Practice is Learning

We are famous for buying toys, furniture or outdoor items online that state "assembly required". Ugh...that horrible thought! Assembly required. Just typing that gave me emotions I'm not ready to deal with on a Sunday afternoon.

I don't know about you, but I struggle with assembling furniture, shelves, trikes, or just anything that comes in a box with 87,000 parts, shrink wrapped together and instructions that make no sense. So I try to think like an educated adult "come on Kel you got this" and I take everything out of the box, align all the matching pieces together to make sense of the pieces, steps and directions. Then I start to assemble and within 5 minutes I'm ready for a vacation. My patience needs more patience. My focus needs more focus. My fingers need more fingers. And my ability to NOT pick it all up and throw it into the trash can take a little more than just good ol' fashion critical thinking.

I ask questions like "do the kids really need 4 new trikes for the play ground?" or "does the community library really need new shelves?" as I stare with wide, purple eyes, horns protruding from my head and steam flowing from my ears. Yes, I just described a demon.

This is how children feel when they are learning a new skill for the first time. At first it seems easy until they try, then they realize the skill they are learning will take time. Their emotions can get big, and defeat sometimes kicks in. Mr. Rogers said "Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning".

In school children play while they:

• ride a bike, write with crayons or markers, cut with scissors, or use beads to make a bracelet

• build tall towers with blocks, change the clothes on a baby, or put a puzzle together

• open a lunch box, open a juice box drink, unzip a baggie or peel an orange

• take off their clothes, put them back on, wash their hands, and put dirty clothes in a bag to put into the back pack

• take their shoes off, dump out the sand and put their shoes back on

• put a sheet on their mat and take it back off and put the sheet in their cubby

• create with sidewalk chalk without scraping their knuckles on the concrete

I can go on and on about the skills they learn in school and what they practice each day through play. But they are learning. All day. Through play. Play is critical to their learning so give your child a chance to "play so they can practice what they are learning". If they say "I can't do it" reassure them they can, because they just need practice. Then remember the time you bought 4 shelves from Amazon, in a box, that said "assembly required". No? Just me? By the way, I have 3 shelves in boxes if anyone would like them.

Happy Sunday!