The many hops of hopscotch

It started with just two children, and within a short time it involved the whole group...
The idea was to get across the hopscotch in a new way... in fact it started off as challenges... can you get acros with only touching the yellow squares... the red squares? On one leg...?
Then the children started to come up with lots of their own ideas... they lined up and waited their turn... watching what others did to see if it was something that would inspire them, or something worth copying... or whether they should come up with yet another new idea... a little like a philosophy session... instead of listening with ears it was with eyes...
"What can they do?" How do they do that?" "can I do that?" Do I need to adapt that so I can manage?" "Do I need to adapt that to give myself more of a challenge?" "I like my idea, but do I dare do it?"
This might have been a physical activity but you could see there ws plenty of thinking going on...

And to imagine that one hopscotch could inspire so many different ways of getting across..

running, mini-jumps. marching, BIG jumps, hopping, selected colours, sideways, crawling, rolling, crawl of three limbs, cartwheels, bunny jumps... etc etc..

It was pouring with rain... so we were all rather wet by the time we returned for lunch... on the outside at least...

baking

This weekend I baked cinnamon buns with my children at home to celebrate the Swedish National Cinnamon Bun Day... yes, it exists... and yes, they are too yummy not to get in on the act!!

It is fun to bake with children... at the same time it can be rather stresssful... my children at home though are no longer preschoolers and are quite comfortable in the kitchen... they even make up their own recipes these days and have the confidence to give them a go... for instance Michael wanted to try out if just mixing flour and water would make bread... and he rolled them in small stick like shapes and we friend them in some butter... then he dipped them in pizza sauce... this is now one of his favourite quick fix foods!!

Today we baked at preschool... it is what we finally came to the conclusion of last Friday... but that is a whole other story, that IS worth telling, just not right now... it needs its own space...

Today I was feeling not 100% and just in case there was some mysterious sickness about to emerge I did not work with one of the scone making groups... I documented instead.

This is my first time not to be in the thick of baking with the children, and to just stand and be the observer... I found it really interesting.

What were we trying to do?

There seemed so many levels of learning, and so many levels of teaching that it was impressive to watch and at the same time mildly chaotic...

There is always the wish that the children are competent and can manage themselves... but here we are thrwoing them into something that is totally unfamiliar... especially in the preschool environment... where there is suddenly not the one to one baking opportunities of home, but the incessant waiting of turns... there is a LOT of waiting... even when there is only five children in a group (and sometimes at home, with twins, it was hard to wait just the two of them!!!)

So was this an exercise of turn taking?
Was this a time to test new tools out... because yes that happened... and it was wonderful, but it did add to the waiting time. Some children lots focus for a while, and then came back... some had problems with keeping hands clean... I mean just how determined do we have to be with clean hands... these young children were sticking them in their mouths and noses all the time... they were being sent back and forth to wash hands... I guess they did learn that have clean hands is important when cooking (and why) and they did realise just how often their hands ended up their noses without them realising... lol. So it was a time to learn about hygiene!!
Was this a time of math? yes we measured, we counted, we compared
Was this a time for literacy? Well yes, we had asked the children to look online for a recipe, using letters, sounding out together and finding a recipe to use... then all the words on the packages etc
Was this a time for enabling children to feel competent? - I actually don't know... yes partly, as they made something for their own afternoon snack, and yes, we tested out the recipe that one of the children thought it might be (milk and flour - they ended up very hard, heavy and compact - and did not impress the child who had suggested it - did this make her feel competent or not???)
Not many of the children actually liked the scones at snack time... how did that make them feel?
The actual baking itself required an awful lots of scaffolding... to enable turn taking, to spport how much of every ingredient.. really to enable the children to be competent, we need to do this often... like I have done with my own children at home... where my 13 year old daughters can cook meals completely on their own, and my 10 year old son cooks meals with my guidance (or my presence) - often the three of them will bake a cake or something together... but making something sweet is often rather satisfying for children, who I think often have a sweeter tooth than adults... so maybe our choice of scones was not right for this group of preschoolers? But being a sugar free preschool does not really leave you open to baking sweet stuff...

Maybe having a bread-baking group, just a small group, that get to practice their baking skills more often... then this group would become competent bakers, less reliant on the adult... But for now I have mixed feelings about baking with preschoolers in this way... yes, there was oodles of learning going on, yes the children had a marvelous time... but I just felt uncomfortable with the level of adult scaffolding... which was necessary to support the children in theis new experience at preschool... last time we baked it was December last year and we made pepparkakor (spiced cookies) - so Iguess maybe this baking experience will serve us well in consideration that December is fastly approaching once more... maybe we can hope that less fingers end up nostrils and in mouths?

So how often do you bake with preschoolers (in home/at preschool/ECE setting)
What do you think the main benefits are?
How much adult support is needed?

Play

I am sat here... looking at old posts about play, having watched old films of my children 8 years ago... where I interviewed them about their likes, their dreams for the future, where they would like to travel... and the many many songs they liked to sing for the camera...

I am thinking about the first week of the course about play that I have done... reflecting on my own childhood and the play that I participated in then...

How does that differ from that of my children? Time and space is what I have come to the conclusion...

I had so much time to play... to daydream, to interact with other children of diverse ages... we lso had space... I was lucky, there was a big field behind our house for play, I lived on a cul-de-sac so all of us that lived there had a free range of the street and each others gardens... and we knew the street looked after us... we knew there were eyes watching us all the time... some neighbours more than others... but there was still a freedom... we were inventive with our games...

But, as I was saying to my colleagues it is quite interesting to remember just how much our games evolved into chasing games - even when they started out as role-play. And this chasing is something I see my preschoolers doing a lot of... mostly as witches these day, but there are princesses, dragons, mummies and daddies all thrown into the game too... the chasing games being mostly prevelant when the older children are with (5 yr olds) the 3-4 year olds play in role for longer before the chasing starts, if it starts. The chasing being part of the outside play... and we are outside for an hour or two of continuous play every day at least once, often twice.

I also remember form my childhood how we would play the same game for weeks and weeks at a time... I see the same thing happening with the children I work with. I am trying to remember why we did that... was it because it was fun for that long, or was it because we were trying to fine-tune the play? Maybe both?

I also remember doing things like jumping of the top of the slide onto the lawn... I remember my mother's face frowning at me through the kitchen window... at the time I thought it was because I just told the lie that I was "Wonder Woman" and had super jumping abilities... but as a parent myself, I assume it was because she didn't really want me jumping off the slide in the way I did... But I was given the freedom and the space to do that... and I recall and think of all the things that could have gone wrong if I did not jump high enough to clear the railing... but my Wonder Woman powers got me though it... actually to be honest that was a great disappointment of my childhood... spinning and spinning and there never being a flash of light and the ability to turn into Wonder Woman!!!!! Talk about fantasy and reality blurring together... but that is something I think I have never really lost... and the reason why I cannot watch scary films....

Talking of scary films... I sometimes wonder if children these days are being exposed to more scary stuff earlier than when I was a child...

I have met 4 year olds terrified of computers becaue their parents had reassured them that Gollum wasn't real and was just made by a computer... I have seen a 5 year old stranglehold another child as they act out Star Wars (and remember none of the children I work with understand English... so they are not understanding the film in the same way as English speakers - as films here are not dubbed but have subtitles). I have had preschoolers talk about their fears of trolls and whether they need to stick a wand up its nose...
I wonder sometimes why preschoolers watch these sort of films? What is the rush?
And having older siblings does not have to be the excuse... my daughters watched the Harry Potter films without their younger brother, waiting until he was asleep, or spending the weekend with grandparents... they also hade to read the book first (well I read them aloud for them and we talked about the content)...
I wonder about the time children have to be small... the time they have not to experience these kind of special effects that make imaginationa even more real... especially when the blurr is so large that it makes it hard for children to understand what is real and not real... as it doesn't matter how much we as adults try to explain, it is still their personal reaction and experience that matters the most...

I remember hiding behind the sofa as a child when the music of Dr Who came on... the music was
enough to remind me that the programme had scared me... and I was not a preschooler then either...

this was "my" doctor as a child... and despite it terrifying me I still played daleks at school. Image from British First Edition Stamps

Maybe we are breeding thicker skinned children these days? Is that a good thing though?

Now I am beginning to ramble again...

Dancing on rainbows...

The children made plans to paint a rainbow in order to play on it when it was dry... (you can read about that here)

It certainly did become a magical place to play... especially when the overhead created rainbows on the floor and walls and even the ceiling... Tchaikovsky was requested as the music to dance to... The Nutcracker Suite and Sleeping Beauty proving to be the children's favourites at the moment (Swanlake not proving as popular!!)

The rainbow has also been a place for cars and animals to line up and travel on... each colour having its own purpose, from being an ordinary road, to super highway.
It will be interesting to see what other play develops here too.

wasting childhood...

My son and I were talking about school today...
He feels so frustrated with it... "Why do I have to go to school?"
I answer so that he can learn many things so that he can choose easier what he wants to be later in his life... he gets to experience many different things...

He looks at me... "but what is the point of wasting my childhood - its another 10 years before I am an adult"
My teenager daughters (excelling in school) aslo felt the same...

He carries on moaning about what is the point of having to sit all day and watch the teachers tell them what to know... what is the point of learning with others when they tell you all the time "you are doing it wrong" ... and it turns out that "I am not doing it wrong, I am just doing it another way"...

"Why do I have to do homework... I don't want to do school in my home... I want to relax then, I want to play"

As a parent these are hard things to swallow... partly because I see that this way of schooling is not a way that helps him thrive...
and also because it is not a way I agree with either...  I chose NOT to work in schools because I don't like the rigid way (even though there are many creative teachers) you have to stick to a curriculum that is one size fits all.

Here in Sweden it is illegal to home-school. I HAVE to send my son to school... to a system that does not teach the way he learns... to a system that expects you to behave in a certain way for the learning to be transmitted...
not a place for learning to be learned/explored/discovered... but one where the children are filled... read these pages from this history book, do your math this way (a completely different way from my childhood... which means there IS more than one way to do math!!!!!), follow the weekly schedule, eat lunch at this time (thankfully no longer 10:30 like it was last year), have a break at this time, and for this length of time...

I understand for a large school that all of this is necessary, at least in the way the schoolsystem works now... I also know that my son has wonderful teachers that are doing their very best for him and his classmates (who he naturally disturbs in his attempt of school/learning revolution). But I also realise that in their attempts to create the learning peace others need, they are also lowering my son's self-esteem... so how can the needs of all these children be met?
Because it is not working right now.... and my heart aches. He does his best everyday... and it is not enough... it will probably never be enough... BUT the peoblem is he is probably not seen as doing his best... I mean attempting to not call out and take space in the class is hard if that is exactly what you need for learning. The larger the class the less space others have then...

I see this with my preschoolers.... on the days when about half of the group is away there is a different kind of harmony... the children are seen more individually... which is not strange... no matter how great a teacher you are - giving individual attention to 3 children is much easier than to six children... and in a group of 12, even though we have a 1:6 ratio (excluding the support teacher) it does not mean that exactly six children will be vying for the attention of an adult... all 12 could be trying to do that at certain points of the day...
So, smaller groups means that the children have less peers to compete with to get the adult attention they need...
And yes, we strive for the children to be independant, to not need us... but it is very clear that we are important to them... I remember vividly as a child how incredibly special I felt when I got one to one attention from my teacher... or when parents joined in our games/play... I could see as a child how adults hold a power and if they talk to us then they are sharing that power with us... I felt empowered by being with adults... validated that they were interested in what I had to say and do...

As usual, my thoughts have roamed from one things to another...

Enough ramblings for the day... time to popthe cinnamon buns in the oven - its Cinnamon Bun Day here in Sweden, and my children and I have had a day baking together... a different kind of learning...

Rainbow Power...

On Wednesdays we work in two small groups...to see how the children want to play their ideas discussed during the philosophical dialogues on Tuesdays... this is done for several reasons

1. not all children communicate their ideas though verbal language... play allows another way to communicate ideas, and deepen understanding
2.  it allows the children to reflect another time on their ideas... a meta-dialogue, in smaller groups.
3. the children have expressed a desire to "decide" - so we wanted to make their decision making more visible to them (before we took their ideas and realised them, and though documentation we shared their particiaption and influence... this was obviously not enough)
4. we want the children to be able to make decisions together... to realise that making decisions is not just about doing what you want, but listening to everyone's needs and doing what is best for the group (one of the reasons why it is important to have small groups)

This Wednesday we had several children who were either sick or having a day off... and as we started the day we were just seven children - not enough to divide into our two usual groups of 6, as all the missing children were from one of the groups...

So we started our discussion... (I had planted a seed the day before that they might want to do something from the Rainbow Fairy book series, as it was obvious that although the children think a lot about good and bad, they did not find it very interesting to talk about, but they are totally engrossed in the Rainbow Fairy books at the moment - this seed was to give them the option that they had the power to change their minds, or to redirect the planning)

The children did not want to "play" bad powers... we talked about the previous day's philosophy session, but there was still little interest. There were several children that asked.. "when is the dialogue over?" - Which was very intriguing... are we doing the right thing getting the children to talk about and make dicesions this way... is it boring? Is it beyond their capabilities...? We reminded them that the dialogue was over as soon as they had decided what we were going to do... calm came agin over the group... the children were in power over how long the dialogue lasted...

Rainbow power as a theme was decided... but I pushed a little more... but how are we going to explore rainbow power...
one child said "puh-shushhhh" and waved her arms... we can make magic...
OK, shall we all say "puh.shusshhh" all morning... the children did this for a few minutes, laughing and joking... and then reflected that maybe something more should be offered as an activity..
Another child said
"We should paint a rainbow.... and when it has dried we should play on it"
ALL of the children nodded in agreement (this is a first for the whole group to agree so excitedly to another child's idea)...
I repeated the idea and suggested that while the rainbow was drying we could go the rainbow houses (the art constellation made out of reflective glass) and blow rainbow bubbles... the children were all in agreement...

There was time to use the toilet and wash hands after our sandwiches that we had eaten during our dialogue... and another child had joined us too... we were now eight children... making a rainbow was now not QUITE as easy as we no longer had one child per colour...

In this handwashing toilet time the plan of what to do was formed... I mean I was not exactly prepared to paint a rainbow... how could this be done in a fun, meaningful and playful way?

This is where the idea for  a huge rainbow painted with feet came into mind... how to make THAT work... a quick dialogue with colleagues... ideas bouncing back and forth... and a line of paint in an arch which the children could balance and squish with their feet was hatched...

We taped a HUGE piece of paper to the floor... with the idea that it lead into the shower so that feet could be washed...

The children took turns to walk a colour... the first orange colour was done with such wide steps that it made it possible for a second child to walk the orange line, and thus the problem of eight children and seven colours was resolved.

The children cheered each other on. It was truly a magical rainbow power moment.

from the paitning to the shower... we are lucky to have a shower connected to our atelier. I made a print from the tray which was the stepping stone into the shower...

Afterwards we went to the local art installation and played in the rainbow light... which I think I have more of a fascination for than the children (I am starting to really collect photos from the place... and of course this place is BEST when the sun shines... so we were really lucky with the weather)

Blowing bubbles and seeing the rainbow colours was also magical... about half of the children gave up blowing bubbles after a short time, preferring to chase and pop the bubbles that others blew... as part of a game.

bubble rainbow...

Today the children have played on the rainbow... and in the afternoon (when I was not with them) they put on the overhead and created rainbows on the wall as well as the floor.... wish I had been there to see that first rainbow excitement...
I placed the rainbow in the floor of the room with the overhead so that there could be that magical option of rainbow power... so glad it worked.... and I hope to be able to capture some of that magic tomorrow.

Children should be seen and not heard?

As part of the FLplay course I have been, naturally reflecting on play...

There was a comment about how children once were supposed to be seen and not heard.... and another about how there is less free play these days for children.... and suddenly there was a connection made in my brain... is the fact that we SEE children and HEAR children all the time impacting their ability for free play.? Suddenly there is no freedom to be children, to be who they are because we are monitering their every move under the good intentions that we see and hear them?

Were children better off being invisible... well at least part of the time...

Looking at the roots of the saying
"Children should be seen and not heard"... it becomes apparent that it was not intended for children, as much for unmarried girls/women..... "maidens"!!!

"In the original form of this proverb it was specifically young women who were expected to keep quiet. This opinion is recorded in the 15th century collections of homilies written by an Augustinian clergyman called [John] Mirk's Festial, circa 1450:

Hyt ys old Englysch sawe: A mayde schuld be seen, but not herd.

A 'sawe', was a mediaeval term for saying or proverb. It has the same root as the words 'say' and 'saga'.

While the expression was aimed at women, the Old English names denoting gender are now somewhat altered. A 'mayde' was normally a young female, usually unmarried, although it was also used to denote celibate men. Girls however, could be of either sex, the term simply meaning young child." Phrases.org.uk

Here on debate wise you can follow a thread where people talk about the yes and no's of children being seen and not heard...

BUT I wonder more and more, after reading these comments too... if the children felt that their childhood belonged to them and not to the adults, and that the adults did not want to know them or hear them... thus they had the time to create their own subculture/parallel culture? (as maybe the adult culture is the sub culture???)

I am not saying that we should start ignoring children again... but I am wondering how we can create that space for play... real, true, genuine play... that belongs to the children and not to the adults. As I feel that maybe adults, well-intentioned, are starting to claim play as their way of teaching... rather than understanding play belongs to us all, and it is something that should be understood and valued -  there again, there are far too many adults and institutions that do not TRULY value play at all... my head shakes and feels really rather sorry for these deluded people,
at the same time I feel sad for all those children, all those people that are raised in a society where play is valued so little.

The Daily Mail wrote an article about how 9/10 children were being included in family decisions whilst 65% of the parents admitted not to being included when they were children...

This could reflect the correlation between children a generation ago having more freedom to play going downhill in correlation with having more freedom to make decisions... or it could simply be, that children really have no idea about how much influence they have on everyday decisions... something I witness everyday... no matter how involved we get the children and get them to help make decisions about what we are doing, they STILL think adults make all the decisions...????? But is making decisions the same thing as having power... as being a part of a democratic society? I assume that it is part of what decisions the children get to participate in, and how it TRULY impacts their daily lives... and also what sort of space they have to play in... if there are more choices offered in a smaller space... is this really empowering the children?

Going back to the original meaning of the phrase... why is being female like being a child? Is this a sleight on being a child or being female? But THAT is for another post, methinks...

BUT I wonder if TV and playing on the i-pad is becoming the new "children should be seen and not heard"? That parents entertain their children so that they are not heard... so that they can get on with making dinner, cleaning, or whatever it might be?  BUT this is done in this smaller more confined space... the parents know where they are, they have done their job to keep them safe... but are the children empowered?

before children were expected to fill this time themselves with their own creativity... nowadays children have the time filled for them? Are we really SEEING and HEARING the children if we are filling their time like this? Is it just fake that we are seeing them AND hearing them? Are we as adults filling their time and justifying that this means they are being heard?

But being seen and not heard... must be different from genuinely listening to children; from actually understanding that children can contribute, that they have value in their words... that we need to hear their truths...

I am not saying we should stop seeing and hearing children... I am suggesting that maybe we need to re-assess how we fill children's time... how we give them space... and how we really listen.