Ò»±¾µÀÎÞÂë

December 2024: Exploring Games

Family time during holiday visits and winter vacations is a fantastic time to engage children in game play, so this month’s article focuses on the benefits of exploring games. Card games and Yahtzee were my childhood family favorites, and I’ve explored many more with my daughter and granddaughters.

Game play invites children to master skills in all domains, which enhances both self-esteem and independence. Game playing fosters interaction and cooperation because many games involve direction following and turn taking. Team games involve cooperation and peer support, as well as a chance to learn sportsmanship. The more children play together, the better they understand other children’s points of view, demonstrate empathy and caring, and develop conflict resolution skills. As children interact during games, they learn communication skills to describe their play, negotiate rules, plan strategies, etc. Their vocabulary increases as they learn words for new objects and actions in a variety of games. Children’s game play provides many opportunities for strengthening cognitive skills that support discovery and exploration. Attention, observation, memory, and problem solving are enhanced as children develop and test game playing strategies. During game play, children’s physical capabilities are often challenged, which builds both small and large motor skills naturally. Increasing physical prowess builds self-esteem and enables greater independence in play, which also gives children opportunities to learn how to control themselves and their bodies so that everyone can play safely. There are even games that support the growth of artistic expression & appreciation because they involve acting, drawing, etc.

Educators and parents can support game play using the full range of teaching strategies. Of course, direct instruction is necessary for learning the basic terms and rules of play, but more of a coaching approach is useful for discussing strategy options and helping children to consider which to use when. Exploring game variations and creating novel games invites children to negotiate standards of play and perhaps adapt the rules to specific contexts or players. Even open-ended discovery has a role in strengthening children’s game play, particularly when trying strategies for pulling blocks safely out of a Jenga tower or trying different levels of force when throwing a ball. By providing children with space, opportunities, materials, and appropriate scaffolding for their game explorations, we can encourage children to experiment to find what works best and then practice to master the skills and strategies for effective game play as individuals and while working as part of a team.

During the winter months, consider the games you have available and ways you could invite children to both participate in more traditional game play and invent their own games. Matching and memory games are very easy to make from everyday materials. Marbles, dominoes, and cards can all be used in diverse ways by players of all ages, so start by teaching some of the simple, common games so that children are comfortable with the basic possibilities. Then suggest that they make their own versions of the games to play with their peers or families. If you have a safe indoor space to play with soft, small balls, such as ping pong balls or Nerf balls, children can have lots of fun exploring ways to toss them though hoops or into containers, while inventing different point systems for distance or accuracy. Through it all, emphasize playing a “good game” by trying your best, playing fair, and playing safe. That way, everyone wins!

November 2024: Exploring Nature

Our theme for this year’s Director’s Corner articles is Why Explore?

Open-ended exploration of materials in diverse spaces promotes inquiry that starts with noticing interesting features, wondering about cause / effect relationships, thinking of possible explanations and testing them, and then learning from the outcomes. Nature provides engaging opportunities for children’s self-initiated discovery that blossoms into interests that children are motivated to pursue, both on their own and with the guidance of educators who are prepared to involve them in more systematic inquiry and deeper learning from books, experts, and other sources. We scaffold with the prompts, “I notice ___, I wonder ___, I think ___, and I learned ___” to support children’s use of the inquiry process and then introduce the formal scientific vocabulary.

Richard Louv’s 2005 book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder” aims to encourage discussion of “the increasing divide between the young and the natural world, and the environmental, social, psychological, and spiritual implications of that change” (p. 2). Since our educators read that book fifteen years ago, we have worked purposefully to include nature in the classroom, focus more on “nearby nature”, make our school more “green”, and improve our “outdoor classroom”. For example, our classrooms now include more plants and a few pets, we take more walks on campus and in Schenley Park, we have broadened our recycling and composting programs, and we have added more natural elements and gardens in our outdoor space. Both Ò»±¾µÀÎÞÂë and the city of Pittsburgh have supplemented our efforts with their own steps toward “green urbanism”. One result of these efforts is that this fall our children and educators have had opportunities to observe diverse songbirds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, and even a deer on or near our playground. Nature at its best!

With nature explorations, our educators utilize the full continuum of teaching strategies, from encouraging open-ended discovery, to modeling and coaching inquiry, to direct instruction. For example, our “mud kitchen” on the playground invites free exploration for all ages, Preschool 4’s class participates in caring for our “worm farm”, and the PreK/Kindergarten class used the pumpkins provided to each child by the Facilities Management team for a “pumpkin palooza” of math and science inquiry. The teachers respond to children’s questions and supplement the group experiences by sharing non-fiction nature books, showing time lapse video sequences or web cams of natural habitats, inviting experts to talk with the children, etc.

Why do these efforts matter? During nature investigations, children have opportunities to progress in all developmental domains. For example, nature explorations help children gain confidence in their skills and foster initiative (Self-esteem & Independence), encourage peers to support each other’s ideas and negotiate plans (Interaction & Cooperation), provide rich topics of conversation and contexts for recording observations (Communication), provoke inquiry with diverse opportunities to compare, sort, and quantify (Discovery & Exploration), build skills for controlled movement and use of tools while managing risks (Physical Capabilities / Health & Safety), and inspire children to both perceive and create beauty (Artistic Expression & Appreciation).

Remember, exploration is more about noticing, wondering, and predicting than about knowing all the answers. So, relax and venture outdoors with your family. You’ll be amazed at what you can discover together!

October 2024: Why Explore?

Early childhood educators utilize a broad continuum of teaching strategies to facilitate children’s learning. For example, at the beginning of the school year, we directly teach one hand-washing strategy with an accompanying song so that all the children learn the “best-practice” procedure, but we invite more open-ended discussion to negotiate the classroom meaning of “be a kind friend”. Also, we provide multiple opportunities in the context of dramatic play, block building, sand table exploration, playdough creation, etc., for children to discover ways to interact effectively with their peers, all with the support of adults who model appropriate behaviors.

The same continuum of strategies applies to our support for learning in all developmental domains, including self-esteem & independence, interaction & cooperation, communication, discovery & exploration, physical capabilities / health & safety, and artistic expression & appreciation. We use the more “teacher-directed” strategies when they are efficient and effective for learning facts, rules, techniques, and other procedures. Discovery approaches via play and other open explorations are very useful for helping children notice interesting features of the world, themselves, and others, observe cause and effect relationships in the physical and social spheres, and begin to ask questions about how things work. Such discoveries serve as “preparation for future learning” in that they spark interest and build experience that serves as a foundation for inquiry activities that are structured and guided by the teachers to help children build key concepts in all of the topic areas within science, math, social studies, literature, the arts, technology, etc. 

Since young children are essentially universal novices, they benefit from having a range of opportunities to safely explore interesting spaces and materials both indoors and outdoors. These explorations promote interest, engagement, and creativity – essentially a positive and proactive approach to learning. Exploring also strengthens skills in all developmental domains.

• Self-Esteem & Independence – pride in achievements & motivation to independently explore
• Interaction & Cooperation – inclination to work and learn collaboratively
• Communication – emphasis on descriptive language to share discoveries
• Discovery & Exploration – disposition to experiment and extend learning via the inquiry cycle
• Physical Capabilities, Health & Safety – skilled and safe use of bodies with purpose and control
• Artistic Expression & Appreciation – investment in creative outlets, both your own and others’

To give a concrete example, exploring playdough enables children to independently pursue their own ideas and projects, as well as to experiment with different tools and materials that we provide with the playdough. Working with playdough strengthens children’s hand muscles, encourages eye-hand coordination, and builds tool use skills – all in ways that are within their developmental reach. When peers are involved, the playdough work affords children the opportunity to learn social interaction skills for sharing and conversation skills for communicating their ideas and making their requests known. Either individually or with peers, children can build artistic expression skills for both visual arts and pretend play. In my Director’s Corner articles this year, I plan to share the benefits of children learning through explorations of nature, construction, literature, cooking, etc. We hope you will explore with us!