Cardboard Tennis
Today the children wanted to play tennis. They had 2 small soft rackets but no balls to play with. We tried to look for the ball but it was no where to be found. So I decided to ask them what they think we can use to play instead of the ball to see what they would come up with. The decided to look around the yard for objects that can be a replacement for the tennis ball. The first thing they came of with was woodchips. They tried to hit the woodchips with the racket to pass to their friend however, it just kept falling to the ground. “It’s too small!” “We need to find something else” the children said. So we decided to take another stroll around the yard to see what other things we could find. Next the children found some rocks they can use. They tried it a few times and it worked however, they soon realized the rocks were really hard and could hurt them when I asked them if they thought the rocks were safe to hit around with the racket. After that, the children found a small piece of scrunched-up cardboard on the ground, “maybe this could work” they said, and they decided to try it out. This time it actually worked! It was just the right size, not too hard, and they were able to hit it and pass to the other play. They played this for a while and decided it was it was time for something different.
What color is the sky?
We were playing hide and seek tag with about 4 children, and we all got tired of running around and all the movements so we decided to take a break to sit on the edge of the woodchip area. It was a very beautiful day today, the sky was blue(at least to me), and there were some clouds in the sky. As we took our rest time, we looked up in the sky and a child asked, “Why is the sky blue?” My answer would have been “because it is a beautiful day today!” which would technically not be the right answer, and the conversation would have probably ended there. Instead, I decided to direct the question to other children to see what they would come up with.
Marvelous: “Why is the sky blue Danika?”
Danika: “I don’t know”
Memphis: “Maybe because a cat died in it”
Marvelous: “So when a cat dies, the sky turns blue?”
Children: “Yeah!!”
This answer was one answer I never expected. There is a myth that is told in Japan which goes, it rains because the sun is crying, it’s sunny because the sun is happy, and it thunders because the sun is angry. Somewhere inside of me was expecting this type of somewhat “cute” answer which was why I was surprised with the answer’s the children gave. I wanted to know more so I asked a few more questions.
Marvelous: “What if a dog dies? What color does the sky turn into?”
A child: “White!”
Calum: “No it turns into…..ORANGE!”
Marvelous: “Well when a horse dies, what color does it turn into?”
Calum: “White!”
Marvelous: “What about when a gorilla dies?”
Memphis and Calum: “It’s black!”
Marvelous: “Why is it black”
Calum: “Because it’s(gorillas) dark”
Marvelous: What if a frog dies?
Children: “It turns GREEN!”
I started to notice a pattern in the children’s answers. I would assume they were associating the colors of the animal with the color they think the sky would turn into if the animal dies. Another thing that fascinated me was that they were thinking with the concept of death in such a fun and casual way. Is this because they don’t truly understand the meaning of death yet? But to be honest, we as adults knows what it means to loose someone because of death but I don’t think we fully understand what death is like, yet we get frightened by the topic and even try to avoid it at times. Before guidance class, whenever I heard children talking about guns, death and blood, I would stop them because 1) I don’t like the topic, 2) I thought children don’t have to think about things like that(sad/scary things). But I now know that instead of being like “NO GUNS! NO DEATH TALKS! NO BLOOD!”, engaging in a conversation by facilitation allows room for children to use their imaginations and creativity to think, discuss and see each other’s ideas and way of thinking which I believe is an important and useful skill to learn.
White vs Peach, Black vs Brown, ….and peach-brown too
Following the color of the sky discussion, we began to talk about skin color. A child mentioned that I had a brown face. And I asked him what color face he has then he answered “peach”. Most of the children in this daycare would be considered a white person based on the world’s view of race and ethnicity which was why I was expecting “white!”. However, I found out that these children answered based on the the color they can see and not ethnicity. We began to talk about the other educators and children’s skin color when we noticed one of the educator who’s origin is from India. I asked the children, “what color face does Ms Aperna have?” The children paused for a while but later answered “peach-brown!” which I believe was to describe the color that’s in between peach and brown(like darker than peach but lighter than brown).This is one skin color description I had never heard before and I was marveled at the answer. Another child joined us in on our conversation after a while. Hearing the other children’s conversation, this child strongly argued that their skin color was not peach but white, and mine black instead of brown. I asked the child why he thinks so and he says, “because my dad told me so”. This made me to realize how effective parents teachings and opinion are and made me to think, what if more parents taught their children about sharing and kindness and biting and using of words instead of hands? Would this help the children to have less big emotions and also relieve the educators at daycare of stress they would go through with guidance and conflict resolution?
Kick-hand-base
I noticed a pattern in children’s play. Once I come into the yard, they ask to play hide and seek. One problem with that is there are no more places left to hide. So I decided it was probably time to introduce a new game. I taught the children how to play kick base but by hand, so more like hand base. This is pretty much baseball but without the complicated rules, bats, gloves or uniforms, only logs used as bases, a piece of bark, and 6 children grouped into 2 teams.
Rules:
Group A starts from home base while Group B starts from within the court.
When the first player in group A throws the stick into the court, Group B’s mission is to prevent group A from getting back to home base, get the stick and bring it to home base, while Group A runs through all 3 bases back to home base.
The rules were simple yet may have been a bit challenging for children ages 3-5 to quickly get the hang of but we kept trying to figure out way to understand better.
When we played this game the first time, the children seemed to like it but had little understanding of how the game worked which was why half of the game was me explaining and re-explaining from time to time. Soon, they started to understand the part where they have to bring the stick back and run through all the bases.
The next day, a few children came to ask if we could play this game again and I was a bit surprised as I never expected them to come back to want to play this game because I felt them not fully understanding the game would prevent them from enjoying it. This time, the game went a bit smoother as the children remembered the rules from the previous day and even more friends decided to join. When we first started the game (the first day), we had 2 friends on each team making 4 friends in total however, this time we had 4 friends on each team making 8 friends in total.
I honestly do not think we went anywhere with this game yet but I was glad to be able to introduce something new to them
Learning how to balance
We ran and played tag and race all morning and unlike the children, I was feeling out of energy so I suggested to them that we played a calmer game. There are some logs and stumps lying in the daycare yard which we once played statue on. One of the friends remembered this game we played previously and suggested that was what we should play. Statue is a game where one person stands on this log or stump and stays still like statues. If they move, the next person gets a turn. We played this for a while and I decided to be a balancing statue standing on one foot with my arms in the air. That was when one of the friends askd, “can you teach me how to do that?” This question led to us transitioning from playing statue to learning how to balance on logs. The log we played statue on was very flat which made it very easy to balance however, it was a bit too high for the children to climb up by themselves. There was a shorter log laid side ways nearby which was a bit difficult to balance but we dicided we would learn how to balance on that instead.
The first few tries were not a pleasant one for the child as she kept falling off even though I was holding her hands. Never the less, she insisted on trying again and again even after falling about 10 times. Soon, I started to get worried because I did not want her to get hurt or injured, but at the same time, I did not want her to stop trying just because of my fear of her falling.
On about the 15th try, she started to be able to balance on her own without my support for about 5 seconds. It gradually increased to 8, 10, then by the end of play time that day she was able to balance for 20 seconds without support and without falling! I learned the resilience of children, how we as educators often let our fears get in the way of children trying something new, but one thing I still would like to learn more about is how to balance risky play with safety.
Let’s make a house!
It was a cloudy day and children were in the yard figuring out what to play when they noticed big cardboard pieces from opened packages laying on the ground. They decided they would build a house. They began by leaning one long cardboard against the table to create a wall of the house but soon they realized it was not strong enough for the wind. Then, they found 2 logs to put behind the cardboard wall to make it stand better. The wall stood! But they seemed to not be satisfied with just one wall in their house and decided to add another, and another. As the house started to come together, more and more boys wanted to go into this house but there was just one issue. The house was too small for 5 boys! It was time for expansion. The boys joined hands, went to gather more cardboard, more logs and any other material they needed. Soon, there was an entrance (with door), a bedroom, and a yard, and more areas of the house was still under construction. Just when more boys came to help out with the expansion, the educator told them it was time to clean up as those cardboard pieces were meant to go in the trash and not to be played with. They boys had to dismantle their house and help clean up the cardboard for trash.
Tic-tac-toe
A random thought came to my mind a few days before the beginning of practicum which was: Do children know how to play tic tac toe? I decided to investigate. We were playing hide and seek when I and the 2 children I played with got tired and decided to take a break. We sat on the low barrier that divided the woodchip section and the ground section when we noticed colorful chalks laying on the ground and I remembered the random thought I had. “Do you know how to play tic tac toe?” I asked, “Yeah, let’s play!!” I was not expecting that response because I had assumed tic tac toe was complicated and may be a bit difficult for young children to play without knowing there are some young children (like the children at my center) who are very good at it. I played a few times with this girl however, I could only win once….it was an unexpectedly tough game for me. I asked the child how she knows how to play and her reply was, “I play it with my mom”. This made me to wonder how the mom was able to explain the rules to her daughter so well to the point where I could only win her once.
Rollie-Polly
Today we saw a rollie-pollie all rolled up in a blue bucket at the black top area. The children were curious to know what it was. I told them it was a rollie-pollie that it is rolled up and that if they wait to see, they may probably be able to see it unroll and move around. The children and I patiently waited for the rollie pollie to unroll itself and after a few minutes, it did! The children were excited to see the rollie-pollie moving around. More children began to gather round the blue bucket to see this insect and some children even tried to touch it and when they did, the rollie pollie rolled back up. They waited again for a while and it unrolled again! This time they watched it carefully.
A new play equipment in the yard!!
A transformation happened in the daycare yard. The dirt area turned into a grassy ground, and more play equipment like teeter-totter arrived in the new yard. All the children were very excited to play in the new yard(I was too!). One of the play equipment that arrived in the yard was a triangular climbing equipment where the children get to climb from both sides, one side being like a rock climbing wall and the other, a ladder and a slide surface with a rope. It was easy for most of the children to climb up from the ladder side and the rock climbing side however, some children found it difficult to climb the flat surface using the rope, even though they really wanted to do so. A child asked me to hold her up while she tried to climb up using the rope however, she kept falling because she was relying/leaning on my hands that was holding her instead of using her body strength and the rope to climb up. I tried to show her how she could better climb up but she did not understand what I was trying to tell her because I was not able to show her on the equipment(as it is not meant for adults to climb on). As I was looking for a better way to explain by using my rounding up my back, and bending my arms and legs, another child(P) came along to show the girl how she climbs up this wall using the rope. I decided to use this opportunity to take pictures of every step of the girl’s climb such as where she puts her arms and legs, how she moves up and other details. After this girl(P) climbed all the way up to show the child, we all looked at the pictures I took of her while climbing.
Seeing this, girl(A) decided to try again however, she was still unable to climb up. As she kept trying, more and more children began to gather around this equipment wanting to try climbing up this steep hilly wall. They all tried it at first and all fell. Each time they would fall, they would ask me to show them the pictures I took of the girl who made it to the top and we analyzed where her arms and legs were, and how she curved her body. After seeing this most of them gave it a few more tries and reached the top!…except for the girl who first began the challenged. She ended up letting it go for today but maybe she would like to give it some more tries next time and hopefully get to the top.
The talent show
There are a few logs and tree stumps lying in the yard. I got an idea to use that as a stage as we usually just use it to play the balancing game. I did a simple twirl like a ballerina on the stump and asked the children to show the group what they can do too. We started this play with about 3 children and within 5 minutes, we now had about 6 children all together. Some sat next to me as audience, some sang original songs, danced and some even did both! The children seemed to have really had fun with this play that they asked me to play this game again at each play time we had this day and the next.
Dance Battle!!
The children and I came up with a new game to play in the yard today and we called it the dance battle game. This actually emerged from from the talent show play that we did previously, but this time, the rules were dancing only. The friends began to show their best dance moves to the group and gave each of their moves cool names some of which were called “The wave”, “Ballerina”, “Clapping my hands” and many others. At first, I just stood as a supporter and audience for all the dancers where I cheered them on and said encouraging things about their creative moves, then after they went a few rounds by themselves, they challenged me to battle with them with my best dance moves. I showed them all my cool moves as an experienced dancer, and they were very excited and happy. We all began to cheer and watch each person’s moves and took turns showing our dance moves as well.
A child called me “ugly”
During nap time today, as I was trying to put a child to sleep, he told me he didn’t want me to rub his back as he slept(which we normally do for all the children) because I was ugly. I was very shocked to hear that as this child has been nice to me and does not usually act mean with other children as well(except for being rude to educators but only sometimes). I asked him why he thought I was ugly to know what made him say so. “Because your hair is ugly” said the boy and I wondered to myself, what makes braids ugly? Was it because it is different from the kind of hairstyle he sees people around him have? I told the child that I don’t think my hair is ugly, I love my hair, and that it made me sad when he called it ugly. I also made him to notice that the color of my hair is gold which is similar to the hair color he has and that the difference was that mine is braided while he’s was straight, and mine was long while he’s was short. After hearing my words, the boy seemed to have understood my point and said sorry to me, then he began to call his hair ugly! I immediately told him that that was ABSOLUTELY not true at all and that he is very handsome(which he was) and he should be proud of his hair and himself because he has a very special hair color and style. He agreed with me and allowed him to rub his back to sleep.
from this experience, (I kind of viewed it from a larger perspective and ) I thought, maybe we also as adults do this too sometimes, where we condemn, dislike or call things or people we are unfamiliar with, ugly. If only we would try to find out a bit more about this thing or person, maybe we would have been able to see another side of the story.
Animal guessing game
The children and I came up with another outside game today called the animal guessing game. The rules are very very simple. Just as the name, all we do is guess the animal by the way the presenter moves their body but we can’t make sounds and noises, only movements. The children enjoyed this game and soon, what started with as a 3 children game increased to become a 6 children game. Everyone took turns to present their animal while everyone else guessed the animal.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
I had this discourse that(just like tic tac toe) little children can’t play rock paper scissors because the rules are a bit complicated. However, after running around the yard for some time and we decided to take a break, I just asked the children “Do you know how to play rock paper scissors?” Half of them(about 2 out of 4) answered, “Yeah! Let’s play!” and the others, “I wanna play too!” I was surprised but immediately began to teach them the rules in the best way I thought and could. “Rock smashes scissors, scissors cuts paper, and paper eats rock” I did not expect them to understand just like that but they replied with “GOT IT!” and because there were a few children that could play, I decided it was time to give it a try. We played a few times, and we kept on playing! It turned out, my assumption was wrong and children(in this case, 4-5 year old) are capable of playing this game.
So many things I assumed have turned out to be just assumptions since I began practicum which is an eye opening experience and an invitation for me to re-see and re-think some things.
The lemonade story
I brought a lemonade(with turmeric and ginger) today as part of my lunch. A child saw it and asked what it was. I told him, and he told me he wished he had lemonade too. I suggested he asked his mom to get him some lemonade then he says, “Well my mom never get’s me lemonade” I asked why and he says he doesn’t know. I then suggested his dad gets him lemonade the he says, “The store would be closed when my dad comes home” I then asked if he had any siblings. He told me he has an older brother named Derrick and he is years old. So I asked, “Would Derrick get you lemonade?” Then he says, “He’s old enough to go to the store but maybe he doesn’t know the right one to go to” I wasn’t really sure where to take this conversation to so I ended it by saying, “Why don’t you try asking him and maybe he’ll get it for you”
The next day, I decided to ask him about the lemonade, and he said he’s brother bought it for him at Seven-Eleven. I don’t really know why but I was really happy to hear that he was able to get what he was longing for and his worry about his brother not going to the right store was resolved!
Even though this conversation did not really go anywhere, what I picked up was sticking around and listening to children’s stories instead of cutting it short or not paying attention can allow me to know more about the child that I may not have known by just going through daycare routines with them. This is something I would really love to keep up and continue because I believe it also creates space to build trust and the children to find me as their safe space to open up to. In one of the theories we learned in class last semester, there was a quote that went like “Every child needs and adult who is crazy for them” This stuck with me very much for some reason and made me feel like I want to be that person for the children that will be under my care.
The race
“Can we play race?” The children asked when we arrived at the black top(concreate play area where children can play with toys with wheels like bikes, cars and busses).
Shin-Sonic
We went on a ranch today!!
The idea of bringing a book outside worked great!
Conversation with mentors
- Discipline
- Children on spectrum
- Parental teachings