Carolyn’s

Play House Highlights

July 2004

Current events!

By now we have transformed one of our living room corners into a pediatrician’s (sometimes a vet’s) office, our snack table into a business office (where we write letters, answer phones and take messages), and we now have our very own pretend baby center complete with potties and bibs. Our little circle time carpets set the stage for musical and theatrical fun; the hallway is a masking-tape road for cars or beach complete with blue-mat ocean and plenty of goggles, fancy dives and fantastic fish (we are sure to put them in water soon after they are caught; we know what fish need).

The kitchen chairs are cars with wheels (we practice ‘going’ and ‘stopping’ with shiny-paper red and green lights), and the toddlers have discovered special corners where they play on their own -- with airplanes, cars and houses in worlds of their own creation. The water table is sometimes a quiet soothing place, other times a pond for snakes and frogs and lizards, complete with rocks and shells, or might, another day, be a bath for babies.

Just a few of our favorite things

Lucia is a keen observer and astute imitator. At circle time we have a ‘magic hat’ that we pass around to show who is leader, and that person decides on a song for us to sing, or tells a story, or performs an action or claps a rhythm for us to imitate. One day when it was my turn I used a book of songs for ideas, and showed the children the pictures so they could see which song we would sing. When it was Lucia’s turn she picked up a notebook, turned the pages, and sang ‘La, la, la, la’! Another time she drew on pages of a notebook, turning each page after scribbling some. At one page she looked carefully at a curvy black mark she had made, and said ‘SSSSSSS’, her sound for ‘snake.’ She always gets to the heart of things.

Aditi is particularly interested in how things work and finding out ‘what will happen if…’ She has many new words under her belt, but non-verbal communication is still her language of choice, and she excels at this very important skill. One day she brought me a jar from our baby-caring station -- a plastic pretend one, which didn’t open when you turned the lid. I asked if she wanted one that opened and closed, and said I’d be right back. She waited right where she was until I came back. I showed her how to screw the new container lid on and off as she watched intently (she always watches intently). She then sat herself down and worked with it over and over again (she always spends a long time at activities she likes).

Malcolm continues to be fascinated by the world of work – building, fixing, fire prevention and all the community workers, vehicles, types of buildings, and hats, which go along with these activities. Also, he has learned to talk to buddies when they do things he doesn’t like, then go right back to being their friend. (How old were you when you learned that?) Sometimes he gathers all his tools and makes repairs on his own, but more and more you will find him with one of his friends, who love to play with him, working on a collaborative effort. One day he and Sky built an airplane with wooden blocks, later adding wheels and passengers. (They of course had their hammers ready in case repairs were required!)

Eli wishes he had a whole room full of guitars. When he puts on a special straw hat and plays his guitar he becomes a Mariachi player, just like at Mama Mexico. Whenever the subject is music, he is wholly absorbed. He counts in songs (‘a one and a two and a three and a four’), plays back rhythms in musical conversation, forms bands of imaginary instruments, and – still his all time favorite – dances to rock and roll music (the louder and faster the better, preferably Santana or ‘We Got the Beat’!). He creates fantastic costumes with all kinds of materials, his entire being becoming the character. One day he wore goggles and a scarf-cape, found the feather duster, and was an electrifying superhero. We were transfixed.

Set out drawing materials and Sky is there. Mention an animal and he mimes it, capturing its essence. Recently he has been combining these two interests. One day at the blackboard he offered, ‘I’m drawing a lion.’ He drew one long diagonal line with chalk, and a small circular shape at the end of it. He carefully erased the shape, drew another larger one, erased that, and redrew it at the other end of the line. He then added radiating lines. He drew slowly and deliberately, afterward looking carefully at the lines and shapes he had made. He has this same focus when he builds. One day he used colored blocks to make a zoo for his rhinoceros. He proudly showed his triangle-roof and two oval green blocks as leaves for eating. Simple and elegant!

Themes

As the children play all day long, certain themes weave in and out of conversations, dramatic play, story times and quiet explores. They include families, small animals, large animals, water, and community workers. Thought you might enjoy some tidbits.

Big and Little Animals

Birds are a favorite topic lately – their beaks and feathers, where they live, what they like to eat. We like to look at the Audubon book of birds and hear all their different names. (The children think the names Great Blue Heron and Great Egret are hilarious!) One day Eli and I were sitting on a bench in the park, watching a pigeon. Eli asked me, ‘why is the pigeon eating sand?’ I said that it wasn’t eating sand, but using its beak to poke in the sand for food. We watched as it found a piece of cracker. A few moments went by and Eli said suddenly ‘…so pigeons do have mouths!’

We learned words and movements to this song at Circle Time (tell me if you want to know the melody!):

Here’s a baby bird, hatching from its shell (crouch down to be baby birds in a shell)

Out pops it’s head, and then comes it’s tail (slowly start moving upward)

Soon its legs it’s stretching (growing some more)

It’s wings it starts to flap (flap wings)

Up and up and up and up, what do you think of that? (all the way up, flapping wings)

Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down (go down very fast)

And one day in the park we found a ladybug on a leaf. We watched as it took its legs under its shell and thought it might be scared, and was protecting itself (just like a turtle, we remarked). Then we watched as it flew away, not scared anymore.

At story time we read and talk about so many things, like different kinds of animal homes, including those that are carried as shells, what they like to eat (it turns out that Panda eat bamboo!), where they live (polar bears live where it’s cold), and all the different animal baby names.

Music and games

We continue to find new ways of having fun with music. Sometimes one person sings and others listen, or we all sing together, and other times the children fill in the missing and rhyming words. Here are some recent tunes: Five little ducks, Animal fair, Bingo, The bear went over the mountain, Down by the bay, Kookaburra, The ants go marching, Do your ears hang low, I’m a little teapot. The children also gently play the piano (whatever notes they want!) while I sing a song; learn about pitch -- by making piano sounds of thunder with the low notes, bird noises with the high notes and raindrops for in between notes -- and dynamics as we get softer and louder in different parts of a song. We’re even doing a little composing lately, as we walk to the park. One hot day, I made up a song about the trees’ shadows and sun and shade, with the toddlers filling in the last words. We were all quite pleased with ourselves!

Here’s a new game: We stand in a small circle, and I begin to blow a bubble; the children help and the bubble gets bigger and bigger (the circle widens) and bigger (widens even more) until it pops and all fall down! Another one: the children stand on our parachute; it is an elevator going up and up to the different floors. We call out first floor, second floor, etc. and each floor is a different kind – one is for flying; one is for jumping, another is for elephants, etc.

Art and visual stuff

With collage materials we’ve made imaginary houses and castles, beach scenes with shells and paint, and sock puppets. We’ve added magazine pictures to our collage trays for interesting effects, used puzzle pieces and wood scraps for constructions, and added bark pieces, feathers, buttons and springs to clay for birds and imaginary creatures.

We’re doing a lot of murals lately, with the youngest joining in. One day I brought out farm animals and we had fun making green lines for grass, brown marks for hay, red shapes for a barn. Sometimes we decide that certain shapes are homes of different friends, and label them Eli’s House, Sky’s House, Malcolm’s House, etc., and make streets to get from one to another. Once we drew on paper plates and tablecloth for a birthday party. And sometimes we just draw, and draw, and draw some more.

If you don’t see the results – that’s when we just try different things. Once we used dot paints together on a mural, and mopped up extra paint with tissue paper. I held the colored tissue to see the paints through the transparent material. Eli thought it was really cool! Another day Sky discovered his wall shadow and we all played with our shadows made by sunlight coming through the window. And droppers with thinned paint or food coloring on coffee filters – that’s one of our most popular color experiments.

Play and Learning

Drawing and literacy

Not only do young children love to draw, their early scribbling involves hand and arm movements they will use for later writing. Given encouragement and ample opportunity, they develop naturally from free form scribblers to recognizing their own marks as symbols of things (Lucia’s ‘SSSSS’ at seeing her curvy black snake-like mark), to purposely using lines and shapes to stand for a real being (Sky’s lion, in this case something of great import to him). Playing with lines and shapes leads them organically to skills at the very heart of reading, writing and thinking – the use of symbols to represent things and ideas. In fact, if we try to teach children to write letters and numbers, or demand they draw realistic shapes, before they are ready or interested, we actually miss this most amazing process.

Pretending, dramatic play and learning

Just as lines and shapes are symbols, so are the props children use in pretend play. A scarf represents a superhero cape, feather duster is a sword, a play telephone stands for a real one, a blue mat can be the ocean, and the play room loft is s a pirate ship or fire house. The stage is set for later learning that a certain configuration of lines and shapes represents a letter or number, and printed words stand for ideas.

I look through pages of a book for a song to sing, which the children incorporate in their play. They sit at their ‘office’ and write down messages on post-its when the phone rings. Leafing through phone books, they ‘look up’ telephone numbers of parents at work or sisters and brothers at camp. When playing restaurant the waiter and waitress write customers’ orders to give to the chefs, and in the kitchen there’s a cookbook for chefs to look up recipes. As they play, they integrate the concept that books are sources of all kinds of interesting information, and writing has a variety of uses.

Learning all the time, all day long

Young children are always learning – it’s just what they do. The way they learn is with their whole bodies, through play. One day I sat with Malcolm, who loves to use scissors (it is, after all, a tool), as (with complete disregard for the project I had in mind!) he cut several strips of paper, all by himself, and carefully glued them to his paper, feeling quite pleased with the results. If, when they are ready to learn new or practice existing skills, we are also ready -- with patience and materials -- to appreciate their play, and let them be the stars, we support that learning.

Social and Emotional Learning

At the end of the day, I truly believe that the most important early learning is social and emotional in nature. The children sit on their rugs, watching intently and in absolute stillness, as each in turn puts on the ‘magic hat’ to show who is the leader. Will she wear it right side up, or inside out, or backwards, or over her eyes?’ Or, all on their own, they climb up on the couch and ‘read’ books, side by side with a buddy. A child says to a friend (about another friend), gently but firmly and perfectly imitating what he has heard before, ‘don’t push him, look at my face -- he doesn’t like it.’ Jumping upstairs in the loft they have (almost!) mastered taking turns, including the smallest among them. Or they simply feel safe and comfortable playing on their own, in the company of other children who are doing the same. They learn of warmth and belongingness in the world outside their families, the magical pleasure of listening and being listened to, or the peacefulness of sometimes simply being quiet with another. These are the gifts that we give to young children when we cherish their play with others.