Music and Games

There is something about old books that gets me, and I can't resist taking them home when they only cost 50 cents.

This book, Experiences in Music, came home with me from a thrift store in a very small town in the middle of Washington.  I feel that the preschool teaching repertoire can be a little stunted sometimes: we return to the same songs over and over again.  The classics are classic for good reason, of course.  But shaking things up, at a kid appropriate level, is important.  This book reminded me of a few songs that I had not sung with the children in a while (Frere Jacques, for example) and gave me some quick lessons in the development of singing in harmony.  That is not something we have (nor will likely) attempt, but the information is interesting nonetheless.

I came across a website months ago called Playtimes: A Century of Children's Games and Rhymes, and one song jumped out at me as one that the children might really enjoy called There Was A Lovely Princess.  

Digging a bit deeper, the motions to this playground game seem universal.  It is a circle or ring game, and the motions that the children use in the video are the same as the ones described here.  I can envision singing this song with the children, maybe using some picture cues to help us remember the words, and perhaps exploring the motions with a few children.  I have never been one for choreography with children, but this is more of a game than a performance.

I definitely recommend looking through the Playtimes website, and picking up cheap books whenever you can - you never know what discoveries might ensue.

Perfection

Concentration, perseverance, and "crab pincher fingers" will reward you with a beautiful product...just to be turned over for the next person to work on the same shape.  We are using the photos to remember what we made and how hard we worked.

We played the game Perfection a few weeks ago - it doesn't have all of the pieces, but it is a challenge for four year olds to get all of those shapes in, anyhow.  The children took turns racing against time for get all of those shapes into the right place, and when the timer finished and their friends were cheering them on and then all of the pieces go flying into the air...those are the moments when we learn about perseverance.  No one was sad when their turn was over, they simply watched the next child and waited their turn to try again.

This activity with the beads reminds me a bit of Perfection.  It took a minimum of 15 minutes to get all of the beads on, and for the younger children, it took much longer.  Some children chose to stay until the shape was all covered, and others noticed the challenge right from the start with the first bead and went to choose something else to do.  Some children helped each other; others wanted a teacher to do "just one row".  One girl spent 25 minutes covering a heart, just to hold it up to show me and have all of the little beads come tumbling off.

This was a fine motor activity on the surface, but it was also about sticking with it.  And we don't have to do it alone in preschool - there are so many ways to get help - and a few children called on those resources as they worked towards the end goal of covering their shape.  When I was little, we did these in Girl Scouts, and we put an iron over the beads at the end to melt them together and then take them home.  I thought about that with these children, but the idea of a process was jumping out at me for some reason.  The product would be beautiful, but the process is even more rewarding.

Playtime!

It is officially the winter break, and, just two days into it, I am already satisfied. Making bread, watching Woody Allen movies, taking naps, and knowing that I do not have to wake up at 6 am on Monday morning -- all good things so far.

But thinking about education, and learning more about it, is inevitable. As soon as I switch on my computer, I'm looking for more. And, in the spirit of vacation, we should play games!

The Invention Playhouse at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation is a neat spot from the Smithsonian Institute with a few interactive games.

After playing Cloud Dreamer for a little longer than I should have, I watched Does Play Matter?, a great piece on children's play and how important it is to development. This is always coming up in early childhood education, of course, but I feel like it has been really present for me lately. It may be the visit to the forest preschool that really set me off -- I'm not sure. But it really does matter, and I always love reading and seeing what other people have to say about it.

What do you have to say about play?

Lately,

at choice time...

Uno

In an open-ended classroom, children are able to choose what they want to do with materials. Regular playing cards are popular here, and so are the Uno cards. The children are learning how to play the game using the "rules", but there is always room to make up our own games. The colors and numbers lend themselves to natural sorting!