About Kids Play

I love watching the kids play on the beaches.  They are so smart and creative in their play.  We never seem to bring out water/sand toys to the shore, there's no need.  Unfortunately there's tons of washed up plastic bottles, shoes, toys, Styrofoam, etc. for them to play with.

The other day the boys were playing rolling wheels down the beach and chasing them into the surf rescuing them while the girls had found a large Styrofoam block and made a table.  They found a bowl that they were filling with a mud cake with a ball on top as a whipped cream topping.  They had found 2 spoons to eat with, as well as a thermos and cups for drinks.  They had an actual tea party going on.  It was fun to watch.

Later that same Styrofoam table came out into the surf as a raft for them to climb on, flip over, and float on.  They found a second floating Styrofoam piece, so could do it two at a time.

Then they found 3 figurines, a small plastic pig, cow, and dog.  They made Styrofoam rafts for them and launched them across a lake.  They have used shells as shovels, sticks as pens for all kinds of beach art and tic-tac-toe, coconuts as rafts, etc.  When we have fires, they light up the ends and use the charcoal to write on rocks or other things.  I can't even tell you how many wheels and balls we've come across.  We have 3 new balls onboard this week alone I think; a soccer ball that floated into the bay 2 days ago, a basketball that we found on the beach a week ago, and a beach ball that we found yesterday.  There have been other ones that weren't as nice, didn't hold air, and were too small or too hard, that we didn't keep.  These are the good ones.  Most evenings we end up on the trampolines after dinner tossing balls back and forth and around, so it's nice to double our ball population.  So far, we've rescued all of the overboard balls, but now we've got spares.

The other day I made a treasure hunt for Cassidy for her birthday.  I put a clue on a coconut, made a necklace of shells, coral, bones, small buoys and a plastic key we've found.  One was in a plastic bottle tied to a rock and thrown underwater (which sadly broke free and washed up on the beach by the time she'd arrived, so she didn't have to dive for it.)  As I placed one clue I slipped on the rocks and bloodied by elbow.  Next beach, just before I jumped out of the dinghy to drop off the clue on shore, Courage says "shark!!"  You could make out the shadow of a shark swimming just by the shore in front of us.  I told him I thought he was kidding when he said it because the last thing I wanted to do was jump into the water with blood and a shark.  He pointed out that it was probably not the last thing I wanted to do since I was going to do it anyway.  The shark was only 3-4 feet long and looked like a reef-shark, which would be harmless.

 

Cassidy had 10 clues and 3 pieces of map spread out along a 2-mile stretch of coast that she kayaked along to find a buried treasure birthday present.  I wrote "happy birthday" on the shore with sticks and shells.  It was fun, both a physical and mental challenge for her (and me).  These are the things you'll remember.

So much for all the recycling, upcycling, repurposing, etc.  Call it what you will, you can be creative and have as much fun and family bonding time without being a consumer.  You don't need to spend lots of money to impress people, or have all the matching tablecloths, napkins, plates and cups to have a great birthday party.  You don't need tons of toys; you can play with what you have around you.  You don't need tons of teaching materials, you can learn from the world around you.  You can make letters on the sand, you can count hermit crabs, you can sort them by the shape or color of their shells to learn patterns, you can sink/float all kinds of things, you can build dams and learn about water flow as well as strength of sand vs. rocks as building materials, etc. We have brought onboard new shoes (not matching), balls, shells, a carved wood turtle and a couple of other things from shore.  I also have a reed of bamboo that I hope to use to make sides to my new shelves since it's not too pretty, I'm out of wood, and I don't want things to fall off the sides.  It's in the cockpit, maybe my next project to get done . . .

There is so much that you can do with the things around you to have fun.   I love watching the kids, much to learn from them in that respect.  They destroy things quickly, but they can also make anything fun and interesting and fit into their dialogues and spend hours and hours contentedly creating, exploring, and learning about the world around you!

Shannon