Throughout my childhood, I was fortunate to have my brothers and sisters for entertainment. Living on a modest farm several miles away from our small hometown, fun was left to our own creativity and ingenuity. Sometimes this resulted in minor catastrophes (as notions often will when surrounded by siblings with many wonderful-awful ideas).
But, most of the time, needing to create our own excitement resulted in pure joy. As the long days of summer waned on and my sisters found themselves actually yearning for the structure and activity of school, we would pass many hours by "playing school." Being the youngest and most gullible--and educable, I always had to play the role of one of the students. I counted myself lucky to have any school to attend, as preschools basically didn't exist back then.
Of course, my brother (and occasionally one of my sisters) didn't take it seriously. Therefore, I learned that naughty kids had a way of diminishing the learning experiences of others and that I needed to focus on the teacher instead of silliness of peers. We even conducted recesses, during which my brother and sisters taught me games that were unique to school (in that we seldom played them at home), including "Red Rover, Send ___ Right Over," "4-Square," "Ring Around the Rosie," and various jump rope rhymes. What I know now is that I was learning fairness, rules, and structures for play. Jump rope rhymes taught me rhythm, rhyme, and was the beginning of loving poetry.
Daily "routines" were also embedded in our "play school" experiences. It was in this forum that I learned to recite "The Pledge of Allegiance" and to sing songs that had been sung in my siblings' music classes, like "Don Gato", "Skin and Bones", "Billy Boy", "America, The Beautiful", "Oh, Susanna!", and "Polly Wolly Doodle". We even acted out "Don Gato" when the "students" in our "school" pretended to be in music class. I knew every verse by heart and enjoyed the drama of acting it out while singing it with gusto.
Since we had inherited some discarded music books (thank you, again, textbook adoptions), I could even read the words to many of these songs--most of them were in the very music books we inherited. The teacher had taught them to my siblings, they to me, and then they were presented in written form in the music books that came home. What luck!
Later, we acquired a Magnus Chord Organ and toy upright piano. We spent many hours figuring out the notes and learning to play the songs--relentlessly and meticulously tapping out melodies while singing along (all while reading the lyrics) to EVERY SINGLE VERSE! (Gee... I wonder why my mom had us take the toy piano outside to the porch in the summers?)
We also told stories--repeatedly. We retold our own versions of "The Three Bears" and "Rumpelstiltskin" along with Appalachian folk tales like "Bloody Bones" and "Tailypo". Now I know that I was learning to listen closely, recall details, build vocabulary, understanding story sequences and action, pick up the language of stories, and learn about culturally acceptable behaviors from the characters. We often acted out stories, helping my visualization, focus, listening, and oral language while considering expression/, movement/drama. Indeed, I was a lucky kid to be immersed in storytelling at such an early age.
My sisters and I often took quilts outside and spread them underneath trees in the lush, green grass. Squares on the patterns became "apartments" for various Barbie and Maddie Mod dolls. Again, storytelling was built around the conversations between the dolls, while fine motor skills and spatial intelligence were developed as we sewed clothes for our dolls from scraps of fabric donated by my mom. (My dolls were not particularly well-dressed--I usually cut a hole in the middle of a rectangular piece of fabric, dropped it over my doll's head, and then tied this "dress" closed with a matching strip of cloth used as a belt at the waist. My sewing today has not improved. Recently, my son proved this when he said, "The button came off my shorts. Should I just throw them away?")
Now I know that our dolls' interactions helped me to understand social situations (at least through the eyes of children), as I developed oral language, learned to converse on topics, and sustained focus over time.
Similar experiences held true when we cut up discarded catalogs to create our own paper people. We jotted their "names" on their backs, storing them safely in shoe boxes when they weren't in use. We created families, decided on relatives, friends, etc., for our paper people. I know now that this was how I learned about genealogy (which has proven particularly useful when I watch "Days of Our Lives" now).
The privilege of cutting the people from the catalogs was coveted by all of the girls in my family. We especially loved the Christmas catalogs (called "wish books"). For some reason, the Christmas wish books would contain images of things that you might not find in regular catalogs. In the Wish Books, we might discover photos of dogs, which means paper people could have pets! Sometimes we might find a photo Santa, which allowed the paper children a chance to stand in line to talk to him, telling him their Christmas wishes. We could always find photos of Christmas trees and toys; consequently, our paper people had marvelous Christmases. Sometimes, they might even catch Santa putting toys beneath their trees on Christmas Eve!
Once, when a new catalog came during a school day, my dad (not understanding the importance of keeping it out of my babyish hands that lacked fine motor skills) gave me the old catalog. Miraculously, I begged a pair of scissors from my mother and chopped an entire catalog's worth of paper people while my siblings were in school--it was a beautiful mess. My sisters were furious, but I was full of glee. Ahhh, good times.
Now I know that these "games" afforded me rich learning experiences preparing me to be a reader, writer, problem-solver, and friend. While it seems so simple, we had time to play. We used our wits, and books were available and cherished. Only a lucky few children could even dream about such a life in today's world.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your childhood memories. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeletePaper dolls from catalogs was the best. My neighbor had the same catalog so we could have twins in our families. Dare I say, those were the days.
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