Yesterday I explained about 30 Days To Hands On Play and how I really want to learnt to use play to improve the quality of the time I spend with my daughter.
Without further ado, here are the challenges for Days 2 and 3.
Challenge 2 – Building a Fort
We’ve never built a fort before, but it’s something my brother, sister and I used to do a lot of children. I know a time will come when Ameli wll build her own using her own ideas and imagination, but for this challenge I popped two blankets between two sofas and we climbed underneath. Really it was used more as a tunnel than a fort, but you can see by the face that she was loving crawling through.
Being pregnant I didn’t really crawl around too much – but I engaged with her, played with her and we had a good giggle together.
Challenge 3 – Towers
Lego/Duplo are really a Daddy/Ameli thing in our house and have been from the very first Duplo blocks when Ameli was 12 months old.
A friend bought Ameli these big blocks for her birthday though, so today we unpacked them and built towers, using all the bricks to see how high we could go before pushing the tower over and starting again.
By this time it was about 25 minutes in to playing together and I was starting to feel a bit bored, but I tried to refocus and help Ameli build, but then I realised I was ‘instructing’ (one of the 20% “bad feeling” language uses) again.
I took a deep breath, and tried to let her lead the play… something that’s going to take me time to learn, but I’m working on it.
Would you like to join me in 30 Days to Hands on Play? I’m pretty sure it’s never too late to start!
Great challenge, I’ll be joining you! So glad to hear about it! We play a lot around here, but it certainly isn’t uninterrupted. I’m hoping this challenge will help in that department. Thanks!
@Erica @ ChildOrganics, Excellent! I Saw your first post earlier 🙂 Love it! I’m sure it’s going to be a fun month!!
We do way more than 30 minutes of play time together a day, but it alternates between begin easy and hard for me. It’s hard for me to get started, to stop, to transition from one thing to another, and every time I remember that I’m supposed to be playful, I have to concentrate and re-engage in the play. It is always going to be a challenge for me and it helps a lot to know that I’m not alone in this.
If we’re lucky, our kids with playful parents will find it easier to hold onto their playful attitude in life. Things sure are easier when you can slip into play with ease!
@Zoie @ TouchstoneZ, Wow. That’s awesome. Ameli plays for way more than 30 minutes a day, but it’s rare that I’ll join her – that’s what I’m trying to change here. You’re right though – I’d love her to play for as long as possible.
Thanks SO much for joining our challenge and for blogging so honestly! I’m already learning a lot from it too and think this month will be very eye-opening as to how much quality, one on one play time I really give the girls. Look forward to seeing more of what you get up to!
@Anna @ The Imagination Tree, Pleasure Anna. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes, and hoping to be able to report back on some real change. It takes 21 days to make a habit, so here we go…
I’m loving that you’re joining us and I LOVE your honesty. It is quite hard to not instruct and I find myself doing it quite often. It takes a lot of restraint to let the child lead. Something I also hope to take away from this challenge! 🙂
@Jamie @ hands on : as we grow, thanks Jamie. It’s a great challenge, and I’ve got a few friends from the NP community joining in too, which is exciting for all of us 🙂