Play: Learning in Motion

I read in the Washington Post today about a preschool classroom in Arlington.  In the column, the teacher, Launa Hall, describes her struggles to teach reading skills to preschoolers while feeling guilty about not being able to allow them to play. The Pre-K standards she uses are doable in a play environment, but the mandated curriculum in which they are delivered, as we say in the trade, are not developmentally appropriate. The joy of childhood is a secondary characteristic, not a primary one, in public Pre-K programs. 

In our program, children are given multiple opportunities to construct their own knowledge. During our early morning, late afternoon, and outside times, when we set the environment for learning, they do just that! 

New York City

The picture above is New York City. Several children have been to New York recently, and, have parents who talk WITH their children, rather than down TO them. They come back to school with a fund of knowledge that flashcards and lesson books can't teach. If you look hard enough, you will see the Port Authority, and the Empire State Building. The builders were inspired by each other, and as an impromptu small group demonstrated their knowledge in the block corner. This whole enterprise was preceded by a flurry of drafting in the drawing/writing center. 

Design Team 

Our modeling of drawing, planning, and building all year contributed to this project, but the children did it on their own.

Hayride

We went on a hayride in October but children are still conspiring to create their own. These girls asked me for rope, but I didn't have any. I was at a loss on how to help them, but one of them "got an idea" and organized a committee to create a "hayride" out of a wagon, scooter and tricycle. They did it themselves, based on their own past experience playing on our playground, and interacting with us and other children.

After the snow, children wanted to create "plows". Here is a picture of their idea:

Snow Plows

The boy on the left has worked out that a Tonka truck with a tire and a seat on it, pushing a shovel, makes an admirable snow plow. The boy on the right is using his friend's idea to make his own plow. Children learn from each other, as well as from adults. Vygotsky explained this many years ago. The children learn within a social network. That network includes each other as well as their teachers! 

Our program is alive with discovery and design. Interactions with adults are frequent, and powerful,but not coercive.We "teach" through setting the stage, following the learners and enabling their ideas with materials and methods. A program for preschoolers needs to be rich in materials, ideas, and loving interactions with knowledgeable adults.Those adults must, daily, discuss among themselves where and how the children are going with their learning, knowing that math, language and science are inherent in children's interests. The children are on their own developmental train riding into the future. We need to climb aboard. 

Badges? Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!

On the left is a picture of a powerful symbol. I am not talking about police in the news, here. I am talking about a symbol of power to a four year old boy.

In a preschool classroom there might be one or more boys obsessed with superheros, police, firefighters, and the like. These same boys, these days, are also obsessed with guns, firepower, and other armaments. Boys will make a gun out of anything. The hardcore badge-and-gun aficionado will make badges out of paper and stick them to themselves. They will be listening for any mention of law enforcement, or the use of it, in any conversation or story. Was Goldilocks arrested for breaking and entering? If you (teacher) died, would they call the police?

I want to report on the marvelous path we have taken in our classroom to derail the guns/badges obsession, at least for a while. We are producing a newspaper. One early morning (between 7 am and 9 am) my teaching partner set several children up with clipboards and pens. She asked them to be reporters, to question other children about what they were doing, and to write "stories" (enter pretend cursive scribbling, here). The children, both boys and girls, ran around "covering" stories. "What are you doing under the loft? Who is there with you?"Certain children wanted to know if reporters had badges. We talked about press passes. Close enough!

A school mom, who works for The Post, came to share about her job. This is how we include families in our emergent curricular process, and it is a powerful tool. Her visit energized the children for the process of creating a newspaper.

I have always taught the elements of story as "who, what, when, where, why". I applied these questions to fairy tales, and asked children to write their own with creative results. How easily these questions, the basis of a good news story, fit our newest project. Granted, newspapers themselves are dying, to my grief, but enough of the children have parents who read either print or online Washington Post articles. When I brought in a bagful of them, they were attracted like moths to a flame. The children investigated how newspapers were laid out, how there were various type sizes and fonts, and that there were such a thing as comics! They cut out their favorite images, words, and, yes, comics, and pasted them to construction paper in imitation of layout. We had read about the various aspects of making a newspaper by reading the book, The Furry News. I had used this book several years ago at another school to make a newsroom out of the dramatic play area. Soon, with help, they began using developmental spelling to write headlines. Sue typed the first story, along with a child's headline. We plan to add stories, pictures, and headlines next week.

The badge/gun aficionados? They have been converted. They run for a clipboard and pen when they come into the classroom, instead of making paper badges. We hope to be in this for the long haul. Can you think of a better way to make reading and writing exciting?

Integration of Curriculum Outside

We didn't put the trash can and dry wall buckets out for drumming around the tree yesterday. Drumming wasn't set up, but cooking was. We have laundry baskets full of plastic dishes, and metal cookie sheets, muffin tins, and bowls, along with plastic and wooden spoons. All are adult sized (why use children's expensive toys when the children themselves prefer what adults use?). Somehow, while my back was turned, these items were purposefully laid out all around the bench that envelopes our tree. And the children were making music.

The four and a half year old girl on the left drummed a pattern, quarter note, quarter note, half, over and over. She told me it was a "pattern".

 Another boy found a bowl that sounded like a bell when he struck it. He was experimenting with the different sounds it could make, and comparing it to another item. His face was lit with joy as he struggled to find words to describe his discovery. My job, and the job of all teachers of young children, is to assist him in finding the words he seeks. (Kindergarten SOL's are cited here, to show that these preschoolers are on the way!)

Why did these little ones make music around our tree?

Because we had set the environment time after time for the pleasure of outdoor music making. With our hammock-like xylophone, our trash can and dry-wall buckets, our drum-sticks and shovels, we modeled the pleasure of rhythmic expression. Dancing and singing happen spontaneously.

Our playground is set up for such activities. The tree (shown before the bench was enlarged to allow tree growth), is a focal point for music, shows, hide and seek, and ball-hiding (in the crook of the tree), and other adventures invented by the children. The playhouses were constructed with cob (see earlier post) for the children to enjoy (and drag everything from toy trucks to old tires to dolls inside).

We talk about integrated curriculum constantly, now. Mostly it is discussed in the form of activities designed to teach certain skills and content areas. Some even integrate the arts. But children learn naturally by integration, and the job of the teaching staff is to scaffold (guide, then stand back) learning, including the learning of language and social skills. On our playground science, math, language arts, music and movement, and dramatic play all co-exist and intermingle through a carefully set variety of materials, with whole-hearted adult involvement. Children move at the speed of light (it sure seems that way sometimes) so adults need to think at that speed. Keeping ahead of their needs isn't easy (especially for a teacher of my age!), but to do otherwise is a disservice to the children.

I hear from my adult students about directors who do not allow materials that we use routinely because of safety concerns. I hear of teachers talking to each other teachers almost exclusively, occasionally shouting out admonishment to the children on my students' own playgrounds. I hear of my students' frustration when they want to try an idea from one of my courses (Northern Virginia Community College--Early Childhood) and then are shot down by an administration that prefers static playground equipment, with indoor worksheets and flashcards (inappropriate for early childhood). What a tragedy for children! Integration doesn't mean sticking two things together! It means that what is being done for children allows them to integrate organically! What better place to integrate curriculum than outdoors where the environment beckons?