We Can Fix It!

For quite some time now, one of the most-used materials in our class has been the toolbox and the variety of tools it contains. The hammers are probably the most favored tool, which is not that surprising considering the fact that I've only met a handful of toddlers over the years who don't like to bang. But, this group has really branched out with their use of tools. They can name most of the tools in the toolbox, even those that are not so common. Thankfully my dad was quite handy so I can give them the names and tell them what they are used for if they happen to ask.

I thought that adding tools to the play dough box would be extremely appealing to them. It combined two of their favorite activities into one. But, they weren't nearly as interested as I imagined they would be. They did use them a for a while with the play dough but, they had bigger and better ideas than I could come up with. They were much more interested in using the tools to fix things in the classroom.

Since the tools were in the play dough, I brought out a tool puzzle as a substitute. It wasn't long before N. found the drill in the puzzle, laid himself on the floor and set to work 'fixing' the table.  Some days he spent a good portion of his mornings engaged in activities like this.

Others followed suit and it was pretty common to see someone under the table, a rocking horse flipped upside down or the garage on its side as they set to work 'fixing' all the broken objects they could come up with.

After winter break I decided to introduce a more realistic way to use tools. I purchased a small pack of golf tees to use as nails. I had been saving a printer box since before break, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it. Since it is tall, it makes the perfect tool bench. after gathering up the three boys present who were most interested in tools, I showed them how they could use the golf tees as nails on the top of the box. I was a bit surprised at which boy picked it quickly, concentrating as he held his nail in place to get the hole started.

They hammered away for a good portion of the morning before discovering the holes on the sides of the box from the carrying handles. I should have known to tape them shut before starting. Instead, I had to reopen the box at nap to fish out all the hammers and nails. My original plan was to keep this activity just for the older toddlers since the golf tees are fairly sharp. However, a couple of the younger toddlers were interested and they did hammer for a bit. We just made sure we put the nails in before they came over. They were pretty content to just hammer on the box, with or without nails. We even took the box outside today since it was such a nice day. This gave the older group some time to work on it without worrying about the younger children.

Through all this tool play over the last month, we have learned more about the children. We have seen how much time they spend focused on an activity. We have seen children expand their play, adding new elements and depth as the weeks passed.  We have seen children come back to the same activity again and again until they feel they have mastered it and then find a way to take it to new levels of complexity. They have practiced waiting, taking turns and trading tools with friends. I dare to say some negotiating skills were practiced, too. They have spent large chunks of time engaged in the same activity, oblivious to the potential distractions around them.  They have learned some new words and participated in conversation with peers, actually hearing what was said and responding appropriately. They have picked up new ideas by watching a friend and trying to imitate them. All of this learning happened during  free play time, in activities the children selected and carried out on their own, with minimal support from the teachers.

The next challenge is to design a project that lets them really build something. With any luck, there will be an update before the semester is over.

A Magical Day of Play

Today was one of those rare days with toddlers where there were no major melt-downs, tantrums or arguments. Aside from a two-and-half-year-old doing some minor limit testing and a 15-month-old who wanted to wash her hands every 30 seconds, it was a quiet day where the children led pretty much everything. The only question or idea I offered up today was asking one child (the limit tester, actually) if he wanted to do some more gluing like he did yesterday. He had really enjoyed exploring with the glue so he gladly shook his head and said yes. I told him to go get a board from the pile of mat board that a parent had gotten donated for us. He went straight to the board without needing any reminders of where to find one, picked one out saying, "this one," and brought it right to the table to get started. As I looked for a full glue bottle, he took the bag, pulled one out and said, "big one." Generally the children use the smaller glue bottles in my class but I had a feeling I was just going to be re-filling soon so I let him take the big one.

He spent the next 10 minutes with the glue. The idea was to make a nature collage, which he had done the previous day before abandoning it to explore with the glue. He had learned yesterday that if he put glue all over his hands, the paper or items could stick to his hands so I was curious to see what he would do with the glue today. He chose one stick from the sensory table full of nature materials and promptly glued that on his board. He added a few more items but, it was really about the glue today. He discovered that if he held the glue up high and squeezed just a little, it looked like raindrops. The excitement on his face as he made more raindrops was contagious.



One of the girls joined us at the table and followed his idea, for the most part. She glued one stick on, then made a picture with the glue. She eagerly told me about her picture. "You have to go around the bend. This is the mountain and you  have to go through it." Along the way, a pile of 'sneaky mud' showed up ("you don't want to go there, it's slippery") along with a cash register to mark the end point. She told the story several times as she added more glue, barely changing the details.


 


Another boy joined in and didn't even bother with the collage materials. He just wanted to 'queeze' the glue. You can see the focus as he works on squeezing the glue out. He was so engrossed that we brought out the colored and glitter glues we haven't used yet this school year. He spent a good five or so minutes at this activity, which isn't bad for a child who is choosy about art activities.

Even the 15-month-old joined in. While squeezing the glue was a bit tough for her, exploring with it and spreading it was not.

Once the glue exploration wrapped up, I noticed two children in the gross motor area pretending it was nap time. One would lie on a row of cardboard brick blocks while the other one rubbed their back, as the teachers do at nap time. They decided they needed a chair so they moved one of the blocks out to be the chair. Over the course of fifteen or more minutes, these children changed roles, taking turns being the napper and the teacher, at least six times. They listened to each other and responded in a genuine to-way conversation.

As this wrapped up, some of the children migrated to the dramatic play area. Someone brought me a bucket full of clothes and announced "make lunch" as he placed the bucket on the table in front of me. He 'cooked' more clothes for the children there, telling us it was how. A few minuted later, this play had evolved into dress up and the three two-year-olds experimented with putting the clothes on. They dressed themselves, trying until they got it. One child discovered that taking his shoes off made it easier to put the shorts on. The other two noticed and followed his example successfully. They cheered each other on and offered both encouragement and help. This took up the rest of the morning. They were so engaged and productive that all the teachers did was watch and offer just minimal support as needed.

Why is this important, you might ask? They weren't learning to name their colors, count, practice their alphabet or any of those other academic schools that come to mind when the word learning is thrown out there. But, research has shown that extended free play helps children develop the important skill of self-regulation. During all this play and exploration, these children had abundant opportunities to practice skills that help develop executive function. They practiced self-control as they squeezed just the right amount of glue and stayed in their roles during pretend play. They communicated with each other and took turns, both in conversation and in play. They solved problems and made new discoveries.  They managed their emotions and didn't give up when things weren't working.

There was so much learning happening that I will probably have to write about it in more detail later. It's days like this that make me remember why I love what I do and remind me just how important the early years are.

A Lesson in Self-Control

Working with young toddlers has definitely presented its fair share of challenges. While we tried to prepare for the change, we talked about the areas they would need help with, as compared to the older toddlers. We knew they were going to need some help with feeding, which is completely new to us. It has always been my policy to let the older feed themselves, even if they were still pretty messy with things like yogurt or applesauce. I prefer to let them practice then change their clothes afterward if they are messy.

While it's easy to train the staff on the needs of the younger toddlers, getting them to step back and give the children (including the older toddlers) time to work out a problem is much more difficult.  Adults tend to get distressed when they see a young child struggling and step in to rescue the child. Janet Lansbury at Elevating Child Care has written about it here and here. Seeing the staff doing a lot of rescuing made me wonder just how often I might be doing it myself. After all, they learn through modeling as much as the children do. So I am making a concentrated effort to not step in so early right now.

There is a 15-month-old boy in the class who has a tendency to wait for adult help before taking a risk. When he was starting to walk, if he got to a place where he no longer had a hand-hold, his preferred method of navigating was to get the attention of an adult so they would hold his hand and help him walk to the desired location. After a while, my co-teacher and I started to notice that if we left him alone, he could accomplish quite a bit. He spent an entire morning teaching himself to walk down the ramp/slide in our gross motor area a few weeks ago.  He would crawl to the top, stand up, then hold onto the wall as he walked down. On the first attempt, he fell before reaching the bottom. He cried a bit but neither of us could get over to help him right away. So we watched him from where we were with other children. As he cried, he pulled himself up then crawled right back up the ramp. He repeated this five or six times before he was successful in reaching the bottom without falling down. The smile on his face showed just how proud he was of himself.

So when I saw him playing in the fine motor area by himself earlier this week, I got out the camera and just watched to see what he might do. Below is a clip of him playing with balls and tubes. He had just pulled to whole toy over on himself trying to stand up and I thought he might give up and go play with something else.  The first time he got the ball in the tube then peered into the tube to see it fall, it took all my control not to tell him the ball was already on the floor. You will see that after a couple tries, he stops looking through the tube and goes straight to the floor to find the ball. What I would have taught him by verbalizing it on the first attempt, he learned on his own.

We tell the children all the time that we know how hard it is for them to wait. It's something we need to remind ourselves of every now and then. If we exercise a little self-control, we might just pick up on something amazing.