some kind of smell or look to them.  They immediately run to you and say, "Can you play with me?" Maybe it is just the absence of a cell phone in front of an adults face that gives them this message.  I do not know.

And so we began to play.  One child and I started to roll a ball to each other with our legs open, we laughed and tossed the ball.  Your turn, your turn, your turn, we yelled with glee. As other children heard us others came and asked, "Can I play?" and there is always one that needs to sit right on you in the play.  They need the touch, the connection, the love to be a little closer. 

So what started with one grew into a small group.  Some looked at us as they ran by or biked by and chose not to join.  They each make their own choice, their own decision, they are agents driving their own ideas each day.  They determine, do I want to play, do I want to be with the other children, do I prefer what I am doing?  They have many thoughts happening in their mind, and they are strengthening their skills in listening to these thoughts and deciding what works for them! 

As we began to roll the ball one student joined in, she looked around and determined there was not a lot of space in the circle? I am not sure what her thoughts were, yet she had an amazing, creative solution! She picked up a twig with a few leaves and began to create a new part of the game. She decided she wanted to play. She decided she needed a way in.  She decided what that looked like! As we rolled the ball she would point to a student and shout, "Winner and shake the twig."  I clapped and shouted, "Yay," and so did the children.  Every few seconds as we rolled the ball she pointed to a new child and shouted, "Winner," and she would shake the stick with the leaves again.  

I had to marvel at this.  There is a beautiful book called, "A stick is not a stick." What a perfect example of this book.  A stick was her imagination, a stick symbolized joy and life in our game.  It didn't really matter to the children who was picked as the winner, or what the rules were in this instance.  We just rolled the ball and laughed, until slowly the game was over and we moved on to going down the slide together.

Another great adventure began.  Have you ever gone down the slide with a child? They think this is the funniest thing in the world.  Have we taught them that adults don't play? Do they think adults don't have fun in their life? What do children think about adults and joy? I am sad as I write this.  How often do our children see us engaged in joy and play and fun in our lives? Do we want our children to have joy in their lives as adults? How do we emulate this? 

According to science, "Play causes changes in the Prefrontal Cortex that help wire the brain's executive control system, which has a critical role in regulating emotions, making plans, solving problems, and supporting whole brain integration."

We know the science, so there is only one thing left to do. Get out there and have some fun today!