Different Types Of Play

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Thanks for coming last night, everyone. I love talking Kindergarten shop and am available to continue the rich conversations around child development. As mentioned yesterday, play is at the centre of what we do. Social relationships, self regulation, communication, learning new skills, integrating all the "subjects" into a meaningful authentic way for each and every student; play is yay.

Here is a list of different kinds of play, what the child is seeking through it, and how we can provide materials to meet those needs. While this chart doesn't speak to the different sensory types, it is heavily grounded in the idea that we seek out certain sensory inputs in order to achieve calmness. It is our jobs as the adults to ensure the choices students make are resulting in calm minds and helping them become aware of why they do what they do.

What Block And Why?

I constantly put out too many things and the students end up overwhelmed and none are used. So every student chose 1 block and had to explain why that one. When we justify our reasoning, there are no wrong answers, just opportunities for us to share our thinking. And opportunities to accept our differing points of view. Kindergarten is the best! 

While students had to: 

1. Communicate with others in a variety of ways, purposes, and contexts. 

some also, naturally: 

17. Describe, sort, classify, build, and compare 2d shapes and 3d figures. 

and

24.4 select and use tools, equipment, and materials to construct things. 

Here's what we heard: 

"car. plane. slide."

"I love it. I build in my room."

"I can put so much blocks on top of it because it is big."

"It looks like a bow."

"It makes a bridge."

"small and not heavy."

and

"It's really watery." 

Co-creating Our Classroom

We sorted and labelled...until next week. 

Reminder: no school on Monday. 

Students Drive Our Learning

"Why do we have bones?"-student

There's a book for that. Let's find out. 

Kids want to play together

We met in small groups to discuss what friends do and don't do. Almost everyone mentioned the word "play" as something they looked for in a friend. And almost everyone mentioned that it was rude to be told "you can't play". 

So for ages 3-6, lets play, be happy, and develop relationships. We adults could stand to carve out some playtime too. 

Bus Safety Day

Avoid questions. Make statements. "That bus looks big." "There are rules on the bus.". Our kids learn early how to pass our questions/tests. Statements open up a conversation and get to their real thinking. 

"How was school today?" "Good." 

Not tonight. 

Fair/Unfair

It is never to early to start on social justice because our students have an innate sense of what is fair and unfair. 

Students were asked "what do you see?" (sometimes directing their eyes to the boxes) and "do you think it is fair or unfair? Why/what makes it fair/unfair?" 

Students had to 

1.2 listen and respond

5.1 respect others POV 

12.2 communicate ideas on media

and begin to

27.1 develop strategies for standing up for oneself and others 

"The people saying beautiful things to the players."

"The small one can see now"

"Unfair, little one can't see, big ones can."

"Unfair, he gets 2 box, he gets none box."

"Fair. I don't know." 

"3 can see now". 

What seems unfair is sometimes fair and what seems fair is sometimes unfair. Our classroom will feel like this from time to time because we all require different number of boxes in order to see the game. 

You may hear "We learn together. We teach each other." tonight.