Observing Other Kids use of Unstructured Time

Now that we are "tuned" in to how kids use their unstructured time, we recall an situation in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico in 2014.  We were sitting at an outdoor picnic table at a ice cream shop named Taos Cow.  The picnic table was one of several placed at the head of the parking lot in this store's side yard. The tables were placed along a ditch that had a small stream running through it.  Small stream it was,  a trickle would be more descriptive.
Two young ladies drove up and sat down at one of the adjacent tables while the three small boys went immediately into the ditch looking for something to explore.  The found some sticks and used these to probe about every nook and cranny in this ditch, looking for who knows what.  After a few minutes after which this activity had played its course, they began to first tease each other with the sticks, then they began to bash each other in a free for all.  No holds barred here, they were slugging it out.  Then another car drove up, this time with one young mother and two more boys who immediately found some sticks and joined the fray.
It was hard for us to watch because it appeared they would really do some harm, but thinking about how kids once had the freedom to play this way, we had to continue to watch the show.
Meanwhile, the mothers did nothing to interfere, but seem to be watching out of the corner of the eye, so to speak.
Well, it all finally ended and all went happily on their way.  Sure did remind us of our old times.

Looks Like Some Will Get Recess

Many schools abandoned their recesses because they had other things to do with the time, those things mandated by the government---like testing.

Undirected Play at Recess

Many schools have eliminated recess for their students apparently because the pressing demands for school time for testing have pushed recess off the agenda.  Those that do still have recess, their time at play is probably supervised by an adult such that the recess is hardly worth its purpose.

Here's an article suggesting that maybe recess is returning.

Stories in the book

The bulk of the book will be short stories from the 1940's and 1950's as told by the authors.
Here is a listing of the stories:

Unstructured Time- The book

Well after we wrote and published the book on THE HISTORY OF CARL SCHOOL, we realized that there was a thread of a story on how kids were able to use their free time.  Sometimes they used their free time in a self directed way, and at other times, including the present, there is very little free time to allow self directed play.

So, that spawned the idea to write an account of our childhood experiences with the free time that we had available to us.

Here's the cover, we now have 171 pages in the draft and hope to publish this year.

A Rhyme Describing Self Directed Play

Here is a rhyme written in 1985 to capture the memory of self directed play during recess at school in 1949.  Play during those years was always self directed, and it sure sparked the imaginations of young kids.