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The importance of free play time...

Seems there is a vital learning function to just playing around with whatever is at hand and playing with commercially produced toys doesn't really seem to work for that. I guess I'll encourage more free form play time for Serenity, not that she is lacking in the self talk department and imaginative play, she does both frequently. Check out this NPR story.

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

by Alix Spiegel

Listen Now [7 min 50 sec] add to playlist

Boy playing with animal figurines
Tim Pannell

Researchers say imaginative play allows children to make their own rules and practice self-control. Corbis

Morning Edition, February 21, 2008 · On October 3, 1955, the Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television. As we all now know, the show quickly became a cultural icon, one of those phenomena that helped define an era.

What is less remembered but equally, if not more, important, is that another transformative cultural event happened that day: The Mattel toy company began advertising a gun called the "Thunder Burp."

I know — who's ever heard of the Thunder Burp?

Well, no one.

The reason the advertisement is significant is because it marked the first time that any toy company had attempted to peddle merchandise on television outside of the Christmas season. Until 1955, ad budgets at toy companies were minuscule, so the only time they could afford to hawk their wares on TV was during Christmas. But then came Mattel and the Thunder Burp, which, according to Howard Chudacoff, a cultural historian at Brown University, was a kind of historical watershed. Almost overnight, children's play became focused, as never before, on things — the toys themselves. Read more.

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