Play Break!

 I've really enjoyed this past week of blogging, but also feel like I've gone a little overboard in internet usage.  For two weeks, I've been avoiding the stacks of brand new plush and also some new cotton that is begging to be turned into Knees and Paws.  The shop seems to have gone into a hibernation mode.  Being a one woman operation, the cause of this is me.  I'm playing the work avoidance game because I just finished cleaning and rearranging our home and don't feel like making a mess.  Unfortunately, in my line of work, or play, I have to make a little mess for the sake of progress.    So today you are all spared of my philosophical ramblings for a simple quote. Today I'm borrowing one from Stuart Brown, MD in his book Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul.

"Play, it is believed, aids in the process of synaptogenesis through simulation and testing. At play we imagine and experience new situations, create and test new possibilities, and learn and practice new skills and lessons in a safe environment. Because we are just playing, there is no risk in failure and we can push the envelope‒and thereby boost cognitive development without penalty. In this way, Brown and other play researchers hypothesize, play helps “sculpt” the brain."

In case you are wondering,

syn·ap·to·gen·e·sis definition

Pronunciation:  /sə-ˌnap-tə-ˈjen-ə-səs/
Function: n
pl -e·ses ; Pronunciation:  /-ˌsēz/
:  the formation of nerve synapses

There are ten more days until Creativity Boot Camp begins!  So I need all the nerve synapses I can get!

  

Playing with Paint

 

I found a new creative outlet.

  The Paint program on my computer has given me joy this past week.  During my first year in business I wanted so much to have graphics that showed what Knees and Paws are.  I was not able to really capture this in photographs of my models.  I sat here wishing for a solution to this problem, not realizing that every day I had what I needed to make this a reality.  Thank goodness I decided to "play" as a way to problem solve.  I know, I'm a little slow.  But it was worth the wait.  The day that I made this graphic, I plugged my headphones in and listened to my favorite songs by Rob Thomas and Edwin McCain.  The feeling of making visual art is an incredible anti-depressant.  I knew this already but I did not know that creating designs on the screen had the same effect as drawing and painting on paper.

Sylvie from Jewett's A White Heron

  I found comfort during illness this winter by painting a scene from my favorite short story, A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett.  I've often thought about writing an adaptation of this story for children as a picture book.  Now that I've spoken that secret desire, I'm sure that a very talented writer and illustrator is somewhere working on it.  The story is so beautiful that I read it aloud to Elliot during our Big Back Yard Bird Count lessons.  He was amazed to learn that Orinthologists used to shoot and kill birds in order to study them.

If you've never read this classic American short story, I highly recommend it.  There's something magical in Jewett's way of capturing rural New England and the heart of a child who cannot be bought;  a child who is so much a part of the natural world that she cannot be persuaded to reveal its secrets.

Scientists Talk about Play

On a bulletin board at the Little Friends co-op, I was held captive by an article about play that appeared in the NY Times.  I must be living under a rock, or spending too much time "playing" because honestly, I did not know that play was a scientific topic of study.  Many times I've felt a little embarrassed that I have spent the last year building a business that seeks to uplift the spirits of children through imaginary play.  I've felt tiny pangs of insecurity over the choice to home school.  Some days I wonder...
   Maybe I should be going back to school for that teaching license or Master's degree.  Maybe I should be devoting 30 plus hours a week job searching.  I have those little guilty twinges, more often than I care to admit.
    But the discovery that there is something called the National Institute for Play validates my endeavors. In the article,  I read the following phrases as if I were sampling chocolates in Switzerland:

     "dangerous, long-term consequences of play deprivation"


     "play is as fundamental as sleep and dreams"


     "essential time for idle, creative, unstructured free play"

The article in its entirety can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/magazine/17play.htm

Through reading this article I discovered this amazing video of a Polar Bear playing with a Husky.  Even Bears like to play dogs!!!!!
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCJ5_Oc2T3g