Looking Forward With Optimism
The Covid-19 virus pandemic has affected everyone. The world has changed and may never be the same. The pandemic has many downsides to it, but children are benefitting from this time period. They are finally getting the chance to be kids, have time to get bored, be creative and go out and play on their own (https://bigthink.com/Charles-Koch-Foundation/raise-independent-children; FREE RANGE kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) by Lenore Skenazy).
For centuries communities around the world have played together. Native Americans regularly played games and Children’s Games (painted by Flemish Renaissance artist, Elder Pieter Brueghel in 1560) displays over 80 different ways to play. In Takoma Park, Maryland LPA has held over 25 Play Days. For ten years our Annual Play Day has been held outside and inside our Takoma Park Middle School.
Let’s Play America is a nonprofit that believes everyone deserves to play. Every community large or small, preschool, university, business, place of worship, and of course the community you live in can benefit from a Play Day. LPA has over a decade of experience planning and implementing Play Days. A Play Day Handbook is being developed and is scheduled to be available on July 1, 2020.
So why would you want a Play Day Handbook? While you are at home and have extra time on your hands, you have opportunities to give yourself daily playtime, because you deserve it and need it too. The Play Day Handbook is filled with examples of play activities. The Play Day Handbook will help you think of play activities you played as a child, activities you never thought of playing and will help you dream of activities that could be offered in your neck of the woods.
If you work for a business where you and your co-workers have been working from home, you are just one example someone who may wish to plan a Play Day for you and your co-workers when you return to work. Your place of worship may be holding weekly Zoom worship, but I bet you miss seeing friends in person. This is your chance to think about surprising them when we get back together in person. School settings at all levels would also benefit from a Play Day as the country gets going again. The Play Day Handbook gives many tips on planning a Play Day that can be customized to fit your community. You could be a preschool parent, a professor at a university, a principal, teacher or student who knows the students deserve a celebration to look forward to when they return to school.
Once people around the country and world are safe to gather together a Play Day celebration will be just what the doctor ordered. On July 1, 2020, the Play Day Handbook will be available and sent to donors online for a suggested donation of $20.20.
Feel free to contact us with questions:
[email protected]
(240) 752-9176
(240) PLAY-176
Play friends, I leave you with one of my favorite quotes by George Bernard Shaw:
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
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