The best position for listening

Yesterday I wrote a long post about my reflections on philosophy with children and about my groups need to return to pre-philosophy...

Today I did just that... and I am so happy I did... because we all enjoyed today's session so much and We ALL had such great focus.

I started the session by saying we would be doing the bubble game at the end... which is a listening game... you can read more about that here
This is such a popular game that the children who have not wanted to focus and have chosen to disturb other visibly sat up straight as to show me, yes I am ready to listen to others...

Interestingly today's philosophical exploration was "How do you sit to enable you to listen better?"

Last week I took a photo of one of our chairs, which I fixed to make it in a background mode to allow the children to draw on and so their drawing would be prominent (just changing the exposure of the image).

The children drew themselves sitting in a position that would help them to listen well... they moved to three tables to be able to find the space to draw and concentrate (I had written on the back of each photocopy their name.... so they looked for their name, stood at the table, as the chairs were in a circle for the dialogue, and then turned over the paper to draw)

We then looked at all the positions together and sat like them in our chairs... most tended to show themselves with their hands on their knees

THEN... I got crazy on them... I wanted this to be fun...

How do you sit so that it is really hard to listen... be as crazy as you want - and oh, I kind of mentioned that I would be getting their parents to sit like this during the next parent meeting and taking a photograph of them...

We then gathered back together and then tested out some of the positions... and yes they made it hard to listen or participate in a philosophical dialogue... and we had GREAT fun testing them all out

Once we had tested out the position we quickly moved into the bubble game... where the children proved just how great they are at listening, taking turns and self control... not always easy, and needed some suppport some times, but without a shadow of a doubt this is a great way to practice listening and turn taking and not least self-regulation.

I have a new colleague in my team as there has been a re-organisation in the preschool. And it has been great to hear how my colleague was equally excited about the benefits of the bubble game...