childhood

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The Gift of Play: Everybody Needs It

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

Everybody needs a little love in their lives but you know what else everybody needs? Play.

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

While in Vang Vieng, Laos, we happened to catch children playing from a far distance. No grown ups present. They climbed through tree roots, explored water, caught fish and laughed a lot. They waded water in the stream made their way out and found a large paint roller and rolled it all around in the dirt. I smiled and reminisced as my nostalgic childhood materialized.

“That’s what play looks and feels like. That’s honoring childhood.” My partner and I started sharing about our childhoods. How we were fortunate that ours looked like the childhood the children were playing in right before our very eyes. Childhood is finite and infinite at the same time. It lives on.

No fences, no dittos, no rules. Freedom. To feel and play. True play gives us a push into being in our body and mind. Everything is connected: spatial awareness to making connections. 

Play gives children practice to what they are learning and observing. It works for grown ups too in life, family and business. Want to learn more about your colleagues in less time? Keep it simple. Kick the typical “meeting” and get out there and play. 

Play Opens Doors

No matter where children and grown ups live or what they’re overcoming, play is essential.

It opens doors and shows us what we’re capable of and what we’re passionate about. It shows us who we are and are meant to be. We all are competent, capable and creative human beings. From birth until we die, we have to play in our purpose.

Play Promotes Collaboration

Listening and talking. Everyone plays a part in it. From role play / interacting with others to make believe / symbolic thinking. Even without someone else…being able to collaborate with yourself in your own world is the art of meditation. Play is meditation.

Play Gives Grace to Fail and Try, Try Again

Riding a bike to kicking a ball. You ride, you crash. You kick, you miss. You try again.

What did you love to play as a child? As an adult? Did it change? Why? 

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Code the Life You Want

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

3:08 am. How did we get here? I stretch and I yawn into the morning. Into the new day as I give thanks and am filled with gratitude to see another day. During the pandemic, I was deeply moved and inspired to move. To change. To dig deep within myself. I just needed a shovel. During the pandemic, we went virtual as we taught and learned online.

Some grown up students loved it and some did not. Some children loved it and some did not. For instance, I had a student who loved typing on the keyboard. He inspired me to dig deeper within myself. He gave me a shovel without even knowing it. While many times, I push and cheer others on, deep down I knew it was time to push and cheer on myself as well.

I noticed something. Literacy in action as he typed. We were singing Dem Bones and he started typing the sounds of the song out. Not because I told him to but because he wanted to.

What do we do in a world where computers and technology are a part of it. We embrace it and work alongside of it, learn to work with it and even create it. As I am learning coding now, I think about the past languages I learned and recognize coding as a language. Another language to communicate in.

Commas and quite frankly, punctuation matter in the code. You miss it or make a mistake then the code will not work. It will be null and void.

As we started returning to “normal” I didn’t want the old normal. I craved a new normal. So, here I am coding, creating and writing the life I want. The life I need. One that is far from normal. Love and light leads me. We are life. It is now almost 4:00 am on a Tuesday and this will be reaching you at 8:26am. on May 26. Happy reading. Happy living. You are life. Remember that.

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Play is Our Life’s Work

Gallery | Posted on by Jill Telford

Photo by Scott Webb on Pexels.com

What is play? We all have a schema in our minds about it. What ideas come to yours? Oxford defines it as engaging in an activity for enjoyment rather than a serious or practical endeavor. In other words, engaging in an activity one cares about just because. “Play is the highest form of research” as quoted by Albert Einstein. If that is true then why are we not doing more of it? There are conversations about play and even changing the word play to something entirely different.

That’s kind of funny right changing the word play to another word? What would another word for the word play even be?

What would another word for the word play even be?

I remember going to the World Forum on Early Childhood Education which is an amazing forum and foundation gathering minds emphasizing on sharing ideas and yes, renaming p-l-a-y is a real conversation going on. We all chatted about what we would change the word play to and talked about how people don’t take the word seriously or even misunderstand what the value of play has for children and grown ups. Play is so misunderstood. I remember being an educator and some views went something like this, “Oh wow, that’s cool, so you get to play all day?!” Yes and no. Imagine being a fly on a wall and you get to observe play. “Play is the highest form of research” for the person playing as well as for the observer.

Why are some grown ups including myself for a time being turning play into a serious or practical endeavor? Someone who is not taking play so seriously is Pat, the Play Lady who I had the opportunity of connecting with in this lifetime. She is one fun and joyful person. I stumbled upon her when I worked in Takoma Park during one of my walks. I saw this sign and took it as a sign:

Don’t know who she is? Here is her Ted Talk: hope it inspires you.

Play encompasses all. Who doesn’t love to play? For example, take a play object / material like sand or even Kinetic sand?! So many connections and synapses are being made in the brain as you are molding kinetic sand for instance. What do you think happens outside and inside a person? One it gives you an unforgettable experience, two it’s fun and three molding kinetic sand helps build schema and synapses in our brains especially for children and those rewiring/rebuilding their brains like Jill Bolte Taylor or even just because it’s fun meanwhile it is helping strengthen and literally mold our brains.

Here are more ways kinetic sand play helps children. https://www.jimbeamracing.com.au/kinetic-sand-offers-unique-benefits-to-your-childs-development/

Need more play ideas? Here is another source and another: https://www.letsplayamerica.org/handbooks and https://www.naeyc.org/resources/topics/play

Keep playing as though your life depends on it. Because it does. Happy playing and being as Fred Rogers would say “just the way you are”.