Name Calling, Thanksgiving Work, and Outdoor Play

Documentation for the week of November 21-23, 2016

Name Calling is SO in Right Now

The children have been calling each other names like Namie-Bamie for a few weeks now. It is a normal developmental stage to try these kinds of things out. Fortunately for our group of children, they aren't even using potty words! Unfortunately, it's still not okay! 

When we speak with the child who is being called a name:

We ask the child, "Did you like it when your friend called you a name?" They say that they DID NOT most of the time, and we encourage them to walk over to their friend and tell them, "I don't like it when you call me names." This is teaching the children to stand up for themselves when someone does something to them that they don't like. There won't always be adults around to help them through these situations so we want to give them tools to make their voices heard on their own.

When we speak with the child who is calling their friend a name:

We ask them to listen to their friend when their friend says, "I don't like it when you call me names." We then focus on what their intention was behind their action. The child made a choice to call their friend a name for a reason. We work with them to find out what that reason was. We ask the child questions like, 

"What were you hoping would happen when you called your friend a name?" 

"Were you making a helpful choice or a hurtful choice?

"Were you trying to get your friend's attention?"

"What are some other ways that you could get your friend's attention?"

We then help the child come up with a plan for next time. We say, "So next time when you start to call a friend a name or you want to get a friends attention maybe you could..." We brainstorm with the child some other ideas such as asking a friend to play a game, asking a friend a question such as "How are you today?" or "What kind of books do you like to read?" 

We strongly encourage you to have these kinds of conversations at home with your child. All the children in our class have called others names and have been called names, so both of these types of conversations will be relevant to your child. It would also be helpful to expand the conversation with questions like:

"How do you feel when you tell your friends to stop calling you names and they don't listen?"

"I saw that your friend had a [princess lunch bag/a minions keychain/a DocMcStuffins headband/etc]. I wonder what would happen if you ask your friend about that tomorrow at school." 

We would also love to hear from you about the conversations you are having with your child at home. It will help us continue to work through this challenging behavior in our classroom.

Thanksgiving Provocation at the Tracing Table

The children loved having the tracing table back this week! We put out a provocation that combined tracing letters, copying letters, and literacy work! It was so much fun to watch the children get into it! There was a piece of paper for the children to trace the phrase, "I am thankful for". Then there were slips of paper with different words that the children have mentioned in the past few weeks for them to read and copy onto the tracing paper to complete their thankfulness sentence such as, My Family, Trees, Hashem, and Playing with my Friends. The children didn't just trace the letter squiggles like they have done in the past, they started reading the words on the slips of paper! We worked with them to recognize the letters and help them understand what sound the letters made. They were able to put the sounds together to create words, and they could copy the letters onto the tracing board.

  

Loose Parts Work: Screws and Screwdrivers 

The screws were also a big hit this week! We learned the difference between a Phillips Head screwdriver and a Flat Head screwdriver, we worked hard to screw nails into our wooden boards, and we compared and contrasted all the different sizes and shapes of the screws we were working with. It was great fun and there was so much learning happening too!

 

Our Outdoor Classroom Work Continues

Last week, we changed our schedule around a bit to accommodate our shared outdoor classroom space with the other classes, but the children made it clear to us that they like our schedule to remain the same. This week, we stuck with our regular schedule, and we let the children vote at snack time if they wanted to return to our work outside or play with the provocations in our classroom. This worked great for our schedule and the children were very happy to choose together where they wanted to work. Outside this week, we had the sand table out again, shaving cream to enjoy messy play, and chalk paint to work with. The children also continued their complex mud play and large loose parts work with the tires and bicycles.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you for coming to our Thanksgiving Lunch and making it such a special event for your children! We hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family! We look forward to seeing you and your children again next week!

Cardboard Box Adventures and Outdoor Classroom Work

Documentation for the week of November 14-18, 2016

Check out this article about a new/old kind of playground in New York City brought back freedom to children's play spaces.

Article: When Kids Create Their Own Playground

Cardboard Box Adventures

A cardboard box can become anything to a child. Which is why we decided to put one in our dramatic play area this week! Last week the box was used to hide inside and pop out as a surprise. This week, the box became a slide. It was A Big Deal. When the children realized that the box could be a slide, they all started sliding down at the same time and yelling (the yelling part seemed very important to their play!). 

Very quickly after the children began sliding down the box, they realized that some rules needed to be established. Morah Tara watched as the children worked to make sure that everyone was staying safe, but did not interfere with their play or stop everyone to facilitate the creation of rules. The children realized the importance of rules on their own and went about creating rules together. 

Some of the rules were spoken out loud. Ariel F. said, "We need to take turns." Lucy attempted to create rules out loud as she yelled, "Guys! It's too loud and you're going too fast. We need to slow down!" This attempt at completely stopping play in order to establish a set of rules failed. The children chose not to stop their play, and Lucy learned how to maneuver through the chaos of her friends' work.

Some rules were created without any verbal acknowledgement of them. For example, the children began bringing chairs behind the box so that it would be easier to get their legs over the top of it. The children waited on the chairs near the ends of the slide for the child in the middle to slide down. No one spoke about this rule out loud, but it was clearly established and withheld throughout the week. Some children went around this rule by not getting up onto the chairs at all. They ran to the edge of the box and jumped in front of the children on the chairs, but once they were on the chairs they waited for their turn.

There was also imaginary play occurring within the greater play activity. Oree and Imie were pretending that they were firefighters rushing down the slide to put out a fire. Bayla eventually joined them. Lucy found a yellow block and said that it was a remote control. She decided that it controlled the speed of everyone going down the slide. It seemed like no one heard her saying this, but two days later, Hillel picked up the same yellow block and used it as a remote control!

The use of tools was evident as well. As mentioned before, chairs were brought over to make it easier to get onto the slide.  Eliya and Hillel chose to use a couple of flat boxes to sit or lay on as they went down the slide. The children found this very enticing, and they all wanted to use the flat boxes to slide down too. This caused a lot of conflict, which means that there were many great opportunities to solve conflict! After a long time the children realized that one of the flat boxes could be opened into a wider sheet of cardboard. Ariel S. and Hillel worked together to open the box up. After a while, the children considered cutting the wide sheet of cardboard into three separate sheets. They found scissors and got to work. As they cut they talked about who was going to get which piece of cardboard. Bayla was going to get the middle piece. Oree and Imie were going to share one side and Hillel was going to get the other side. It was a challenging task that they had to stop working on, because it was cleanup time. 

While some children chose to cut, Ariel F and Lucy had a turn to slide down the box just the two of them. They learned that it was safest to jump right in the middle of the box. They jumped very high in the air and then slid down the box. 

The next morning, Hillel began cutting the cardboard sheet again. It started to make his hand hurt so he tried ripping the box apart. It still didn't come apart. Bayla decided to get into the box even though her friends wanted to turn it into a slide again. She knew that there were more votes for it to become a slide, but she did not get out of the box. Eventually her friends found other work to do in the classroom, and even though she had "won" she was bored being in the box alone. She got out of the box and found other work to do too.

Eliya and Hillel chose to slide down using the large cardboard sheet together several times. Then they had a disagreement about whether to unfold it or not. Eliya wanted it to stay folded. Hillel wanted it to be open. They tried pulling it out of each other's hands for a while. Then Eliya sat on the box while Hillel tried to pull it out from under him and speak to him about why he wanted the box open. After a long time of trying to solve the problem using their bodies, they agreed to open the cardboard on one side and leave the other side folded over. They happily slid down the box on the cardboard sheet several times after that!

Imie, Bayla, and Ariel S. got tired of waiting for a turn with the cardboard sheets, so they went to the fabrics basket in our loose parts area. They used pieces of fabric in a similar way down the slide as they were using the cardboard sheets before.

Conflicts arose over and over throughout the week. The children communicated with each other in attempts to solve conflict with both success and failure. It was so clear, as we watched, that the children were learning from their successful and failed attempts. Often the children solved a conflict so much faster than we expected them to! It was great to watch them work together in this shared reality all week. There were also a few minor injuries. A few children fell the wrong way. There were some tears about parts of their body that got hurt. None of the pain lasted long enough to distract them from getting right back into their play, though, showing us that we were providing our class with the right amount of risk. (Even if we hoped the box would turn into a table for a tea party at the end!)

Outdoor Classroom Work

The weather is finally cool enough to spend lots of time outside, so each classroom chose to bring a center out with them every day this week. We hope to continue this trend throughout the gorgeous Arizona winter! The children had the option of exploring blocks and loose parts, a sensory table with cloud dough, sand, and natural materials, paint brushes, water, and chalk on the cement, and a table with clay and play dough. Our first week having our outdoor classroom open was a huge success!

When we gave the children water and paintbrushes, Leah, Ariel F. and Oree chose to write their names on the cement and then draw pictures of people. 

Later in the week, we added chalk to our paintbrushes and water. Bayla and Leah noticed that when you get the chalk wet it becomes dark purple, and it gets lighter as it dries.

Ariel F., Lucy, and Ariel S. chose to make a balance board out of the blocks and planks and use the shoeboxes in the loose parts area to fill with flower petals and give to Morah Tara as a gift! When Imie and Bayla saw this, they chose to fill buckets of sand and pretend they were cupcakes to give to Morah Tara! Hillel filled a shoebox with flower petals too and gave it to Morah Mirele. We both felt very loved by these gifts! 

While there were lots of indoor choices outside this week, nothing can compare with the allure of fresh mud! Eliya and Ariel S. built mud traps, then invited their friends to fall into them. Hillel and Eliya started washing everyone's shoes in the water fountain (we drink from our water bottles!) The children also used the watering pitcher to clean off their feet! 

On Thursday, we almost made it the whole day without getting muddy, but because we were outside longer, the sprinklers went off! This was surprising and fun for most of the children! They ran around in the sprinklers and then danced in the mud puddles after they turned off. 

We spend a lot of time in the mud. There's a lot of great things to learn when you do, so please make sure your child has a lot of clothes to change into at school! Thank you!!!