Packing some unstructured play into a little tin

Our grandson, who's almost 3, visits on Friday afternoons. When he arrives, he usually heads straight for the den, where we have an assortment of toys and random items, including wooden blocks and animal figures; puzzles and cards; books we saved from our children's early years; a couple of long cardboard tubes; balls; cups; measuring pitchers and other kitchen utensils; and assorted containers. 

Some secondhand items that will go into tins of "stuff" for kids.

Surely you remember playing with some mix of toys and nontoys when you were small—inventing  games and stories, conducting experiments, and generally playing in unscripted ways. I remember playing with my mother's extra buttons among her sewing notions, as well as other objects that weren't really toys. 

Early childhood professionals stress the importance of such unstructured or open-ended play in developing children's skills in creative problem solving and original thinking. Carrie Shriver, an early childhood education specialist at Michigan State University, says, "Play, and in particular creative play, has been identified as a key component of building children’s resilience, ability to focus, and the ability to act intentionally, even when the outcome is unknown. These skills translate into competence and capability in adults." 

She describes "open-ended materials" as those things that do not have a predetermined use (the way a licensed character is connected to its role in a movie, say). "A block can be a car, phone, doll’s chair, ice-cream bar or any number of other things in play," she says. (Read the full article here.)  

The little desk where I assemble the tins of stuff.

I think I must have been feeling some nostalgia for this type of play when I decided to make and sell little collections of random "stuff" for kids, in a mint tin (which always include a few buttons). I first got the idea when I would be selling at craft shows, and I had a dice game I invented for school-age kids to practice math skills. I noticed that children who were too young to do the math wanted to play with the dice.

After adding these tins to my inventory, I noticed that preschool-age kids were attracted to them, while slightly older children tended to look at them quizzically and say things like, "What are you supposed to do with this?"

That change in attitude with age seems to fit Shriver's explanation that the first five years are critical in laying the foundation for creative skills later in life. "From birth through age 5, children’s brains are literally forming the complex web of synapses that last throughout their lives," she says. I can't help but wonder if those kids who don't "get" the little boxes of random stuff have already had their capacity for inventing their own form of play driven out of them. 

Michael Patte, professor of education at Bloomsburg University, describes what he calls unstructured play as "a set of activities that children dream up on their own without adult intervention." He's concerned that too many children are over-scheduled, and that open-ended play is not happening enough these days. 

Magnets I made with buttons, postage stamps, and my illustrations.

I no longer sell at craft shows, but I still enjoy assembling my odd collections of very small open-ended materials into tins, which I cover with digital collages of my illustrations printed on a label. I suppose I'm really indulging in my own type of creative play when I collect items for the boxes, and make others (magnets, bottlecap tokens), fit them into a tin, and arrange them for photographing, before offering them for sale in my Etsy shop.

Are you ever too old to enjoy a little open-ended play? I sure don't think so.

The joys of open-ended play

When our son and daughter entered their teens, it appeared they had outgrown their Legos, so we donated them. Not long after, our son showed an interest in playing with the little plastic bricks again and I regretted having gotten rid of them, so we decided to get him a box of new ones for Christmas.

We went to the Lego store at Mall of America, which was something of an ordeal for me because I hate shopping malls. Still, we figured that was the place to find the best selection of Legos and to get a nice large assortment. What we found instead were a lot of "kits" designed to make only certain things, but not one (NOT ONE!) box of just plain Legos for making anything he wanted.

I was disappointed — I had just endured the biggest shopping mall in the country only to come away empty-handed.

I didn't know there was a term for what I was looking for, and what Legos used to be: open-ended toys, like wooden blocks, generic dolls, and all the random stuff that kids naturally gravitate to — rocks and sticks and other low-tech things like Mom's button box.

Open-ended, or unstructured play is when children invent their own storylines and rules, set their own goals, create their own structures and characters. It's the opposite of licensed character dolls from movies and shows, or kits for assembling a specific thing.

And it's so necessary for the health and well-being of children, some doctors are "prescribing" unstructured playtime, which is kind of an ironic concept, isn't it?

The American Academy of Pediatrics even released a report in August stressing the importance of open-ended play to develop flexible brains that can engage in creative problem solving and inventiveness to become well-rounded, successful adults.

"Play is learning" is a quote from Joseph Chilton Pearce

So if you're looking for a good excuse to avoid the mall and to not hunt down the hottest "it" toy for your child, there you have it. How about a good set of handmade wooden blocks from an independent crafter on Etsy?

You can even search the phrase open ended toys on Etsy and get some really inspired results.

Or visit an independent shop that sells consignment items from local crafters. That can be a fun exploration for you as well as have the potential to yield something unique that really engages your child.

Or just get out your button box and let your child rummage through it.

It's the sort of thing I had in mind when I started putting together little collections of random stuff in little tin boxes to sell in my Etsy shop, some of which illustrate this essay.

Happy playtime!