Carolyn’s

Play House Highlights

September 2002

More News!

Here it is September; July and August have come and gone and Carolyn’s Play House and children are thriving. Audra is two years old, Sky is ecstatic to be walking, and everyone continues exploring discovering, inventing and just plain being silly. We loved our special company this summer, my daughter Kelly and her friends.

The children grow in independence. Here is an example: As they are eating snack I sometimes leave for a minute saying I’ll be right back; they joke and laugh and talk all on their own. Or they leave the living room to get scarves and jump ropes from the playroom for songs, telling me they’ll be ‘right back’!

Some of Our Favorite Things

Play dough is a favorite for all the children and works on many levels. Eli likes little balls, and invents many ways to use them – flattens with hands and tools, places in and out of containers, holds with straws. Audra gathers and tears little pieces, fills her container and practices words like empty, almost full, flat, pour, etc. Laila likes to carry pieces from one room to another. Mekhi has happily learned how to make multi-colored ‘spaghetti’ with the garlic press. Ben at three discovers that all kinds of interesting materials can be stuck and pressed into the dough – buttons, shells, straws and beads for sculptures. And Sky likes to open and close and play peek-a-boo with the containers and lids!

Water and bubbles are another big hit -- in bowls, the sink, at the blackboards with sponges and paint brushes, to wash our tables and chairs and mirrors -- and we take our sprayers outside, watering flowers, washing cars and cooling off each others’ feet on hot summer days. Micah, Laila and Eli have learned to use the sprayers although not always in the direction you’d expect!

And of course we love to make each other laugh and smile. Micah amuses Sky with his funny sounds and laughs uproariously at his own jokes. One day Audra and Ben were playing peek-a-boo with scarves. I suggested they play with Sky. They did, and suddenly there were two headless scarved creatures standing in front of Sky; they took off their scarves and laughed, to Sky’s delight.

Art Play

We experiment with colored glue. The children watch as I add food coloring to the white glue and like to stir it. Mekhi spreads and has been known to pour it, Eli likes to use a sponge sometimes, and it’s fun to see when it dries to a hard, shiny surface. One day Ben made a shape with the glue; I observed it was getting bigger and bigger. He said, yes, it was a baby monster that was growing and growing and was going to be bigger than its father! Another time he picked all sizes and shapes of buttons and a few square beads to glue on the colored shapes. Eli and Laila try all the colors, their finished work recording the movement of their hands. Audra explores, collects, chooses, carefully places and glues her beloved ribbons and bows and pom-poms.

Sky made his first drawing! As the older children were at the round table making loud dots, saying ‘dot, dot, dot!’ Sky joined in and made his own dots, delighted to be one of the gang. One day Eli drew on a cardboard box and discovered the wonderful sound the crayon made on the corrugated material. Another day he enjoyed tearing pieces of tape, pressing them on the paper, drawing over them, trying out new square crayons, etc. One time Another day Laila, Audra and Eli were adding stickers and colored labels to their drawings. Eli decided to put stickers on his feet; the others thought this was a great idea – pretty soon we all had beautifully decorated toes!

On another occasion I set out blackboards, water, sponges and chalk. Eli washed the blackboard with sponges, happily watched the water drip, and drew on the wet surface with chalk. That same day I had taped black pieces of paper all around the table. Mekhi took chalk and unexpectedly made one long line around all the papers. Then I handed him sponges from the water bowls and he laughed out loud as he washed the chalk off!

Walking, Talking and Singing

Our walks to the park are great times for talking. One day Ben showed Mekhi and Audra his favorite tree. They decided to pick favorite trees also. We talk a lot about sounds we hear, holding our hands to our ears. We here drills and trucks and one day Mekhi heard a bird and asked what it was. I said it sounded like a crow and we all made the ‘Caw, Caw!’ sound. The children point at different cars and each time I say incredulously ‘A Green Car, A Red Car? ! !’ We talk about how big the trees are as they touch the sky, the sounds of children playing, and all the dogs we see. We watch the people cleaning the park and talk about the rakes and shovels they use; the workers often smile and talk with the children.

These are some of our favorite walking songs (ask me if you want to know the melodies!): ‘Good morning, good morning, and how do you do?’ ‘Bringing home a baby bumblebee’, ‘Hickory, dickory, dock’, ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’, ‘If you’re happy and you know it’, and our old time favorite, ‘La, La, La’ to whatever melody we wish. And the children love when sometimes I make up songs as we walk, about all the things we see and hear.

Fun and Games

Here’s a game, which didn’t cost a penny! We took unclaimed telephone books in the lobby, put them all in a row, jumped from one to another, balanced, counted books, added more and more, looked up numbers (Audra’s idea), learned how to fan the pages, and had a grand time.

We Learn from Children

As grown-ups we tend to categorize, thinking of water and sand play as sensory activities, gluing and drawing as art, drums and tambourines as music time. But if we see through the eyes of children there are no such distinctions, just a variety of materials presenting endless possibilities for fun and play and learning in all kinds of unexpected ways. Play dough can be used to build a mountain or to break apart and pour from one container to another. Many wooden figures in a bowl -- the feel and sound of them -- are delightful music to a child one day, and used for collecting or balancing another. As Ben uses glue he tells stories of monsters and their fathers – his narrative is as important to him as the art he creates. When we invent a game with telephone books we are improvising as surely as if we were making up a tune at the piano.

Playing and Learning

At the art table the children make choices – they decide what color they want, what material to glue, which sticker they like, how to use and where to put their materials. They learn that art is a place where their own unique impulses, decisions, desires, rule. They learn that they have good ideas.

While the children work we introduce new materials one at a time, extending their art and play. They learn to concentrate for longer periods of time.

As Eli looks at Elmo books while Audra works with trains and tracks, Laila plays with her baby dolls and Sky takes wooden animal figures from bowl to basket, they begin to learn the joys of ‘parallel play’ -- quietly and happily playing alongside friends.

As they take turns jumping on telephone books, counting as they jump, they learn that taking turns and counting are great fun.

One day Laila took two soft balls from the playroom to the living room, Mekhi and Audra decided to do the same, and pretty soon there was a great soccer game going. Laila learned the fun of having ideas and being the leader and the others learned it’s fun to get ideas from someone else.

And when Laila and Audra lay their heads on the bean bag chair, quietly talking, or Mekhi and Audra giggle, hiding, huddled together under the living room play table, or we all have a great laugh at some silliness, children are learning of the fun and warmth and friendliness of others outside their homes.