My Connections with Play

                When I was in preschool, I attend an international preschool in Hong Kong. Their philosophy is similar to America and focus in play, yet they do have ditto and homework. I remembered my school had a two levels play house where children can go in pretend a home. I love to wear a dress and apron to pretend like a Mom cooking and clean up the house. My teachers and parents were supportive to pretend play and allow me to be anything I would like to be. My parents never forced me to do ditto works, instead, they like to bring me out to museum, park and play dates with cousin or classmates. They also like to bring me out to do outdoor exercise such as bike and swimming.

One of my favorite childhood toys is the Barbie because I think she is very pretty and have lots of beautiful clothing.

My second childhood toys are sailor-moon's wand. I think she is my superhero as she is beauty and she protects others and the earth to against those monsters with her wand. 

 

  My other childhood toy is cashier because I like the sound of beeps when the scanner scan through an item and the sound of the cashier tray pop out. It sounds so weird but for some reason I am very fascinated by those sounds. 

                        

Play in today’s work is more about technology. I see parents are educating children play through tablet or computers. It is right, they are playing! But in my opinion, I don’t recommend children to start using technology until they need to use it for school work. However, I see today’s curriculum are aware of the importance of play. They are more focus on the child’s interest and lesson plan are more fun and more play and explore opportunities for children. My experience with play when I was a child is similar to what I am hoping my child to have.  I would like to expose my children to more natural environment than teaching them technology. I  believed that children learn through play and we should educate children to value our nature. Bringing them outdoor can open up lots of questions and it is the best teachable moments to teach them about nature, promote gross motor skill, have hands on experience and stimulate their thinking. 

 

I also believe human learn through play, we need play throughout childhood and adulthood. I f you would ask me what is the most memorial moment I value in High School, I would say the time I had rope course and it helped me open up a friendship with on my classmates who didn’t like me at that time. In my work training, I also learn a lot through games on reflection game, ice-breaker games to learn about others. Play keeps our positive energy and often makes me smile and laugh which is always good for our life!

Quotes -What Play Represents In My childhood: 

When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick can be a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero.- By  Fred Rogers American children’s television host

I had a very happy childhood, but I wasn't that happy a child. I liked being alone and creating characters and voices. I think that's when your creativity is developed, when you're young. I liked the world of the imagination because it was an easy place to go to. By David Walliams

Relationship Reflection

I grew up in close relationships with my family.My parents are super busy businessperson, and my brother was a shy boy. However, my parents strived to spend at least 2 days a month to bring me and my brother out. Back in the days, we don’t sit home , play videogames and watch tv. My parents would bring us out to bike, go visit other family members or attend community events. My mom and I have a very close relationship like friends. I would share most of my life stories with her and she is always supportive on my decision. My dad is somehow traditional Chinese guy but he treats me and my brother fairly the same. I never feel like I’m a girl because he taught me how to change light bulbs, change tire and etc. He also taught me to be confident and tell me all kind of encouraging and failure stories as a way to teach me life and moral. 

 

My family is always a positive motivation to me as they are always supportive and never use physical punishment.  We always spend quality time at mealtime to talk about our lives. I believe relationship has to be reciprocal. If my parents are trying to learn about my life and be supportive, yet I am not respecting their supports, then we will not have this positive relationship overtime. 

As I grown up, there were times that felt my parents are ignoring or unreasonable because of the difference between our personal values. I learned to respect their values and sometimes think outside of the “my own” box to evaluate if I should follow what they said. To maintain other relationships are similar, friendship, partnership, or work relationships, we need to respect other’s opinions because everyone is a unique individual and their experiences may change their perspective. We do not have to always agree with others, but we need to respect. There will be times that people do not want to develop partnership with you because of various reasons, it could be races or other reason.  I would try to find similarities between us to develop partnership, if that does not work.  I will just try to ignore any conflict if possible, and I try to be neutral because I hate argument. 

My experiences with relationships are always give and take. I believe that we need to give out something to a person and make him/her trust you is the most important aspect to develop a relationship. With trust, it makes a person feel secured to open up any conversation. As an early childhood professional, I always work with families and children come from foreign country or new immigrant who does not speak English or does not share the same language as me. I would spend time to interact with these children and include them into their peer’s play. I would also seek for their talent and acknowledge them more to help them develop their confident. For their families, I would share their child’s day with them, invite them to school event, and try to help them as much as I could. I am a positive person and my experience as an immigrant helped me understand the frustration that minority may have. Therefore, it becomes natural to seek for children’s non-verbal cues when they are not comfortable with something. And when I am scaffolding them, it helps me to develop relationship faster because they know that I will help them when they need help which helps them feel secured.