My Connections to Play

A quote from a great man, a man I always knew and admire growing up. "Children make you want to start life over"...Muhammad Ali I often do we reflect on our prechool life through our classes. "The prime purpose of being four is to enjoy being four-of secondary importance is to prepare for being five"... Jim Trelease, The Read_Alod Handbook, 1985 I saved the best for last what an awesome quote, one I will continue to live by with the children's lives I touch. "Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity"...Kay Redfield Jamisom In the picture below it is a representation of me because I grew up in day care and preschool settings while my mother and father worked. I knew of child-center curriculum before we changed to the fancy term. As we all know time changes things, what we see now in centers we created in my time. Creative play we often look at it as a thing of the past, no it is still alive and growing.

Barbie, Barbie I remember as if it were yesterday I thought I was the best little girl around. I had everything Barbie could offer cars, bikes, a million dolls, barbie houses and the list goes on. Barbie showed me fashion when I was little I thought every doll Barbie put out was the best and I wanted to be just like her.

Play is a world of imagination and learning. I learned a tremendous amount about life growing up through play. We were always encouraged through my childhood to explore the outdoors and create our play enviornment. Now society has placed play structures and gross motor equipment for children and it does not allow them time to be creative through play with nature. My grandmother use to always say "you can always find something to do outide." As we continue to teach our children through play my hope is we create environments for them to learn while having fun. I hope we encourage more nature in play for children allowing them to explore the outdoors while bringing the classroom outside. Play is essential it teaches social interaction for children with their peers. The role play offers is opportunities of a life time for children. Play helps children in longivity and encourages them to explore in their minds. This was a great topic for this week's blog. I am looking forward to reading the blogs published from my peers and I hope they enjoy my post.

Relationship Reflection

Relationship and partnerships for me are separate within themselves. I have many relationships and very few relationships with partnerships. My immediate family members I have a realtionship and partnership and we a very close to each other. We take care of each other through repect and love. Our family spends alot of time together and we come together through the good and bad. My father and mother divorced when I was very young however were able to maintain a very comfortable relationship due to their only child. My father was always a very important part of my life as a child and not as an adult. He provided me with direction and the will and determaination to succeed. My mother, as a single mother provided me with all of my womanhood today. She was able to set foundations and directions in my life while showing me the real life. The realtionships and partnerships I have learned with familly is strength we are able to use what we all know to gain more knowledge to succeed. I have a dog, her name is Noel and she is not just a pet to me she is my daughter and we have a relationship as such. Dogs have feelings as well and they feed off of your responses. She knows when I am upset or angry, and know the same about her. She keeps me safe and comfortable and I have to provide for her as I do for my son. My relations and partnership with my son is on entire different level from any other. I am single mom who has for the past 16 years have done most of rearing for my son. I believe we are close and bonded. Our minds and thoughts are closely related however as a teenager they always think they know everything so at times I let learn on his own to develop responsibility. He is my reason for continuing with everything I do I want him to be well rounded in all areas and development.