There's a really interesting conversation happening at the New York Times web site. Apparently there is a new book out about the dangers of overscheduling and overstructuring play for children. It's only a paragraph, but it's generating a lot of comments (over 100)... and the comments are what are so interesting:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/children-at-play/
What do you think?
The value of unstructured play for children is an extremely vital part of their learning process. It allows them to think about ideas, problems and concepts in a whole new way. Giving them the tools to create their own ideas and tackle issues how they see fit. A great tool that KaBOOM! is helping to further the idea of unstructured play is with Imagination Playground. Check it out under the "What we do" tab.