Welcome to Week 5 of our final term of 2023. The year has flown by, but we still have more learning and fun activities to go. Our Year 1s are off today on an excursion to Thorndon Park, and of course, we have our Colour Fun Run coming up on Friday. We are also looking forward to our Lower Primary Concert and Christmas Carols program coming up next week on Friday, November 24. It would be great to see you all there to enjoy the singing and Christmas celebrations.

I was chatting with one of my sons-in-law the other day, and he was showing me a book he was sharing with his kids. It was a basic guide to go-cart making. It had all sorts of ideas and suggestions on how kids can make their own go-carts. They aren’t motorised or anything, just a basic push-and-roll type. As we chatted and looked at the various suggestions, I remembered how many hours I spent in my childhood building those things. I would spend hours finding old pram wheels, steel rods for axles, timber for a chassis and body, dreaming up braking and steering systems, finding old torches and batteries to give them lights, and drawing up plans for improvements. One day, I had a bit of an accident, and one of the rear wheels of my go-cart went down a drain, and it was broken and ripped off. It only left me with three wheels, and I couldn’t get another, so I went to work and drew up a three-wheeled version of my cart with steering on the rear instead of the front. It took hours. There were several revisions of the cart and, eventually, a degree of success. It was an incredible learning process.

I have an article to share with you today about the importance of letting kids play. I am not minimising the importance of academic and sporting ventures; kids also just need to play and be kids sometimes. There are some practical suggestions in the article below, so why not stand back and let them have a play?

“Bob Ross had a career in the Air Force for 20 years and didn’t start painting until he retired. At 41, he became everyone’s favourite art teacher.

Colonel Sanders had a hard time holding down jobs, working as a fireman, insurance salesman, and even worked in law. It wasn’t until his 40s that he started successfully selling fried chicken.

Martha Stewart worked as a stockbroker. It wasn’t until she was 41 that she published her first cookbook.

Albert Einstein was expelled from his school, and his teachers thought that he was mentally handicapped. Yet he went on to win a Nobel Prize and is considered one of the most brilliant minds of all time.

Winston Churchill failed 6th grade. At 63, he became Prime Minister of England.

It’s so easy to grow anxious, worried that our children are falling behind or missing out.

We worry that they won’t develop their culinary skills if they don’t start Mummy and Me cooking classes as toddlers.

We fear that they will never be talented artists if we don’t enrol them in the pricey after school art class.

We are concerned that if we don’t require them to practice piano daily, that they will never develop into talented musicians.

We worry that their low score on their maths test means that they will never go into a STEM course at university.

We anxiously watch on as they struggle to decide which subjects to pursue in high school, worried what careers they are precluding themselves from following.

What we often fail to remember in those moments of anxiety and fear, is that learning doesn’t stop when they finish high school or their tertiary education. As adults we can go back at any time and learn to paint, learn to do complex algebra, learn to be good leaders. We can change career paths again and again, and quickly catch up on the things we missed or have forgotten.

What we can’t do is get our childhoods back.

Childhood isn’t a time to prepare to be an adult.

Childhood is a time to be a child.

Childhood is a special time where imaginative play feels richer, where friendships are formed over a shared love of digging for worms, and where building a tree house can feel like the most important thing in the world.

Yet we often cut into that time to get them to sit still, learn ‘important things’, and prepare for their futures. The problem is that the more time that they are engaged in adult-led, structured, future-oriented activities, the less time they have available to engage in the real work of childhood – play.

Play teaches our kids everything that they really need to learn. It fosters physical and motor development. Play requires socio-emotional skills. It strengthens the imagination and creativity. It builds STEM skills and deductive reasoning. Play can not be substituted with other activities and still achieve the same outcomes. Children need the opportunity to play.

To celebrate World Children’s Day, let’s elevate play to it’s true level of importance. Let’s prioritise it above our own goals for our children. Let’s allow our kids to have a day, at least just this one day, to choose their own activities, to play without direction, to engage in the work of childhood without limits.

And if you can, go even further. Start a 30 day play challenge, making sure your kids have at least 45 minutes every day to engage in activities of their own choice. If it’s been a while since they had the opportunity for free play, they might not know where to begin. To avoid those calls of “I’m bored”, try setting the stage with these play prompts:

· Pull out the bicycles

· Visit a new playground

· Set up a play dough or clay station

· Get out the chalk

· Turn the hose into a sprinkler

· Go to the beach

· Take a few different balls to a park

· Dust off some board games

· Go to the swimming pool

· Get out the paints and paintbrushes

· Go out to a nature reserve

· Visit some rock pools

Then get out of the way. True play is self-directed, intrinsically motivated, and creative.

This World Children’s Day (and hopefully every day) let’s safeguard childhood, value play, and let our kids be kids.” (Coulson, 2023)

Have a great week with our kids,

Mark B