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[BigRedDog]

There are some adults that need to spend more time playing too

t used to be that preschool and kindergarten were all about play. Children spent their day molding clay, dressing up, and running around outside.

Now, kindergarten is the new first grade with much more of the school day spent on reading readiness and learning how to add and subtract.

When did "play" become a dirty word?

In the early '90s, American schools started feeling the pressure. Our students were falling behind the rest of the world, we were told. We needed to kick it up a notch.

So schools crammed more and more into the curriculum. Something had to give, and it was often "playtime:" recess, the arts, and other nonacademic pursuits.

"We called it a constipated curriculum," says Janice Sutter, a kindergarten teacher at Sylvania's Whiteford Elementary School. "They put a lot more in and nothing was coming out. Time kept being eaten away."

But experts warn that leaving play out of a young child's school day is not the answer. "Play is important because it helps to build skills that everyone's looking for in 21st-century learning. It doesn't take away from their learning," says Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, professor of psychology at Temple University and co-author of Einstein Didn't Use Flash Cards (Rodale, 2003). "It's more consistent with how the human brain works."

More at:

http://m.toledoblade.com/Education/2011/11/13/Kids-learn-through-play-time.html

[BigMike]

I agree. I always ensured mine had time to play.
Also I lived right next to the schools where they went when we lived in Monroe.
It did not matter how many snow days Monroe had. On the day they were supposed to get out of school I'd pull them out. When Monroe would ***** I'd tell them, MY kids could have made it to school everyone of those days.

What was sad, was when I moved to Tennessee and found out my son, who was taking College Prep courses and doing quite well in Monroe would not meet the minimum requirements for graduation in Tennessee.
The school worked with us and both he and my daughter ended up with a far better education. The schools are an order of magnitude better.