5 Hits and 1 Miss: a Gift List

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Toys are always a favorite the first day they were given. But how do some toys stand up to the test of time? Lily and Emmy received some very cool gifts over the holidays, and I wanted to see which ones were still used, and which ones have been abandoned, now that January is coming to an end.

  1. Lily’s aunt gave her a pack of colored pencils. These have been used over and over again, and Lily is still making and coloring pictures with them almost every day. We try to keep them away from Emmy so she doesn’t poke her eye out, but Lily’s not too good at that. Last November we painted our kitchen walls white. That was a brilliant decision for parents of two small children…a nice, blank canvas that needs some color. Good thing I have a Magic Eraser on hand. This gift is definitely a hit.
  2. Emmy and Lily’s uncle gave them this eggloo from IKEA. That’s right, it’s not an igloo, or even a tent. It’s an eggloo. The girls go in and out, but have yet to actually play or read in it. I think I may spend more time in the igloo, ahem, I mean eggloo, than they do! When they opened this gift, I imagined hours of imaginative play and quiet reading time, but that has yet to materialize. This gift is a hit with me, and I’m going to work on getting the girls to use it more.
  3. Lily received a Build A Bear kit that was a trial for me, but Lily loved it. She now sleeps with the finished bear, “Mary.”
  4. The girls loved this Little People castle on Christmas Day. One of the sound buttons didn’t work, so I was tempted to return it. The dance and twirl function works really well: the music is cute and the prince and princess twirl like they’re dancing together. Lily twirls them so hard that they fly across the room. Yes, she’s a gentle child. The girls play with it on and off, but it was a huge hit when we had a neighbor over for a play date!
  5. Lily received this “Puppy Grows and Knows My Name” from Fisher Price for her birthday. It comes with a disc so you can program your child’s name into it, and you can also name the dog. Lily had a fever yesterday, and crawled into bed with Zoe. She got to stay home from church with Daddy. Lily looks really “sick” in this picture, doesn’t she? If I hadn’t taken her temperature myself, I would think she was pulling a Ferris Bueller. Zoe is a favorite toy of both Lily and Emmy. Fortunately Lily shares, most of the time.
  6. Since Emmy loves Zoe so much, I bought her this brown dog. It was so cute in the store; I had to have it! The demo button is in the ear, but when you bring it home, you deactivate the ear and are supposed to pat its head. It is really hard to get this dog to do anything, as you can see in the video. (The video is a little wobbly; Emmy was pulling on my arm.) You practically have to pop its eyes out before it will do anything. This dog, even though it is so cute, doesn’t get much attention from either one of the girls. A miss.

Play…It’s Free!

This post may make you sense that I’m longing to be back in the classroom again. Well, not really. I like being at home with my girls. But this post is rather long. I normally prefer to read short blog posts, myself! If a post is too long, I skim over it, and then continue browsing other blogs! But I thought this topic would be fun for me to write about, from the perspective of a teacher and a parent.

As I was reading the paper the other day, I came across this article: Child experts pressing play. I started to think about play.

I taught second grade for twelve years, and I felt that play was a very important part of our day. At my first school, which was in a rural area, we started at 8:30 and dismissed the kids at 3:15. We had recess after lunch, and another recess in the afternoon, and I felt that this unstructured play time really helped the kids focus on work when it was time to come back into the classroom. During recess duty, I learned a lot about my students when I listened and watched them play, more than I would have in the classroom alone. When I went to a suburban school, we had less time in our day as we started at 9:05. Afternoon recess was discouraged, and I never fit it into our schedule since we had too many academics to fit in.

Free play is also being eliminated at home. When I first started teaching second grade, I asked the teacher that taught the other second grade if she gave out homework. She said she didn’t give much homework, and so I didn’t, either. I would send home unfinished work, and that was about it. Over the years, that has changed dramatically. I have had parents complain that I didn’t send home enough homework. Once, I challenged a parent. That didn’t go so well. She wanted homework because while her middle schooler was doing homework, her second grader wasn’t occupied with homework. I suggested that since he was only eight, shouldn’t he play while he was still young enough to not be mired down with homework? She vehemently disagreed, and felt that I wasn’t preparing him for third grade.

At the same school, I worked with the Curriculum Enrichment Coordinator to send work home with a gifted student. One of the activities she recommended and sent home: building blocks! Open ended toys such as blocks and paints are wonderful for creative play.

Michael Thompson, a child psychologist, is concerned about the lessening of free play. Here is a list of reasons free play is disappearing, according to Thompson:

— Parents’ reluctance to let their kids play outside on their own, for fear of abduction or injury, and the companion trend of scheduling lessons, supervised sports and other structured activities that consume a large chunk of a child’s non-school hours.
— More hours per week spent by kids watching TV, playing video games, using the Internet,communicating on cell phones.
— Shortening or eliminating recess at many schools — a trend so pronounced that the National PTA has launched a “Rescuing Recess” campaign.
— More emphasis on formal learning in preschool, more homework for elementary school students and more pressure from parents on young children to quickly acquire academic skills.

“Parents are more self-conscious and competitive than in the past,” Thompson said. “They’re pushing their kids to excel. … Free play loses out.”

The consequences are potentially dire, according to Thompson. He contends that diminished time to play freely with other children is producing a generation of socially inept young people and is a factor behind high rates of youth obesity, anxiety, attention-deficit disorder and depression.

Seeing as how I feel that play is so important, I was very interested in what the show Sid, the Science Kid includes in every episode. Sid and his fellow classmates learn a science concept, and then their teacher says something along the lines of “Now, let’s go play with all your wonderful ideas!” The kids cheer and go play in the classroom as real kids might, and incorporate their newly learned science ideas as part of their play.

Okay, now that I have made a plug for Sid the Science Kid, Lily’s new favorite show, I’ll tell you that I don’t think TV is that great. When Lily was born, I decided to follow the AAP’s advice to not let her watch TV until she was 2 years old. I think a lot of people thought I was being too strict, but for the most part Lily didn’t watch very much TV. Instead of learning from TV, babies and toddlers learn best by playing and interacting with toys and their parents. I still restrict Lily’s TV, but it’s pretty easy since she’s used to it. Emmy watches more than Lily did, but hopefully not too much.

I also chose Lily’s preschool on the basis that it was play-based. I want her to learn to socialize and play, and learn all those important preschool skills through playing. This preschool website agrees with me. Yes, you can find just about anything on the Internet to support your opinions, and I’m no exception.

I think it’s time for me to stop typing and go play!

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