Play Time

“Play for young children is not recreation activity,… It is not leisure-time activity nor escape activity…. Play is thinking time for young children. It is language time. Problem-solving time. It is memory time, planning time, investigating time. It is organization-of-ideas time, when the young child uses his mind and body and his social skills and all his powers in response to the stimuli he has met”.

(James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century), U.S. child development specialist, author. Teaching the Child Under Six, ch. 4 (1968).)

“Play builds the kind of free-and-easy, try-it-out, do-it-yourself character that our future needs. We must become more self-conscious and more explicit in our praise and reinforcement as children use unstructured play materials: “That’s good. You use your own ideas….” “That’s good. You did it your way….” “That’s good. You thought it all out yourself.”

(James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century), U.S. child development specialist, author. Teaching the Child Under Six, ch. 3 (1968).)