Video Moment: Play Dough Work

I try to savor moments like these ones in the classroom.  This has nothing to do with a theme, a project, or a topic.  It is about investigating materials socially.  Children are absorbing information from the people around them:  the motions other children are making with their hands and the tools to shape the play dough, and the words that people are using to converse or describe.

Creating prompts for play and exploration is one of my favorite things about early childhood education, and the prompt in the video above (play dough, small trays, and scissors) had everyone in the room engaged, with children sharing pieces of play dough to give to others who were dragging chairs across the room to join in.  The talking that the children were doing here was incredibly important.  Bond and Wasik (2009) share:

"Language Development is one of the most important milestones that occurs during the preschool years (Adams 1990, Dickinson and Tabors 2001).  From birth to about the age of five, children acquire about 10,000 vocabulary words (Childers and Tomasello 2002). During this time, children begin with one word utterances and, ultimately, learn to communicate in complex sentences.  Rapid and significant increases in vocabulary knowledge and in sophisticated knowledge about syntax and the semantics of language require the children be exposed to environments that are filled with numerous opportunities for conversation.  The most beneficial conversations are those that include rich language, which includes sentences with more than just subjects and verbs." (pp. 467-468)

Adults obviously play a large role in children's language development, but creating opportunities for children to speak to each other has value as well.  Just as teachers are constantly learning from children, children are learning from each other:  important people in their world.  For example, we had flubber in the sensory table last week, and one day, A arrived at school 10 minutes before anyone else did.  We played together, talking and manipulating the flubber.  By the time other children arrived and asked, "what is THAT?", A was the expert, describing it with words like rubbery, smooth, shiny, bouncy, and silly.

I think I've reached a point in my teaching career when I sit down with my tea and my planning sheets and I try to picture what different prompts will look like: what students do I think will be engaged?  How can I engage other students?  What materials have been used a lot lately that can be put into a new context for exploration?  There are flops, obviously.  But something as simple as play dough that smells like mint and scissors to snip it with can apparently inspire everything from pizza to Elmo's likeness, with sharing and conversation to boot.  I'll take it!

Cited:

Bond, M. and Wasik, B. (2009).  Conversation Stations:  Promoting Language Development in Young Children.  Early Childhood Education Journal, 36, 467-473.

Storytelling

For the first time ever,  I am having children dictate stories in the classroom.  Everyday, when we sit down for our meeting, I take out the storytelling notebook and ask who would like to tell a story.  Out of the 10-12 children who at school by this time, most of them are eager to tell a story.


Some mornings get a bit hectic, and since I am alone in the preschool room most of the time, we don't always have a chance to tell stories.  But when we do, I approach the children who have signed up for storytelling and invite them to tell me their story.  I'll often ask a child who is in between activities rather than taking a child out of something they are really engaged with.


All sort of themes are shared and we touch upon just about every topic imaginable over the course of a week.  But the name of the game us typically repetition - at least right now it is.  Children tell the same stories day after day, or feature the same characters.  Take B's stories, for example.

10/30/11

Katie fell down.  And then she cried.  Then she bumped her head and then she cried.  Katie fell down.  The teacher came and she was happy!  And then she played with Chip Chip.  And then she cried.  The End.

11/2/11

Katie fell down.  And then she cried.  And then she bumped her head.  And then she cried.  And she fell down in the chair.  And then she cried.  Then she bumped her head!  And then she fell down on the chair.  The End.

11/3/11

Katie fell down.  And she bumped her head and then she cried.  And then she got up, and then she bumped her head.  And then she fell down on the chair.  And then she bumped…her…head.  And then she fell on the chair.  Then she bumped her head!  And then she cried.  Cry cry cry cry cry cry.  The End.

11/4/11

Katie fell down and she bumped her head and then she cried.  And she fell down on the chari, and then she fell down on the chair.  Then she bumped her head.  The End.

11/9/11

Katie fell down.  Mommy likes me.  And she does!  And then she bring me to school, and then she did.  The End.

11/14/11

Katie fell down and she bumped her head, and then she cried.  And then she fell down on the chair and she cried.  The End!

She continues to tell that story every time she tells me she has a story to tell. J usually tells me a story about Buzz Lightyear; G tells stories about things that happen at her house.  S retells Itchy Itchy Chicken Pox each time she dictates a story.  


What I love about storytelling this way is how children open up as they have these opportunities for oral language.  I love how excited they get when I read the stories from the day to the whole group, and the group claps for the author.


I have definitely been inspired by Vivian Gussin Paley's books, but I have not taken the plunge into the acting out of stories after they are written.  I feel like that is the next step, though.  Another way we can continue promoting storytelling is through pre-made books that children illustrate and then read to the class at a group time.  I have seen children get really into that form of storytelling, and that also promotes more mark-making, drawing, and writing.  I have documented many of the stories I've been told on video - here is one of my favorites.





It is important to remember that the children in my classroom now are significantly younger than the ones in my last class, but that makes it more exciting, perhaps - I'm not quite sure what to expect, and it is probably better that way!

Sand Play

...and another opportunity for you to brush up on your Finnish.

Cloud Appreciation Society

The Cloud Appreciation Society seems like it could have a link with classrooms. 

Perhaps I'm partial because the weather in Brussels has gotten so nice - it has been a warm, sunny weekend to end a warm sunny week, during which we went to the forest three times and kept our classroom windows open. I can imagine children photographing clouds, and using the photo gallery "Clouds That Look Like Things" to share their findings.  What an amazing oral language activity, too, for children to have conversations about what they see and to talk about similarities and differences between the different kinds of clouds. 

I think that cloud photographs would be a great starter for sketchbooks one morning - every child feels confident enough to draw clouds, and some children might even enjoy drawing an object as a cloud.

Love and Flowers

We are in our storytelling phase of the year.  I always love when it starts!  Here's a little taste of what it looks and sounds like for us.

"The boy loves the girl.  And the door opens the flowers for to wake up the water to put the water in the flowers.  And the girl likes the boy, too.  But she wants to open the gate and open and open and open.  The end."