Thanks for posting this. It is very insightful, and reminds me that I need to be more playful!

I think that I will have to try some syllogisms with my preschool students to see how they respond. The description of the candle experiment was interesting. It seems like more people would solve that problem immediately.

The information presented provides good support to allowing time for free play into the school day.

As a teacher of small children it seems that I always have to defend the value of play. I am a firm believer that most children and adults like learn by doing! In this article it explains that play builds language, reasoning, locomotion, building things, getting along with others and much more. What I found was interesting and so true is play helps build happy endings and it also helps confront the horrors of the world. I never really though of play it that context before. However, it is so true many times we give an abused child a doll or toy to play in hopes to learn more about their tragic event and sometimes through their play the truth is revealed. As stated in this article even during times such as the Nazi Holocaust there was evidence of play in dairies and with interviews with survivors. It states that play helps a child bring reality to the world into a fictional context they can deal with it in their own terms, times, and language.

I believe that play is a very valuable part of ones life; it allows you to cope with the outside pressure of life, role-play, relax and then confront the world. I believe that even adults need to play; maybe if we bring back a little play into our lives things wouldn’t always seem so hectic.

I found this very insightful. The idea that the playful state of mind can create a situation by which children can abstractly think has the potential to move us into teaching higher level thinking skills to younger children. As a secondary school teacher, I found that the teenagers I taught had great difficulty thinking "outside the box". Even at that age, they struggled with this thought process. I do note that when in the lab, and working on projects that they were interested in, they seemed to develop strategies to solve the problems encountered.
I may not fully agree with your premise that the people who watched the slapstick, because they were in a playful mood, were better able to solve the problem. I would tend to agree that the good mood was more significant. Could this be tested against a group that saw slapstick, another group that exercised vigorously for 30 minutes and a control? I know when I exercise, I often think clearer and can approach an old problem with a new perspective. I also know that vigorous exercise releases endorphins, as does hearty laughter. Maybe that's the link. It increases the synaptic activity in our brain. I wonder if 30 minutes of Motzart, which supposedly increases the alpha wave activity of the brain, would produce the same result?