Child's Play

Child's Play

Do you have trouble playing children's games? I do! Even when I was a child I had a hard time getting into my peers games. So when I got to be the teacher playing Hide and Seek with the kiddos today, I had to do a quick internal pep talk of some of the academic and social benefits of the game so I could be genuinely enthusiastic:

• Engaging in a group activity
• Suggesting and agreeing on a set of rules
• Waiting for a formal start and end to the activity
• Planning and prediction when choosing a hiding space, or seeking a hider
• Navigating new terrain and pushing past new textures
• Counting by 1's, 2's, and in Spanish

I enjoyed myself so much that I almost lost track of the time!

It was so good to see the community work together during circle time to support a student who was using clear language and appropriate boundary-setting tools with a friend who was pestering her, and to also offer support and suggestions to the student doing the pestering.

During story tag, we got to see the speed boat vignette begin its evolution into more complex storyline, and Teacher Janet had the chance to do a little coaching on the challenges of waiting to be picked by peers. This is tough, since students waiting for a turn are experiencing both the expected fairness of waiting for their turn, and the social dynamic of peers choosing their most familiar friends first. We will be working on this from both directions as we continue the story tag format for a few weeks!

After class, the joyful chaos of a Valentine's Day card exchange was finished off with a solid dose of dog poop on gear, but this is a farm-based school, after all. What would class be without a little muck to clean up afterwards?