Hi, You are so right on with your note on the need for unstructured play. I love your bottom of the page categories of previous posts.  Just before my first child was born, I was an educator for an exhibition project about invention and play: www.inventionatplay.org.

That experience really transformed my thinking about play and helped me to realize the value of fantasy play, imagination, and daydreaming.  Not just cute, sweet notions of play they are deeply developmental and important parts of childhood.

There is I think an organization dedicated to the value of play.  And man they are hard core.

A book that we found in the exhibition research is "The Scientist in the Crib" which forever made me disdainful of baby einstein and the perceived need for child to have specific play materials in order to develop, or the overall notion of parents that their child needs to excel.  What happened to just being a kid?

I'm grooving on this post.
A