Evolution of play
Paediatricians, child developmental psychologists, and early childhood educators identify and measure several steps in the evolution/development of children’s playing behaviour. 1) Unoccupied; 2) Solitary play; 3) Onlooker of other children; 4) Parallel play with adjacent companions; 5) Associative play, interacting with playmates; and 6) Cooperative play, more actively interacting with others intentionally, by design, pursuing mutual goals. The steps represent the physical, mental and social development of children and can be used to identify normal/abnormal development.
I don’t remember any of that in my life. Who does? The steps pre-date memory. What I do remember about my childhood play is that I went through several phases of play when my time and attention were variously occupied by different things my parents provided. For example, (in no particular order and certainly not all at once), there was the colouring phase, the Christmas activity book phase, the Lego phase, the wooden blocks, the Hot Wheels cars, the marbles, kite flying, plastic models, balsa wood airplane models, grasshopper- and snake-catching, crystal, the banana seat / monkey bars bicycle, backyard soccer, tobogganing, walkie talkies, the BB gun, British Bulldog, ceramics / clay pots, swimming lessons.
And then, there was the jigsaw puzzle phase. I was still in elementary school when I assembled a number of puzzles. I slipped a large sheet of Bristol board under them when they were finished, flipped them over, then applied strong glue to the back side and mounted it to the Bristol board. Pressed overnight under a number of heavy books, the glue dried in a day and I could hang it on my bedroom wall as a picture. If I did such a thing today, I might frame them as some adult jigsaw puzzle hobbyists do. But I didn't do that as a kid. My imagination didn’t extend to frames, only to cardboard and glue. I still have a bag of marbles, by the way, and I still colour pictures, too.