The idea is simple. Think creatively and communicate. Use the higher functioning capacities you have to survive, grow healthy and be strong. It is what we must do as a nation. This involves creative energy available when we play together. Think peace. The sage rules from purest motives. We all have within us that sage ready to apply the inner wisdom in practice. Relying wholly on quiet and inner peace, our wisest decisions are made. Self active play offers a source of creative energy, a positive force and safe context for constructing self knowledge. Your heart knows this,…expresses that energy in your paintings! A visual way you enjoy communicating!
In this 44 second video we see young children at Bayside Discovery Learning Center having fun exploring and developing early science and art concepts and skills (STEAM) using discarded plastic containers donated by Harris Corporation, red and yellow caps donated by Collins Aerospace, and colorful fabric pieces donated by Jobbeedu. Through play, the children spontaneously organize, design, engineer and create age-appropriate three-dimensional constructions during self-directed play experiences. Resources are provided by the Reusable Resources Adventure Center, a Young Children Priority One Project sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Melbourne. This is part of an ongoing play research project of the Institute for Self Active Education (ISAE), a 501(c)3 corporation funded in part by the Kiwanis Foundation of Florida and Dr. Drew’s Discovery Blocks, Inc. (www.reusecenterbrevard.org, http://www.ISAEplay.org, & http://www.drdrewsblocks.com)
On Saturday and Sunday, April 24 & 25, 2021, my wife Kitty, our daughter Gita, and Kiwanis friend Cindy Forstall and I provided hands-on creative play and art making activities at the 36th Annual Melbourne Art Festival “Kids’ World”. For two days boys and girls of different ages, parents and grandparents, came by our tent and made shell necklaces, bracelets, and crowns with bulletin board edging and colorful ribbons.
In addition, we set up a construction zone outside the tent for “Free Play” with a variety of rigid foam pieces.
Here is a 51 second video that captures young children fully focused and engaged in pure “free play.”
When children or adults have freedom to engage in spontaneous, unstructured, voluntary, self-initiated “free play”, that process inspires them to use and develop their imaginations as they freely explore and experience the world around them. This developmentally appropriate form of self activity awakens creativity, empowers self discovery, and inspires optimism and healing.
Whether done as a silent solitary play experience or as a cooperatively with friends, Self Active Play with open-ended materials is a lot of fun! Since COVID 19 arrived in March I have been exploring a virtual variation using hands-on play with three-dimensional materials via Zoom.
For more than 40 years I have been researching and presenting hands-on, in-person, play workshops with children and adults. Initially skeptical about the outcome, I am now convinced that this self active play process is a source of emotional and intellectual benefit, whether in-person or virtually.
After a series of four virtual play experiences that Carly Bedard and I have presented, insight, joy, peace and healing are experienced by the participants. Unedited recordings of those experiences are presented here.
Play Experience #1: We Dance Because We Can
Play Experience #2
Play Experience #3. From Play to Practice
Play Experience #4 Exploring the Art of Science and Self Active Play
Hands-on Play Experience #5 is scheduled for Saturday January 30, 2020 and will feature the seven Principle of Self Active Play Education. Please join us and experience this unique and enjoyable hands-on play learning encounter!
It is essential that you bring your own set of carefully chosen play materials that will engage your curiosity and lead to creative construction. Also bring paper and pen for reflective journaling and doodling. Since self active play involves imagining and creating with three dimension materials, there are physical problem solving and unexpected surprises that delight the mind and sooth the soul.
On December 18, 2018 during a From Play to Practice workshop in Ontario, CA, Cynthia wrote in her journal…..
I played with the blocks. When I first began, I created a maze. The maze started out with all these block walls, with no openings anywhere. Kind of like how I was feeling. I felt as though with all the stress from Christmas, work, family, I’m hitting block walls. But then after listening to the sounds of the music and breathing, relaxing and continuing to build I realized that the structure of blocks began to form openings. I didn’t want to see my closed walls anymore. I feel much better that my blocks have openings. Just like I know that my life can be free of stress. I have faith.
Play is a way of creating “openings” within the structure we perceive and the problems we face. Impossible as it may seem, in self active play we experience the inner connection, an awareness of the truth within us, “openings” that help us overcome and manage stress.
Jody expressed her interest in one of my recent painting “Five Friends”, a study of texture, form, color, composition and connection.
One of my favorite paintings from 2020. Rough burlap pieces shaped and painted in relationship to one another. I see the rough texture of the burlap as beautiful. I discovered dramatic visual intersections and texture with two slightly overlapping pieces of burlap.
Jody purchased that painting yesterday. I am sad and happy. At first, I felt the excitement of Jody thinking and feeling enough about this work to purchase it. I was happy for her to have it and for me to earn some moolah! But then it was the sadness of losing the painting, of not having that painting around anymore to look at and enjoy myself. I realized it’s inspiring when someone is willing to spend their money for my art. Uplifted and excited I am to make more art. This practice is healing. The flow of creative energy, the positive force arising in my doodling, drawing, imagining, playing, painting drives me to continue exploring and having fun making more compositions. Paint and play with new possibilities using found material. Grateful I am.
On July 28, 2020 I received this photograph and message addressed to Dr. Walter Drew:
“I have the best memories of playing with your blocks as a child and now my children play with them too. Thank’s for making the best kids toys that stand the test of time.”
-Hannah Hart.
On July 29 I wrote, Dear Hannah, Thank you so much for your thoughtful email and beautiful photograph! Pure and Wonderful….I love the message and the photo and will be sure to let the blocks know of your enjoyment! May we post your inspiring message and photo on our website?
On July 29 Hannah responded, Yes, you may post it.…
Imagine how happy the blocks were to hear such joyful news from Hannah!
My son Benjamin is 38 years old. He recently shared a memory he had of playing on the floor with some open-ended materials when he was 8 years old. He was very pleased with something fantabulous he had built. When I had asked him how he did that he replied, “with my hands”.
I have always been impressed with his way of thinking, pure, clear and practical. I asked him if there was anything else he used and he said, “My heart.” You might imagine the feeling I had as he clearly recalled and shared with me this play memory thirty years before.
He said to me that I asked him “Is that it?”, to which he replied, “My mind”.
He reminded me that it was at that moment that one of my favorite phrases was born, “Hands, Heart & Mind”, I love our talks together remembering earlier times we shared. He playfully suggested that I should pay him royalties for using the phrase he created….
During a moment of silent solitary play at a block workshop sponsored by Child Care Resources of Indian Rive County in Vero Beach, Florida on October 4, 2018, Mirna wrote her journal……
“It made me reflect on certain situations pertaining to my state of mind at this moment. I have a loved one going through recovery of a brain tumor and I feel like everything in my life is chaotic and disorganized. Playing with blocks gave me a sense of control and organization. Having every block fit perfectly and orderly, gave me a balance.”
Visual harmony and order rendered through block play with a corresponding inner realignment of emotional control and balance. What a perfect illustration of how play soothes and heals distressing thoughts and feelings. Let us not miss the opportunity to offer children abundant silent, solitary self active play experiences, a mindfulness practice.
Discovering inner power to create harmony and order in our lives is a worthy goal for young children, as well as adults. Realizing that self active play is a source of creative energy, a positive force and safe context for developing self knowledge, encourages us to exercise and express that inner power. Maintaining an awareness of this inner power, our self as creative consciousness and our essential nature, is itself a form of worship.
Sutra #26, “Sartraivrttir Vratam” , describes the state of consciousness as observing the self as the ever-present supreme in the form of the awareness of ones essential nature. This is considered a pious act. Pure play our self emerges as consciousness playing, exploring, creating new forms and possibilities within physical reality. At the same time realizing that capacity is ever-present within and supreme. Something precious to be aware of and most worthy of our earnest contemplation.
Drew Thoughts 