Carolyn’s

Play House Highlights

March 6, 2002

We’re Off and Running!

Well, Carolyn’s Play House is underway and we’ve all been having a ball. Ben, Audra and Micah are now used to the playroom, other rooms in the apartment and me. Mai is joining us this week with Mekhi starting the following week. I’ll be sending out these little newsletters periodically to let you parents in on some of the things we do here. I am including a few pictures with this letter and as soon as my camera is fixed, I will start sending more. As a mom it has always been important to hear about my daughter’s days away from me, so I hope you enjoy.

Beginnings

From the beginning Micah loved the pop-up puppet. He gives it to me to pop up (As the puppet I say, ‘I’m very sleepy’ as it goes inside and ‘now I’m awake!’ as it pops up) over and over again. Then he takes it, makes the funniest face as he hugs it; then give it back to me to pop up; over and over.

The first day Audra and Micah were together, Audra came in she said ‘hi!’ right away to Micah. After that, whenever she would bounce into another room he would follow, always wanting to be part of the action. He so loves to be with other people.

Games

It turns out that three-year-old Ben and 18-month old Audra have a lot in common. They both like to jump and fall and make silly noises on the loft mattress and on soft pillows in the living room. And they like to imitate and play with sounds. At one point Audra said ‘Toe’ and then Ben started saying the same thing until there was a resounding chorus of ‘Toe…’ and we had a good laugh! Later Ben was playing with the fire engine (putting out fires with his fire dog), and pressed the button for the siren noise. Audra made the exact same noise, identical in pitch. Ben, bemused, kept pressing the button to hear Audra’s sound. And they both loved the scarf games we played in the living room—tossing scarves in the air and watching them float to music; and my using the scarves like a bullfighter for them to run through.

We play another game in the living room. The children throw a soft ball to me while I sing ‘this is the way we throw the ball’ but my singing gets ‘interrupted’ while I catch, I make a silly-surprised face and we all think it’s the funniest thing ever. One time Audra gave me all the balls, one by one; I counted as she gave them to me. As soon as they were all in a pile she promptly sat down on them and snuggled in my ‘lap’.

Audra has a game she likes to play: she goes up to the loft, closes the gate whispers good-bye, jumps around and laughs, opens the gate, says hi, over and over. The first time Micah tried to join she very clearly said ‘no!’ when Micah wanted to come up too (as her game had never included Micah!). But she quickly took to the idea of jumping on the mattress with Micah.

Senses

Another day I had a plate of textured and patterned papers; and trays set up with clear contact paper so the children could stick the pieces on. Micah loved crinkling the different papers and hearing the sounds they made, and watching them swirl to the floor. That day he played the keyboard, hearing the drum sounds. He would bang a certain number of times and I would repeat with the same number of sounds. We did this again and again.

Audra likes to draw with the big crayons and likes me to draw with her. I make tapping sounds with the crayon and lots of marks; and she does the same. Or I make lines the same way she makes them. She works for a long time like this. She also loves to gather stuffed animals to her, all around her and snuggle. (She does the same with play dishes and cups!) She loves the toy phones, dialing and saying ‘hello!’; pretending to sip tea, looking out the window pointing and talking about what she sees, playing peek-a-boo with the dolls, books with pictures of babies and children, and many, many other things.

Playing and Learning

During play with one’s and two’s I talk about what we’re doing. When playing with boxes and lids we talk about opening and closing, inside, other side; when we play with the puppet I say ‘now he is sleeping; then he is awake!’ in a fun way. We communicate that speaking and listening are pleasurable experiences; and give the idea that actions (sleeping, waking) and concepts (open, shut) can be associated with words. Similarly with numbers: we count each ball as it is gathered, not to ‘teach numbers’ but to reinforce the idea of sequence -- first one, then the next, then the next. This is how learning happens at this age: experientially, in the context of play.

And often learning is non-verbal. With great deliberation, Micah takes all the toys from one basket and places them in another until the task is completed. He experiences ‘full’ and ‘empty’, creating his own tasks and completing them to his satisfaction. He learns about gravity as he stacks a couple of cubes and each time happily knocks them down!

If we wait and see what the child will do with the toy before we ‘show him the right way’, more often than not he will invent a new way to use it. Micah did this with the nesting cubes; he stacked them in a way I thought was ‘wrong’ and it turned out I was wrong; the blocks worked his way, too. He and Audra are both great inventors of games.

Ben, at three, invents worlds filled with characters and stories of his own creation. He builds schools that get bigger and bigger where Tigger, Owl and Pooh take turns being teacher and the parents are nearby but not in the school. He makes a picnic serving cucumber sandwiches, cleaning spills with salt and mixing coffee with tea. In his play he assimilates the world has he knows it so far and works out issues of great importance to him.

As the children choose what to play with and how to play they learn to trust their own impulses, to be confident in the choices they make and the fun of independence. As they join others in their play they learn that the world is a friendly place and the fun of being part of a group.