Play Based Learning

My 4-year old son has a much different childhood than mine already. He not only knows how to work the DVD player and his own DVD remote controlled video game, but he can text message (the ABCs) and can work the mouse - and my computer - better than I can. Which is why I'm thrilled that he will be going to school next fall - Pre-K - which is play based. It is so important for children to explore, discover and learn through hands-on projects, experiments and work together to create.

There has been much research on play based learning and, just recently, I have been introduced to the concept of playtime and just how much children benefit from the non-structured activity that I grew up with outdoors, indoors - in the winter - and throughout my youth.

Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I was one of those people who chose to have kids because I enjoy playing. I still do and I - hopefully - always will. A recent study done in the UK was quite disappointing to read, although it didn't really surprise me. The Pica Perspective sums it all up quite nicely.

And, because I feel play is so vital to today's youth, I dug up some quotes related to play to inspire the child in all of us to remember what it was like to be young and having "nothing to do."

"Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child's soul." - Friedrich Froebel

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

“Play is the highest form of research.” - Albert Einstein

"We do not stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw

"You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play." - Warren Beatty

"If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play." -John Cleese

"The parent who gets down on the floor to play with a child on Christmas Day is usually doing a most remarkable thing -- something seldom repeated during the rest of the year. These are, after all, busy parents committed to their work or their success in the larger society, and they do not have much left-over time in which to play with their children." - Brian Sutton-Smith

"It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity." - Michel de Montaigne