Playing Up Playtime: It’s Kids’ Learning Gift
Awash in a world of tests, projects and structured play, children need time for imagination, experts say.
By KAREN UHLENHUTH, The Kansas City Star
09/06/06 -- These are hard times for child’s play:
- Testing pressures have squeezed much of the play out of kindergarten, according to many activists and researchers. And those pressures are even trickling down to preschools.
- Parents worried about their children’s safety — and maybe hankering for some time to themselves — keep them indoors, often tethered to a television, a computer or a video game.
- And children’s toys — and their fantasy lives — run heavily toward licensed characters derived from videos and television programs created in someone else’s imagination.
All of which is to say: Whatever happened to making mud pies? |