Peter Pan & The World Of Preschool Imagination

As I’ve mentioned earlier, my daughter has an affinity for all things Peter Pan, including his ride at Disney World and the pixie dust so generously sprinkled by his good friend Tinker Bell.

Therefore, I was greatly interested when she told me, a few weeks ago on the way home from preschool, that she was playing Peter Pan with a few friends at recess. After parenting two boys prone, at that age, to making Power Ranger mosh pits wherever they went, the world of Peter Pan seemed a refreshing change, one that hopefully would lead to fewer injuries.

“Which character are you?” I asked her as we drove, which she answered with a mumbled, convoluted reply difficult to discern.

“Who plays Peter Pan?” was my next question.

She named the boy, and I had to smile.

If ever there was a boy born to play Peter Pan, this is the boy. The first time I met him, I couldn’t help but chuckle. Excepting my own small people, he may be the cutest kid I’ve seen in years. He’s just one of those children operating in his own orb of energy, one who makes life that much richer and more interesting for those around him. He’s a Peter Pan in his own right, so I can well imagine how he brought Peter to life within the confines of the preschool.

Now, somewhere along the preschool way, she was also introduced, somehow and by someone, to the word “zombie.” I’m not a fan of what little I know of the whole imaginary zombie realm, and that’s putting it mildly. However, as it’s technically, in her world, pronounced “zobbie” and is defined as a creature who apparently just walks around void of all death undertones and who does basically nothing, I guess I’m cool with it. I guess. And after all, I am the girl who, in third grade no less, earnestly told my friend that I suspected aliens were taking over her mother’s body, so there’s only so many objections I can raise on that front.

While I haven’t seen the Peter Pan or the “zobbie” dramas live and on location, I was able to witness first hand some of the imaginations and interactions of the preschoolers in my daughter’s class on a field trip to the salt marsh a few days ago. Have any of you attended, as adults, both preschool and high school field trips?

There’s a difference.

In a nutshell, with high school field trips, you mainly just try to make sure your students don’t do anything highly offensive or illegal. With preschoolers, you mainly just try to keep them from eating the inedible or falling into the salt marsh.

I’m going to miss this preschool age something fierce.

We had a long period of waiting before we actually got to explore the marsh and discuss all the wildlife that make their homes there, so the preschoolers played Duck, Duck, Goose for a while. But we all know there’s only so far you can go with that riveting diversion, so after the game had run its course, the teachers let the preschoolers, with supervision, explore the area.

Naturally, then, the children turned to the bugs crawling amid the dirt patches nearby. I can’t tell you how many times I was asked to inspect a child’s roly-poly collection.

Some were more fervent collectors than others, with Peter Pan winning the award for collecting the most of all. Imagination and tenacity strike me as highly complementary attributes, don’t you think?

So someday, if this young boy wants to take baby-girl out for ice cream (Here’s a small tip for the little dude whose side I’m currently on: She adores sprinkles.) and a round of Peter Pan, I’ll probably think that’s great.

Well, someday as in thirty-years-from-now someday.