Making a Decision

I have never really been one for themes in the classroom.  When I started my career as a teacher, I went though a time when dramatic play would be transformed by a teacher into a post office or a doctor's office or a store, with props to match.

I have not shared much about my Action Research project that I am working on this semester.  It is taking a lot of my energy, but it is definitely a positive thing.  I am focusing on Children's imaginative play for my project, so I have been spending a lot of time watching children engaged in imaginative play, and the easiest place to see and capture that is in the dramatic play area.  I gather videos and notes each Tuesday and Thursday as I watch children play, and for the first two weeks of this data collection, dramatic play had costumes; plates, cups, and spoons; fabric, and two giant boxes.  The boxes were open ended, and they were everything from jails to houses and caves and stores.  One thing I noticed was that watching that play was like watching a pinball: themes and ideas and roles changed constantly.  Children often revisited the same ideas and concepts, but each idea would have about 3 minutes before switching.

This is not necessarily negative.  This is how they want to play, in a way: they want to try out different things, places, roles, ideas, and more.  That is why I love imaginative play, and I want to promote it constantly in the classroom.

That said, I have been getting more and more curious as I have been watching more imaginative play than average.  Could I help them stick with an idea and get deeper into it?  So many teachers chose a dramatic play theme, and I was curious to try and create a focus in dramatic play without giving something too definite.  I think that if there seems to be just one thing to pretend in dramatic play, some children are bound to never try it out.

The children often play out home themes, with Mommies and babies and bad guys and eating dinner and changing diapers - a big mish-mash of all the ideas and themes that are salient to them.  So, without making a permanent decision like purchasing something, I made a play kitchen out of one of the many IKEA Expedit Shelving units we have in the classroom.

It was all the rage when on Wednesday, the day it was first in the classroom.  Children immediately started pretending to cook, and after a while they were serving it at the table in the dramatic play area. Halfway though the morning, two boys announced that it was their store, and it was open - and it turned into a restaurant, with orders being taken, prepared, and brought to the table.  One of the boys who opened this restaurant has only engaged in dramatic play pretending to be either a tiger or an elk, so we're starting to expand our horizons.

I have to remember not to be afraid to suggest things to children.  I cannot assume that they will just spend all their time pretending to cook and eat: I have seen them be creative and unexpected, and they will likely surprise me, even with a pretend kitchen.

On another note, I now see the potential of these shelves: I'll let you know what we turn it into next!

Not-A-Box

These are some images from the end of last week - I put two large cardboard boxes in the classroom, and there was action around them for 90 minutes.  Some children came and went, but others stayed with the boxes for extended periods.  The play was about jail, mommies, babies, tigers, cats, amusement parks, and much more that I probably did not catch.

Today, at the start of the week, small groups were using the box as a location for playing with materials from the classroom - for example, two children spent about 35 minutes building with Magna-Tiles in the box.

Tomorrow, I am moving the box to where more of the dramatic play items are, and I'm interested to see if there is a shift in how children use it, and what for.  I have been watching carefully and I have loved to hear the children talk about their plans and see how the box transforms throughout the day, depending on moods and keywords overheard and growling prompts.  Totally fascinating!

Boxes and Ladders

We have a large gym space at the center where I work, and the children play there for about an hour each morning.  There are mats, bikes, slides, a balance beam, basketballs, cones, trampolines, and more - but yesterday, the main attraction was enormous cardboard boxes that were in the corner.

The images above are just a few from a 30 minute period during which two children, Ja and Jo, continually challenged themselves to get in and out of the boxes using the ladder on the wall.  The climbed up alongside the box, moved over to be above the box opening, an then dropped themselves in.  Ja was exploring this independently at first, and it took him almost 5 minutes to get out of the box the first time.  I talked to him as he tried, giving him ideas about where to put his hands, but never physically assisting.  Jo saw him and hopped in the same box herself, and Ja modeled how to get out.  Each time they both found themselves on the outside, they clapped and cheered at their success!

I wonder what possibilities these boxes might offer in our classroom?

Overhead Projector

Working its magic again this year.

Learning to Sew

We have begun exploring textiles and fabric. To manipulate them, we have done two things so far: sewing and painting. The children are learned the running stitch by using sewing cards, and then moving on to burlap, and then linen.
The painting on fabric is something I always like to do with children - it is a different sensory experience to drag a paintbrush across a round or smooth piece of fabric rather than a piece of paper. These large fabric squares are a velvet-like material. Another day, we painted on very small pieces of silk.

The initial exploration has been interesting - everyone enjoys it in their own way.

How is my child doing?

Parent teacher conferences are approaching, and I have been sitting down to think about my students and how well I know them. I'm looking back through my observations, noting who they have been interacting with and in what ways; remembering instances they connected a letter to the sound it makes, and trying to think whether or not they display one-to-one correspondence. These are the three things so many parents are going to want to know about: Social-Emotional development, literacy, and mathematics.

What I want to tell them is that their children are amazing people who surprise me every day. They make the most beautiful artwork I've ever seen. They think of subjects that we talk about together from a completely original, fresh point of view. I laugh every single day, and so do they. Sometimes they forget to take their coat off before sitting down at a center to start work because they are so excited to start their day. The children and I all get a kick out of counting how many people have bananas in their lunches...every single day.

We are learning to recognize our letters, their sounds, and alliteration and rhyming. We are always counting and noticing patterns. We are working on being kind and respectful and safe and fair together. And this is all happening through our daily conversations, explorations, and interactions with people, places, and things. It is just amazing to be with these children five days a week -- I would not change it for anything right now.

I hope you are all settling into the school year, too.

Side note: These are in the cards for this week. Come back for the finished product!