Open-Ended

 

So right now the children have a favorite toy. Although I can’t say it is that new as these toys have always been around the playground!! I am not talking about the blocks, or the cars, or the bikes. I am talking about the bowling pins!

 

That’s right bowling pins! These items are always being carried around the playground. They are turned into food, microphones, weapons, something to throw, and things which are not immediately clear to adults watching. They never seem to go out of style. We will have days when the bikes or the balls are ignored. The chalk will go weeks with no one getting it out but not an outdoor time goes by when they bowling pins are not out and about.

The best part of the bowling pin popularity is that they kids have no interest in actually bowling with them. The couple times I have tried to impose my adult sense of what things are for the children have politely watched me set them up, threw a ball in the general direction and then took off with all the pins. They have never spontaneously set the pins up for themselves. It did not take me long to forget about bowling and just stand back and marvel at how an object that in the adult world has one purpose is one of the most open-ended toys we have when in the hands of the children. I guess it goes to show that anything can be open-ended if you stand back and let it.