Monday, January 2, 2012

A Day of Play



Today was a day of play. Sometimes I get caught up in the ABCs of learning, but I must always remind myself that play is fundamental to learning. So, today we played. Good, old fashion play.

( A great blog entry about play http://www.theimaginationtree.com/)

First we took out Owl's wooden train tracks. He received GeoTrax for Christmas, which he loves, but he is still partial to his wooden tracks and trains. We've cleared the living room of our large coffee table so now there is a large space available to set up tracks - much more space then the train table offers. Owl's tracks are elaborate. I love watching him work through the process of creating a track- you can see the gears moving in his head. Plus, Owl is a " talker- through-er" he talks his way through through the whole process of seeing what works and what doesn't work with his track. ( I was so enthralled with watching him that I forgot to take a picture, oh well.) I've noticed in the past few weeks that Owl is more about creating a track then pla
ying with it. The pleasure is in getting an amazing track put together, usually once he's spent all of this time creating a track he then just wants to sit back and admire his work and not play with it. ( Or let his little sister anywhere near it!)

We also spent the day reading many of our new winter themed books up in our playroom. ( I've finally put away all of our Christmas books) and the new books were a big hit. The favorite by far was:

While Sassy Sis was napping the train tracks were put away and we took some large sheets of butcher paper to make an elaborate road way. Owl used his matchbox type cars on the roads. Sassy sis joined in when she woke too. Again, I love listening to Owl give the vehicles personalities and have conversations with each other.

A day of play isn't complete without some dress-up play. Owl is excited about his upcoming ski lessons. I came around the corner to him playing " Captain Skiing". He was all geared up in winter clothes and his new ski helmet and goggles!


So remember, just because there isn't any "structured" learning taking place, doesn't mean that learning isn't happening. Play is still vital to their learning process.


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