Was reading about a childs playing called natural play! According to kidspot "Natural play is the best kind of play and has many forms, all of them valuable for development in the first seven or eight years of life. In addition to physical activities like running, jumping, climbing and swinging, they include such things as fantasy play, social-dramatic play, sensory and exploratory play, and construction play - building with materials like sand, gravel, water and dirt”. Sounds a lot like good old fashioned playing to me! Before John was born Mr Ecochick and I decided that we would try to encourage as much “natural play” as possible (we didn’t know that was what playing was actually called). When I was a child I spent a lot of time playing with my brothers; we built whole cities out of lego, played outside in the street, climbed trees and played in the bush.
I strongly believe in letting children be children and discover the world around them at their own place. I don’t believe that children need fancy toys that do things for them but toys that help children to discover their world and encourage imagination. We often play with John and sing songs with him but don’t really sit down and teach him things as we figure he’ll grow up quick enough and so should be allowed to be a child for as long as possible. John loves nothing better than playing with some washing baskets or following me around the garden and playing with some bamboo sticks or worms or playing with paper tubes or cardboard boxes.
Here are some photos of John at “natural play” with some wormie friends, John didn’t eat the worm but it didn’t fair very well none the less (I was too slow to save it as he had been super gentle with it to start with).
