Creativity: bring play into every day

When I spend an afternoon with my children (3 and almost 5) I am always and again amazed at their ability to play.

EVERYTHING is play. Everything they do is for entertainment and learning only.

Some examples of just one afternoon:

• My 3 year old:
• spent 15 minutes throwing a balloon into the air shouting 'wheeeee' and catching it (marveling at how it never falls back down the same way or place)
• then he got a plastic container in which he put the balloon and ran around the house with it going 'yaaaah' (marveling at how the balloon tried to escape)
• spent 5 minutes drawing with different color pens on his face
• spent half an hour digging in the gravel outside, filling and emptying buckets
• spent 5 minutes picking out fluff from between his toes
  
• My 5 year old:
• spent 1 hour drawing on a roll of wallpaper trying out the letters he recently learned and asking what he had written (which was something interesting like LOKRLICCOPAAAMMM)
• spent 15 minutes listening to the same song and accompanying it with all sorts of kid's musical instruments we have (flute, xylophone, drum, tambourine...)
• spent half an hour cutting paper and gluing the pieces together with sticky tape

All that without any 'real' purpose.

How often does that happen to you?
How often do you do thing just for fun, just to play and be merry?

What can you do to bring some more play into your daily life?
How about a few of these?

1. go to a toy store and buy a toy you'd love to play with - take it to the office
2. do kart-wheels
3. With your family (or colleagues), spend half an hour without speaking: instead, DRAW everything you want to say
4. put stickers in your agenda (I do for each time I went running)
5. order a kid's menu instead of your regular choice
6. keep at bucket of crayons on your desk
7. instead of the canteen, take your colleagues on a picnic lunch in the park/woods
8. pretend to be a superhero for a day (try to think and act like one)
9. jump up and down (you can do this in the bathroom if you are shy :-)
10. hang a flip chart page on your wall and every time someone comes to your office, ask them to draw something on it (with the box of crayons you have on your desk)
11. put your to do list as post it notes on your wall
12. play with your food at lunch or eat with your fingers
13. keep some Lego blocks on you desk - or if that is too childish, try Kapla.
14. Try solving a Rubik's cube
15. Have a dress up or theme day at work
16. Have your meeting at the local museum instead of your meeting room
17. Sit on the ground for meeting