Doll house in an old chest

Oooh.  An old chest.  I wonder what could be inside?

block car tracks take over preschool

What began as an average "let's build a car track" kind of morning in the block area took an unexpected turn - out the door.

"Let's go all the way to our lockers." they said.

 "Let's go all the way to the sandpit."  they said.

" Let's go to the big tyre." they said.

By now they had run out of blocks and were raiding the shed for wood planks and PVC pipe.

 "Let's go back inside."  they said.

By now they were down to rope.  They'd covered a lot of distance.

Pack up was fun, let me tell you.

Don't you love it when the children think outside the box - or the block area?

It's curtains for preschool

Nanna's curtains that is.

Strung up between two posts, they create an invitation to peek in and explore what lies beyond.  Or peek out of as you mix up your mud pies and enjoy that delicious sense of seclusion.

They create a statement in the cubby.

And blow gently in the breeze.

Next time you are at a thrift shop, check out the curtain section and see if you can't snap up some lace nanna curtains of your very own.

Use them for cubby making.  Hang them from the clothes line to create a child-sized space.  Drape them from the branches of a tree and lay out a blanket and some books beneath.

What have you picked up from the thrift shop lately that is getting a good workout?

it's playtime

Welcome to another week of  It's Playtime.   

Playful Picks

Simple, yet irresistible - have a look at this paper towel roll tunnel from Healthy Mama Info:

Meet my Partners in play:

Messy Kids,

The Imagination Tree ,

hands on: as we grow and

QuirkyMomma

What have you been playing this week?

Linking up is simple.

Primary school bans handstands. What next?

Photo Credit

And in a world gone completely mad, one Sydney school made the decision this week to ban handstands, cartwheels and somersaults unless "under the supervision of a trained gymnastics teacher and with correct equipment.''

But wait, that's not all.  Last week it was revealed that a Melbourne Primary School, had placed a ban on balls in the playground before and after school.

I spent my primary school years covered in mechurochrome from scrapes received on our asphalt playground, but that didn't worry me - or my parents - in the slightest.  In fact, we kids at Balgowlah Heights Primary School in the 1970's and 1980's wore our mechurochrome-covered cuts and scrapes with great pride and continued our handstand games of 'hey presto' without missing a beat.

A sprained ankle or a banged up knee seems a small price to pay for the sense of pride and accomplishment you get when you finally master a cartwheel.  

Not to mention the fact that you are moving your body, gaining confidence, building self-esteem, developing resilience, working on balance, strengthening and stretching muscles, developing co-ordination, taking risks and delighting in shared play experiences.

Increasing pressure from the cotton-wool generation of parents is backing schools into a corner and leading them to make decisions that would have seemed ludicrous a generation ago.  At the same time, here we are all wringing our hands and shaking our heads over the rise of childhood obesity in Australia.

Children can get hurt any time, anywhere - as can we.  That's life.  My youngest son broke his risk running into a wall at his school.  Do we ban running?  Walls?

What do you think?  Are schools being smart to protect themselves?  Are parents over-reacting?  How can we, as parents and teachers, protect our children's right to free, unstructured outdoor play?

And School Begins...

It is that season again when most school systems begin a new academic year.  We started classes at the university last Monday, but most of the public school districts in our area begin in the next few days.  I took the opportunity last week to visit my student teaching candidates as they were helping their site teachers with classroom setup.  The old "beginning of the year" excitement was very evident in every school I visited.  I remember that excitement well as I enjoyed setting up my classroom every fall for almost 25 years.  Later this week, I will meet with my candidates and begin our semester-long course on classroom management.  To me, effectively managing a classroom is the key to everything for the year.  A teacher cannot teach successfully, or children learn successfully, without an effective classroom routine.  Research tells us that it is the attitude of the teacher that is the key factor in teaching reading, math, and other academic subjects.  My job this semester is to model for my student teachers how human development should be the foundation of that classroom management.  Our educational system is so focused on academic teaching that teachers don't receive a lot of support for meeting the needs of their students using developmental principles. Those principles are the key to understanding how students function. It is not just early childhood children who should reap the benefits of developmentally appropriate practice. Understanding the developmental stage of a 9 year-old will be a tremendous help for the teacher in a fourth grade classroom. My job is to help my group of future teachers understand those principles.

Picnic in the dirt patch

A picnic blanket, pots and pans and a great big tub of wood chips by the dirt patch to welcome little picnickers on a sunshiny day. 

They collect, they scoop, they spoon, they fill, they mix, they stir, they experiment, they talk.

 They cook up a natural feast.

 

Lay down a picnic blanket, set out some old cooking utensils next to a patch of dirt and step back.  Hours of outdoor fun and play - it's that simple.