Judging children as adults.

4 year olds can be sophisticated, funny, articulate, creative & skilled negotiators but they are ultimately 4 year olds!

Last week Channel 4 showed a 'fly on the wall' documentary of a handful of 4 year olds as they settled into nursery. (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-secret-life-of-4-year-olds)  It was filmed over 6 months & edited down into an hour. 

As a nursery class teacher I loved it. I could see traits of some children in my current class in one or two of the children & could identify with many of the struggles the children went through. The programme was a pretty good reflection of all the personal, social & emotional skills that children learn at preschool. 

What I didn't like about the programme was the reaction of adults to a couple of the children in particular. I purposely stayed off the main social media sites during & after the programme as I knew there would be horrible things being flung about by adults about little children.

Those who unleashed vitriol on 4 year olds, showed themselves up. The children showed more maturity than that! These were 4 year olds, not adults, some may have only been talking in full sentences for less than 2 years & yet adults were judging their behaviours as unacceptable! As a nursery teacher, I saw inappropriate, rash, impulsive behaviour but nothing that wasn't perfectly acceptable for someone who had only been on the earth for 4 years or less! Anyone who spends anytime with 4 year olds knows they can be totally irrational & driven by emotions when it comes to decision making. It is perfectly ok. What people should have taken away from that documentary was how many skills the children had to develop or hone in a short time & what a crucial role the adult has in a preschool setting. We spend our time, especially in the first term, modelling how to negotiate turn taking, sharing resources, making friends, solving arguments etc. None of this just just happens, it has to be modelled over and over, all through the year but the payback when a child who previously snatched resources or cried when they wanted something, begins to use an egg timer for turn taking or verbalise why they want something so badly is well worth all the tears & tantrums. 

I hope that the parents who chose to allow their children take part aren't regretting this experience in light of the horrible reaction by some grown ups. It was a brave decision & most likely at times uncomfortable viewing for some, no parent wants to see their child in a bad light or being rejected by others. I hope they could all see the progress that had been made after 6 months as the children gained more skills in their journey to becoming valuable members of society.

As for the argument that it was an invasion of privacy as the children couldn't give permission, if people are going down that route then be prepared to stop all observations in preschool & put the cameras away. 

I think this programme should be seen as a valuable insight into just how hard working with preschoolers can be, it is messy, emotional & exhausting but when it comes together it is the best job in the world.

Please remember that we, the adults, should never ever look at a child & judge them as a peer. They are just finding their way in the world & need all the support & understanding we can muster. 

More importantly, never underestimate the negotiating skills of a 4 year old, there is a reason why most young children have their parents wrapped round their little finger!

I enjoyed this review from The Guardian of the programme (http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/feb/11/secret-life-of-four-year-olds-review)  - anyone who spends time with young children knows they really do have the best way of trading insults!

Outdoor Play Party - Crate Fun!

 

I have done a previous post on the wonderful crates I have in the playground over here but I felt it was time to write another post on these amazing resources!

I can't get enough of crates: milk crates, bread crates, shopping crates, you name a crate & I will find a use for it!

Our milk crates, now referred to as 'H' crates by Cosy have been a firm playground favourite for over 8 years now, they provide seating outdoors & the fact they are plastic means they can stay outside all year round. When not being used as seats, they are great for allowing children to reach up build higher towers or to gain access to their wellies. Lined up they make brilliant walkways & they can be stacked up to a maximum of 3 to make thrones. 

We now have several bread crates in use too, some for storage under the shelves in the mud kitchen, some for use with the bread crate dolley, the latter provides hours of fun as the children take turns pulling each other around the playground.

We also have one as a 'trampoline' in the forest area.

Then we acquired some of those green shopping crates from a well known supermarket. They are brilliant for climbing over & around & balancing planks to make walkways. These are also used a lot in my setting as storage for resources.

The best thing about crates is that they provide drainage so sticks & resources can stay outside without becoming sodden on wet days. 

My favourite post from the last OPP was from Jessica over Growing Inch by Inch - her post Sometimes I just Ignore the Children resonated so much with me & my practice. It was one of the biggest things I took away from a week I spent in a kindergarten in Norway - to step back from the play outside & allow the children to take ownership. Now our role in the playground is one of observers rather than actively teaching.

"Now it’s time for this week’s Outdoor Play Party. We would appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we’ll gladly further share your post on Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back. Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured.(If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the ‘featured at’ button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!"

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Living. Learning. Together.

This year my class are involved in a year long project funded by the Integrated Education Fund ( I.E.F) - Living. Learning. Together. with 2 classes from a local special school. Since November my class have been 3 times to visit our partner school, once to play together in their lovely new playground & twice to have music sessions with Jo Jingles & play together outside. This month we hosted a 2 day visit from our new friends & all the children (40 in total: 28 of mine & 12 from the other school) got the chance to work with a professional artist - Grainne Kielty from Artworks. 

On the first day Grainne made clay footprints with all the children to be made into an outdoor art piece for Bear Woods.

The children loved pressing a shoe or welly boot into the clay & then looking at the pattern it had made.

On the second day Grainne & the children made some felt, they loved this whole experience & we had a couple of students visiting that day who got totally involved too. 

As the clay footprints are staying in school we decided that each child would get a felt square to take home from the 2 day experience. 

The felt the children helped to make was cut into squares so each child can have one to keep.

Next month we will travel to the other school to work with Grainne again over 2 days to create some more fab artwork. 

It is always lovely to see the children playing together & at this age they are almost oblivious to the wheelchairs some of the children are in. They concentrate on the similarities rather than any differences, so they noticed children with the same wellies or coat or hair bands. 

We will be hosting our partners another day for a drumming circle & then our project will finish with a picnic in the amazing grounds of our partner school with all the parents invited along to see what we have achieved together all year.

Ice, ice baby!

I went back to work this week after almost 3 weeks off - my dad had taken ill suddenly & died within a week. Getting back to school was important to me but I also knew I needed to take time to make sure I was in the right place when I returned. Luckily working with 3 & 4 year olds is the best possible tonic for helping anyone get over a sad event.

The past few weeks we have lots of snow & because it was so cold most of it lay around for a few weeks. It was amazing to see the mud kitchen transformed by snow & ice - I was informed it was no longer a mud kitchen but an Elsa kitchen - the power of Disney!

The safety surface (I have talked before about the irony of it's name) is also so slippy & icy in very cold weather but this week it was coated in a thick layer of ice, so in parts where it is in the shade it reseembled an ice rink. It never ceases to amaze me how small children can run & jump on icy surfaces that most adults creep along on!
One of the tyre tops had come off & got frozen solid onto the ground in the snow, eventually after a week when it thawed out enough to lift it a perfect ice circle was left underneath.

Every tyre held a hidden treasure of ice & the children had such fun trying to get the shapes out as intact as possible & all the various containers around the playground had ice in them & as a lot of them were circles there were lots of ice pizzas on offer in the Mud Elsa kitchen.

Some of the children could have stayed outside for hours playing with the ice & water, it is always incredible how some never seem to feel the cold.
Because it was cold but dry we were able to go out again after lunch when it was a little warmer. (if it's wet it is not worth putting a second set of rain gear on the children for that 30 minute playtime).

The children has so much fun finding 'treasure' in the ice - cutlery, sticks, leaves, pieces of chalk, beech nuts, gumballs & hickory nuts. 

The biggest casualty in the icy weather is the Bottle Babies & many of them froze up then cracked but even these provided lots of fun as the children discovered if they stood on a cracked Bottle baby they could create a little spray of water.

I know I'm not meant to ever complain about the weather or have a favourite type but if I'm honest I love it when it's cold & dry!

Blood is Thicker Than Water.

How many times in life have you heard the expression 'Blood is thicker than water'? It is one of those stock phrases people wheel out at various times and I had never really thought about it until this past week. My dad, who was 80 last October but still working on a voluntary basis every day, took sick very suddenly on the 7th of January & was admitted to the ICU the following morning & died a week later. 

Over that week my mum, brother & I sat with him throughout the day & into the evenings. Initially we thought he was going to be ok but on the Sunday the doctors told us this was 'an end of life experience' for my dad. This is when the phrase became a reality for us, my aunts & uncles, cousins & in-laws all went into action & kept us company, fed us & offered support in any way they could over the next few difficult days as my dad got weaker & weaker.

Growing up I was surrounded by ready made playmates in the guise of my many cousins, we rarely needed too many friends at our parties as we had so many of them around the same age as ourselves. But obviously as we all grew up & got on with our own busy lives we didn't see each other just as much, the girl cousins on my mum's side have tried to meet up once a year for a meal, just to make sure we keep that connection but it has been a while since we were all together. 

My dad's sister has always been great at organising meet ups for us all at least once a year, I usually just get a phone call with the date & time & we spend an afternoon just chatting & reminiscing. 

Since the 15th of January when my dad passed away, the wider family circle again provided so much support for us all; from making teas, sandwiches & food for the many visitors & us during the wake to just being there for us to hold onto at the more difficult times. Sometimes it does take a sad occasion to make families pull together & this was certainly so true for us. I am truly blessed to belong to such a big extended family on my parents' side & on my husband's side. The latter have been through so much themselves in the past 6 months we had all become so much closer already.

I know my dad would be so happy to see us all pulling together, reconnecting & rekindling life-long relationships. So here's to family & I am truly fortunate to belong to one of the best. So a massive thanks to all the Woods', Murdocks, Collins', Buckles, Morris', McCartans, Hartleys, Corrs, O'Neills, Cannings, Kilpatricks,  Cullens & McAndrews for being there when you were needed the most. 

This post is dedicated to Desmond Buckle, a true gentleman & the best husband, dad, father-in-law, papa, uncle, brother & brother-in-law ever. October 19th 1934 - 15th January 2015.

Finding Colors in Nature - A Guest Post from Iceland.

I am grateful to my friend & colleague, Unnur, for sending me this little story about her class. 

1st Outdoor Play Party of 2015!

Welcome to the first Outdoor Play Party for a whole new year & here is to a 2015 filled with great outdoor memories.I hope that more & more teachers & parents realise in 2015 that good quality outdoor play does not require a massive space or loads of expensive resources.

Over the past 8 years in our current playground I have come to realise that children are happiest when they have space to run about, hide from adult eyes, have access to water, mud & sand & most of all have other children to interact with. We have had so much fun exploring 'Bear Woods' on a weekly basis for over a year now & yet, still after each visit, the 2 of us (the main staff) say to each other 'I can't believe how much enjoyment we all get out of that tiny space' - we are still amazed each visit by how a previously unused strip of land can provide us with such an incredible learning space.

A class of 28 children can spend up to 2 hours up here with little or no resources.

I was lucky to get the chance to give a short presentation at a Teachmeet in November all about how we had developed our wild/wooded area with the main school grounds & how this had led to the development of 'Bear Woods'. I hope that some of those listening were able to go back to their schools & look at pieces of underused land with new eyes & see the potential of it.

There is a great book by Claire Warden called 'The Potential of a Puddle', I think there should be a another one for schools to see how they can use the spaces they already have. 

A well used outdoor space - it's not pretty!

Our playground has evolved from being a clean, open, tidy space to become one full of different little areas for children to enjoy exploring. I love it when people visit & 'get' the space immediately, seeing all the play opportunities it offers. I think the best compliment it received was from Peter from Cosy, when he visited he observed that it felt like a much bigger space because of all the various areas created. It is always good to keep evaluating your outdoor space to make sure it meets the needs of the children currently using it, it never ceases to amaze me how each class interacts with the space in a completely different way - some years they spend a lot of time in the little house, other years on the slide, this year the class tend to spend a lot of their time in the mud kitchen, forest area & reading area under the slide.

And brings me neatly to the highpoint of 2014 for me in our outdoor play journey - the addition of our amazing mud kitchen.

Every setting needs a mud kitchen & a friend like Martin!

Thanks to Martin from Highway Farm Activity Centre & Adam (one of our parents) the nursery now has a deluxe mud kitchen in one corner of the playground. I will never be able to repay these 2 for their generosity but I hope they both realise just what an impact this area has had on outdoor play at Windmill.

Who knows what 2015 will bring but I do have plans to create a den in Bear Woods & hopefully another bigger willow den up their too. 

Here is to a great year spent outdoors creating more memories for a whole new generation.

There were lost of Christmassy posts linked up in the last OPP so no surprise my featured post has that theme - I loved this one from Little Steps on how they went to choose their Christmas tree, it was lovely to see the family exploring the tree farm before picking the one they wanted to take home & decorate. This seems like a lovely family tradition to create.

"Now it’s time for this week’s Outdoor Play Party. We would appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we’ll gladly further share your post on Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back. Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured.(If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the ‘featured at’ button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!"

An InLinkz Link-up