Inside and Outside Play by Jane Danner

 Inside and Outside Play

By Miss Jane

 

My niece and her family stayed with us last weekend. They came into town for their grandfather’s funeral. It was a lovely opportunity to remember and love a wonderful man. They live in Tennessee so I don’t get to see them as often as I would like and the house was full of family. Since I have my grandchildren over quite often, I have toys tucked away in many crooks and crannies of this house and Lyra, age 7 and Olin, age 6, were finding things and exploring with delighted abandon. There was the quiet buzz of children playing contentedly…until the cousins arrived. Then the house exploded and I, like my mother before me, and her mother etc. exclaimed, “Ok, get your hats and boots and coats on! Everyone, outside!”

There is something about numbers of children together that can quickly turn a nice game of making an airplane out of the play chairs and a few strings, and taking all the babies and dolls to Mexico or Miami, into a whirlwind of disaster. Children are running in circles, strings are flapping, toys are flying and babies are in the flight path of being knocked over. Miss Jane is very insistent about the difference between outside play and inside play. And the children in the Woodland Suite are slowly getting the idea.

It happens every year when we move back to greeting the children inside. We have to learn again what inside play is all about. It is also what I love best about having a mixed age group of children. The older children’s imaginative juices are fluid and they can take the younger children on journeys from the kitchen table and making muffins, onto a picnic boat ride or serving food on the airplane for vacation. They can direct the manufacturing of rocket ships out of magnet tiles for the stuffed animals to rocket them to the stars and back. They turn the suite into a dog rescue or wild animal sanctuary. For the most part, Miss Jane can stand back and enjoy the hum of focused activity. It will crescendo and Miss Jane can give the children a little reminder, “Inside play!” It works for a better part of the morning but then there comes the moment when I know it is time for snack, and “Get your hats and boots and coats on! Everyone outside!”