Creative Play

I used to love to go into Radio Shack and pick through all of the chips, resistors, capacitors, switches, etc. that they had. The whole store used to be taken over by this stuff. Now you're lucky if you can even get in there past all of the yipping plastic robot dogs, roaring dinosaurs and remote-control cars. What happened?

I recently read someones rant on something similar to this. It seems over the years (at least the ones I've been around for) that there's been a transition from "build it yourself" to "take home this ready-made plastic thing". I remember playing with everything from Lego kits to chemistry kits to electronics kits and getting myself in trouble (yes, acid burns carpet). Now play seems much more guided and guarded.

Don't get me wrong. I had plenty of ready-made plastic things growing up. I enjoyed figuring out how to take most of them apart. I got all but a few of them put back together with minimal leftovers.

Even Lego has transformed. I remember having a technical Lego car kit that was basically just a jumble of pieces that looked nothing like a car. When I put them together with gears and a motor I could almost make out a car-like form. Creative play ensued...I had to make it "be" a car in my mind. I was recently at LegoLand at the Mall of America where they have a Lego airplane (looks like a stubby Boeing 737). Seriously, it's as if they took a die-cast Boeing 737 model mould, filled it with molten Lego plastic, cut it into about six pieces, threw in a few of the signature Lego nubblies at weird and unexpected spots on the airframe, and put it in a box. The thing looks exactly like what it is supposed to look like, just smaller. I bet the assembly instructions leave nothing to the imagination! As much as I like things that fly and want to encourage my kids to like things that fly, I did not buy this. Instead, my kids and I (well, okay, mostly I) enjoy making Lego airplanes that are gigantic and so unweildy that they have to be left "on the ground". Attempts to fly them invariably lead to wings shearing off or the fuselage splitting in half. What it gives us is an opportunity to explore...to figure out if there are better ways to make wings so they won't shear off the moment the airplane is lofted skyward.

On the other hand, I have an Erector Set kit that has instructions for three out of the "seven suggested models". Good for them! I have to admit, though, being a bit frustrated that I couldn't figure out how to make my jumble of metal bits look *exactly* like one of the suggested models without step-by-step guidance.

Turns out I'm old...I believe we lose creative play as we get older. But wait...do we lose it, or is it lost on us because of the decline in availability of creative play enhancing toys?