At the Children’s Museum in Easton play is serious business!
There is a crisis in play.
Children play an average of 48 hours less per month than they did 20
years ago. Open-ended imaginative play
is being replaced by television, video games, computers, and afternoons packed with
adult led activities.
“Current research shows that play helps children develop
creative thinking and innovative problem solving skills”, according to Dr. Stuart
Brown, founder of the National Institute of Play and author of the new
best-selling book “PLAY: How it shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates
the Soul”
At The Children’s Museum in Easton, we encourage children to
lose their self-consciousness and become immersed in deep and meaningful
play. We believe that play is the
underpinning for future academic success.
Engaging in free play is how children develop social skills and ultimately
teaches them who they are and who they want to be.
. . . by Paula Peterson, Executive Director
"Where do the Children Play?" film series...
A series of film screenings and discussions about the role of play in children's lives, click here for upcoming dates and info on bringing the discussion to your school, group or library.
Where Do the Children Play? is
a PBS documentary, book, and outreach project about the vital
importance of open-ended play for the healthy development of
children. This kind of play is disappearing
from children’s lives because of unsafe neighborhoods, parents’ fear of
“stranger danger,” even in safe neighborhoods; the seductiveness of
electronic games and entertainment; an increase in teacher-led
instruction in preschool and kindergarten that is pushing
child-initiated learning and exploration out of the classroom; and
children’s diminishing access to woods, fields, vacant lots, parks, and
other semi-wild play spaces.
