My Connection to Play

Play today is nothing like it used to be

I played a lot at the beach as a young five year old we always brought shovels, buckets, cups, bowls and cookies cutter shapes. I was never a water person but loved to listen to sea shells and collect them and put them in plastic bags to take home.  At this time, it was my four year old brother and my three year old brother. We would walk, what seemed like the entire beach we loved playing in the sand, but most of all we built what we thought were cities streets and even made sand cookies with the cookie cutters we brought along. The see shells were used to make all kinds of make believe food. Our dad used to help us build large long castles because he knew how to make everything stand up. All of us took turns going to fill buckets of water, but my three year old brother did not. My Mom and I went to get water first, and then my father and brother took a turn until we had enough water. For many hours we just set on the beach building sand castles and using water and pop sticks to hold up the castle until it dried from the hot sun. While we waited for some of them to dry we played beach ball since we were still so small, and mom put life jackets on us to go in to the water. To me this was the best fun I ever had. I loved spending time with family and then sometimes my parents would take other children in the neighborhood. Since my mom was a teacher sometimes she could charter or borrow a school bus and at times their parents came also. We really had so much fun…..in the 60’s my father had one of the first Bell and Howell Cameras, but it was burned in a fire. Later, as technology got better he tried to restore some of the film. Finally, he just threw it away. We did this at the beach all the time with other families in the neighborhood.  I think the last time I went with my family I was sixteen and we went to Coney Island Beach which was even better than Orchard Beach or Brighten Beach because you could walk the Boardwalk, get on the Beach, or ride the rides that had music playing. There were many of us, but the teens wanted to be on the Boardwalk and ride the Roller Coasters and other rides. This was amazing to me I did not want to build any more sand castles and bridges. I wanted to explore Coney Island, the Boardwalk. and not the beach any longer because there were other teenagers on the beach that we did not know and the girls wanted to meet boys and the boys wanted to meet the girls. That was my last time going to the beach with Mom and Dad and the neighborhood because some of the teens got lost and families became afraid although no one was really lost just had disappeared with a guy or a girl. Teenagers will never change except now they are having sex too early in life and end up with children and they are still babies themselves.

These are some of the castle I, my parents and siblings liked to build,  but these are not the original castles, but ours were just as  beautiful !

This was inexpensive Play especially for large families

My brothers original pail

These are not the original Sea Shells, but I have collected many, starting at age five, Some of  my older granddaughters have now begun to collect sea shells and then paint them and use them  as a form of science with play listening to shell and then painting it and getting a different sound from cause and effect. Once it is painted it has a different sound.

My sister found a shovel we used  and repainted it

 We don’t stop playing because we grow old;

 we grow old because we stop! playing.”  Bernard  Shaw

“A person never has to stop playing ,being Silly  laughing, or being giddy” I am close to 60 years old and I play every single day"- Sheila Brantley

“Play is the beginning of knowledge” - George Dorsey

"Play is truly the beginning of knowledge -"Because Knowledge is the beginning of play"- Sheila Brantley

Walden University M.S. in Early Childhood Studies

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Updated: 1.3.12