Category Archives: play

Aug2

a hall of fame toy that costs $0.

Posted on August 2, 2025 by beth

anyone who knows me well, knows that i absolutely love sticks, rocks, shells, leaves…..

and why I was thrilled to read this recently:

Curators at the Strong National Museum of Play branched out when they added the stick to their collection of all-time beloved toys. Among the most versatile amusements, sticks have inspired central equipment in several sports, including baseball, hockey, lacrosse, fencing, cricket, fishing, and pool. Humble twigs are also ready-made for fetch, slingshots, toasting marshmallows, and boundless make-believe.

Located in Rochester, New York – about 70 miles northeast of Fisher-Price’s headquarters – the Strong acquired the fledgling National Toy Hall of Fame in 2002. To date, more than 70 toys have been inducted, including Crayola Crayons, Duncan Yo-Yos, and bicycles. The stick was added in 2008, three years after another quintessential source of cheap childhood delight: the cardboard box. Hail to the mighty stick!

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‘some of you did not spend your childhood making potions

out of random leaves, berries, flowers, and twigs

tossed into a tub of water and stirred with a stick that you found….

and it shows.’

-author unknown

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source credits: google image, nice news, strong national museum of play

Sep23

boundless.

Posted on September 23, 2024 by beth

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sss

enter this charming store

like walking into a dream

towers, and dragons, and costumes, and animals, and castles, and art, and toys, and books, and puppets

surrounded by enchanting hand-painted murals

a circle where story tellings and puppet shows and theater play are shared

imaginations are encouraged and play flows freely.

‘the world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.’

-jean-jacques roussseau

Aug25

totally kid.

Posted on August 25, 2024 by beth

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totally kid carousel

A Carousel Of Visions;Artist Brings the Fantasies Of Children to Magical Life

Artistic acclaim came early to Milo Mottola. When he was 8, his drawing of menacing tooth film with the slogan “Plaque is mean, so keep teeth clean” was such a hit it won him a $50 savings bond from a dental group and was made into a poster. Nearly 25 years later, Mr. Mottola, an artist who lives in Long Island City, Queens, NY, decided to try to find a way to give other children that same dizzy excitement and spark of confidence, without all those dentists.

What could be better, he thought, than asking children to draw the animals they would like to ride on a carousel — and then to make that carousel, carving the animals exactly as the children drew them? I wanted it to be as magical as the children who ride it,” said Mr. Mottola, who, in an echo of his own past, gave each child whose animal was chosen a $50 savings bond, and a lifetime of free rides on the carousel.

Above each animal, Mr. Mottola displayed the child’s original drawing, and on the floor beneath each animal, he carved the child’s signature. “I wanted the winners to have something that will last forever, where they can someday take their husbands and wives and say ‘I did this.’ “

The carousel is on permanent display in Riverbank State Park, the 28-acre park built three years ago atop a sewage treatment plant between West 137th and West 145th Streets in Harlem.

“improvisation, writing, painting, invention—all creative acts—are forms of play,

the starting place of creativity in the human growth cycle, one of the great primal life functions.”

— stephen nachmanovitch, Free Play

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Source Credits: Pam Belluck, Milo Mottola, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Percent for Art Program

Material: steel (alloy), wood, fiberglass

Address:679 Riverside Dr, New York, 10031, USA

Apr18

small cheer.

Posted on April 18, 2024 by beth

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a pop-up restaurant appeared in the cozy corner of our classroom

everyone was welcome and helped in the restaurant after their meal

so many delicious foods

made with care

no one left hungry

people came and went and shared plates and talked and laughed

it was a feast for the senses.

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“small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.”

-william shakespeare

Feb20

monkey business.

Posted on February 20, 2024 by beth

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apes playfully tease each other just like humans

Joking around is a key element of human interaction — one that starts emerging in babies as young as 8 months old, before they can even speak. Now, a new study is suggesting that the human instinct to play goes further back than previously thought.

An international team of cognitive biologists and primatologists documented playful teasing in the four species of great apes: orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. They identified 18 distinct teasing behaviors, indicating that “the prerequisites for humor evolved in the human lineage at least 13 million years ago,” per a press release.

“Similar to teasing in children, ape playful teasing involves one-sided provocation, response waiting in which the teaser looks toward the target’s face directly after a teasing action, repetition, and elements of surprise,” explained lead author Isabelle Laumer.

The concept of playful primates isn’t new — Jane Goodall previously documented such behavior — but this is the first study to systematically analyze it. “We hope that our study will inspire other researchers to study playful teasing in more species in order to better understand the evolution of this multifaceted behavior,” Laumer said.

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“the very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen,

the feeling that whatever happens, it’s okay…

you’re either free to play, or you’re not.”

-john cleese

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source credits: Proceedings of the Royal Society, Laumer, Winkler, Rossano, Cartmill

photo credit: anup shah, getty