Despite the disappearance of recess from the daily school schedule of our children, nearly everyone agrees that play is an essential part of a child’s life. In fact, the cultural historian, Johan Huizinga goes much further when he writes: “You can deny, if you like, nearly all abstractions: justice, beauty, truth, goodness, mind, God. You can deny seriousness, but not play.”
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Kids-and-Yoga.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 7/23/2001 Kids and Yoga Transcript Have you ever watched a baby, once he’s learned to sit up, how he sits with beautiful posture, keeping his back perfectly perpendicular to the floor, and his legs perfectly flat on the floor, and then how he effortlessly […]
Author John Cech Air Date 6/18/2001 Playing Smart — All Summer Transcript Back in the good old days, a few decades ago, when school let out for the year, kids had a whole long summer stretched ahead of them, like a ribbon of blue highway, with some stops along the way for a family vacation […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Raggedy-Ann.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 5/18/2001 Raggedy Ann and Andy Turn 85 Transcript It’s the 85th birthday this year of one of the most durable dolls in toy history, Raggedy Ann, and in Arcola Illinois, the birthplace of the dolls creator, John Barton — or Johnny — Gruelle, the […]
It’s springtime, and the playgrounds are finally un-thawed and ready for games. Here’s Kevin Shortsleeve with some thoughts about one of the ways kids choose up sides.
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Monopoly-Day.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 8/22/2005 Monopoly Day Transcript Tomorrow is Monopoly Day, celebrating the world ‘s best-selling board game. Since its development during the height of the American Depression in 1934 by Pennsylvanian Charles B. Darrow, more than 200 million copies of the game have been sold in […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Kids-on-the-Move.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 1/16/2001 “Kids on the Move” Exhibition Transcript Today we’re celebrating the day the clamp-on roller skate was patented — a truly important invention in the history of childhood because it gave kids another exhilarating way to sail through their young lives. Such energy is […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/The-Magic-Flute.mp3 Author John Cech Air Date 9/29/2000 The Magic Flute Transcript I remember on Saturday afternoons, in my old neighborhood on the west side of Chicago, the windows would be open, weather permitting, and from them poured the Metropolitan Opera. It was one way this mixed, ethnic neighborhood regularly showed […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/A-Pretty-Little-Pocket-Book.mp3 Author Rita Smith Air Date 6/19/2000 A Pretty Little Pocket Book Transcript On June 18, 1744, the following advertisement appeared in the London Penny Morning Post: [Published] According to [an] Act of Parliament: a Little Pretty Pocket Book, intended for the instruction and amusement of little Master Tommy and […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Outdoor-Games-on-the-Internet.mp3 Author Koren Stembridge Air Date 6/15/2000 Outdoor Games Transcript It’s June, and one day very soon that school bell will ring for the last time, signaling the beginning of summer vacation! Over the past week, I’ve been asking my library patrons to tell me about their favorite summer memories […]
Listen to the Recess! Clip https://recess.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/Lines-of-Communication.mp3 Author Shelley Fraser Mickle Air Date 1/20/2000 Lines of Communication Transcript The day my brother and I decided to make homemade walkie talkies, I was nine and it was 1953. Ordinarily we didn’t have much to say to each other, and what we did say wasn’t always nice. But […]