Carolyn’s

Play House Highlights

January 2005

*A note from Carolyn to the parents:

I would just like to say to an awesome group of parents that this is an especially sweet and impossibly cute group of children. Thank you for sharing them with me for these hours.

And a disclaimer:

No newsletter could possibly capture the myriad seen and unseen bits and pieces of learning that swirl by in the lives of young children. And what we think of as important may not be what is most interesting to them. Having said that…

Current events

Here we are in the New Year and back in action at Carolyn’s Play House. The children are busy as ever with their art, music and pretend play, enjoying solitary moments and intent as ever on doing what they need to do. At our new dollhouse you might see Liam taking teacher, doctor, fireman, painter, one at a time, carefully guiding them through a window until they are all inside. Leah will take two of these on one of her long explores while Mieke and Aditi sit happily together putting a blanket on grandma or making play dough food for the table. Dionysis settles the mommy figure at her place of work (a school, as Mommy in real life is a teacher) and Max sits at the table with his pretend computer, working busily in the company of others. Then he gets up, takes his basket full of toys, goes to the doorway of the playroom and says ‘bye’; off he goes, presumably to work! Our new farm, another place for all to play side by side, is another big hit. And of course there is our all time favorite, the loft, or, as we like to call it, ‘upstairs’.

Some favorite games

One day we played this funny game at the blackboard and water table: I drew chalk lines and Dionysis erased them with paintbrush and water. I pretended to be mad, which Dionysis found hilarious. Then Liam drew the lines and eagerly awaited my (very silly) reaction. Soon Dionysis had the chalk and Liam the paintbrush and, on their own, happily drew and erased with much anticipation and laughter. Then Dionysis asked for music and we all marched around the table. The song got faster and faster, and pretty we were chasing each other around the table, first one way and then another. Very exciting! That day on our neighborhood walk we sang ‘We’re following Dionysis, the leader, the leader, the leader…’ Benjamin loved chasing ‘the leader’ and also when Dionysis gave him a big hug! That same day we had ‘toddlercise’ time, stretching way up high and low and then suddenly, ‘all fall down’ (the best part!). At lunch we all laughed at Dionysis’ comical ‘mad face’ after one of his favorite books, ‘I was so mad!’

Water, walking and lunch

Often you will see Aditi and Mieke washing baby dolls in the water table. Aditi loves all the suds, covering her doll with them. She likes using a watering can to pour and rinse the baby’s hair. When it’s time to wash hands before lunch, these two stand at the bathroom sink for long times, washing hands, filling up plastic bottles with water, pouring, and scooping with shovels. One day Mieke smiled at the scent of lavender liquid soap on her hands, asking for more and more. Then she took Aditi’s bottle and offered her the one she was using, effectively making a trade, then filled Aditi’s bottle for her. (Earlier that morning, Aditi had surprised Mieke by giving her a play dough ‘cup cake’ with a candle.) At the art table, Aditi swirled white paint with food coloring to it to mix many new colors. Mieke liked shaving cream the best, using her hands to spread it on a tray and then printing with her hands on black paper. On our outing we took our chalk for a walk, and decorated the garden gate outside our building (with permission, of course, from Bernice – our chief 839 West End community gardener.) Then there was much running as we chanted ‘we’re late, we’re late, for a very important date’. At lunch, Mieke did her special job – bringing Aditi’s and her own lunch to the table. Aditi did her special job of sitting and waiting for Mieke to bring it!

Doing art together

Doing art at the kitchen (big kid’s) table is one of Max’s favorite things. One day he sat next to Dionysis and mixed glue, asking for more and more (‘mo,’ ‘mo’) food coloring; mixing it (imitating ‘round, round, round’ with his own sound) and then for the first time spread glue on paper. Meanwhile Dionysis, with a painterly approach, made thick lines of color with serious deliberation. Another time Max explored droppers with watered paint of all colors. He carefully dipped and painted with them on the round filter paper, trying different colors. One tray over Benjamin, abstract expressionist style, soon figured out it was much quicker to unscrew the droppers from the little bottles and pour swirls of watery paint on the tray. He was singularly unimpressed when I held up the filter, which had been taped to the tray, now dripping with color. He was busy looking for more colors to pour! Picture two hard-working scientists in their lab, complete with smocks and droppers and liquids and trays and colors combinations.

Music and stories and stuff

At music time Leah watches intently as Dionysis twirls to his all time favorite, Spinning Song. One day she started spinning too, to the Wee Sing song tape. She did this so much she swayed! Liam loves to listen for the end, take a beat and clap and shout ‘Yea…!’ at the end of each song. Leah takes it all in, doesn’t miss a thing. Another of her favorite spots is the water table. One day she took a magnet from the fridge and threw it in, watched it float away. She pointed for me to get it but we waited a minute and it came back to her and she grabbed it, quite pleased with her prize. Liam tooled along and we added some bubbles. He splashed vigorously as I said ‘Splash’! He splashed again and said ‘splash’ himself, equaling the splash’s intensity with his voice. Leah thought it was great fun and added her own sound effects.

Music is definitely in the air these days. Mieke hums quietly to herself while playing, and accompanies our sings with drums. Liam happily sings more songs every day and find first the high and then the low notes at piano. Max’s all-time favorite (and therefore one of ours) is rocking out at the keyboard, and Leah plays the cymbals and puts them to her ears to hear vibrations. Benjamin asks for songs again and again so he can do his own bouncy rocking dance and soak up melodies and lyrics. And Dionysis with great gusto leads marching bands with imaginary instruments to Following the Leader, The Ants go Marching Two by Two, and Finger Band has Come to Town. At Pop Goes the Weasel Max waits eagerly for the ‘pop’, during Sneezing Song joins in on a mighty ‘hachoo’, and for Little Bunny Foo Foo all the children have their own finger bunny rabbits and ‘bops’.

Some favorite stories these days: I Was so Mad, Froggy Gets Dressed, Mine, Baby Sister Says No, Baboon, Alligator in the Elevator, Tumble Bumble. One day we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and sang the ABC Song. One day after hearing Little Gorilla (who grows bigger and bigger and still everyone loves him), everyone became as small as they could and at the sound of the drum grew bigger and bigger until there were big gorillas chasing each other through the jungle (and still everyone loved them!). Then we banged on the table or floor, (‘listen to the herd of elephants,’), getting louder and louder, louder, then softer as they move far away, and suddenly, STOP!

Finally, everyone is learning the cleanup song and marching-to-the-fridge-to-get-your-lunch song. And one late morning Aditi invited Mieke to a formal dance with scarves and pocket books and accompanied by (very) improvised piano music.

More mad-dash art

Here are some of our latest and greatest mad-dash art experiments. We use brushes and rollers to spread white paint on a tray, draw into the paint with q-tips, add food coloring, press down pressed black paper onto the paint and voila, a print! And the day we used droppers to mix watered paints onto coffee filters, we discovered it’s cool to look at these up near the light. At Christmas time we pressed bows and ribbons onto sticky paper (and off again), and one day dipped bows into glue and then stuck them to boxes, which we filled with colored tissue paper hiding surprise jewels. And all the time we are drawing on paper plates, together at the drawing table, on murals – with markers, cray-pas, pencils, crayons, colored glue and even sometimes ribbons on sticky paper.

Play and learning

On our walk Mieke stops along the way to ‘read’ a sign in a garden bed and Aditi wanders over to listen to her friend. Liam splashes with great delight at the water table, and repeats a word he has heard with the joyful force of the splash itself (S-P-L-A-A-A-A-S-H)! As we chant and rhyme and pause for the children to say the last rhyming word, Max responds with a syllable of his own (a staccato ‘P-A-H!’) in exactly the right place. Up in the loft, Dionysis works the rabbit-in-a-hat puppet for Benjamin to dance below; later guides him gently to the fridge, saying ‘come on Benjamin,’ and off they go for their lunch bags. On one of her explores, Leah picks up a ribbon, snaps it with hands on both ends and listens with pleasure at the sound she has just made. She does this over and over again. Her eyes twinkle as she looks up at the big person who smiles at her discovery.

When young children are happily engaged with and around others, they have significant language, musical, sensory, social, cognitive, and even early literacy experiences. As they play they delight in learning many new words and meanings. They have musical experiences, which are meaningful precisely because they are fun! While playing they may also learn of comfort and friendship to be found outside their families. Young children not only need to constantly explore physical properties of materials, but also to feel proud of their inventions. They begin to know what it is to be independent and confident. In these ways these young children build on the crucial learning begun at home with their first and most important teachers.