Saludos from the midst of a happy, functioning, playful classroom: there's a student playing the toy ukulele and another two pretend feeding our pet rat cookies (that are, in fact, heart-shaped crayons we baked last week); in blocks, one student has made a Grecian-style house with lots of columns and a rooftop shower and another has walled a gorilla in a bunkbed to protect her from "los zombies."
I wanted to take a moment to record two Historias del Juego en particular that I've had back-logged for ages. Both are in my afternoon session - a rowdier, more social group.
1. Visitando al Dentista:
I had recently introduced a Tupperware full of shells but hadn't seen a lot of play with them. I was considering emptying out the sensory table and filling it with sand (though I think I'm going to try to hold off until after spring break for that one), when I found four students busily engaged. One student was reclined on the top of the aforementioned sensory table on her back; two were sorting through the shells and another basket of containers; and the fourth had appointed himself the medical professional in the situation.
"Y éste, necesitamos," he declared, grabbing a cupped shell. He pressed it along the "patient's" belly, listening to the tops of the shells and generally auscultando todo.
Another student, inspired by this, grabbed a long kelp seed pod and knelt on the table next to the patient. "Abre la boca," he requested, poking the pod near her teeth, counting them, and hemming and hawing to himself.
After a couple of minutes, he switched places with the reclined patient and the former patient became a dentist.
"Hmmm," she said, "Okay. Open!"
And he opened his mouth. She repeated the routine - at one point, when she was brandishing the spout of a play teapot at his teeth, he hesitated. "Open wide," she said, "está bien." After a bit, the current patient exclaimed, "Quiero agua!"
The two assistants ran to get him a cup of water.
A little later, one of the assistants was examining imagined mouth detritus under our play microscope. He murmured under his breath, finally saying, "Estas.... estas son grandes."
Takeaways: What a creative and cool re-purposing of objects! Let students' imaginations run wild; be careful not to police their productive and cooperative play, even if you wouldn't have them ideally be lying on top of the sensory table or putting old bits of kelp near their mouths. Also, when you assign children to play areas and/or rotate them through after 10-15min, you rarely see this sort of cooperative, deeper play that lasts 25+ minutes.
Next steps: Perhaps create a doctor's or dentist's or vet's office in Ciencia or Casa.
Types of play: Symbolic, Socio-dramatic, Social, Object
2. Cuidando al Bebé
Another day, three students from the afternoon were busy parenting a little stuffed koala.
They were carrying him around, giving him food, wrapping a blankie around his legs and belly. (Just to check, in case you stereotyped, they were three boys playing this game.)
Student 1: ¡Ew, hizo popo!
The kids flew into a flurry of action: they lay down the koala, took off the blankie, began wiping away with imaginary toallitas. One wrinkled his nose; another sang an improvised lullaby to the koala.
Me: "¿Están cambiando el pañal?"
Student 2: Sí!
Then, cleaned to their satisfaction, they all snuggled up on the couch with the koala and pretended to go to sleep.
Student 2: (as a whispered aside to me with his eyes closed) ¡Somos la familia durmiendo!
Takeaways: Let the kids play! ...And a brief soapbox moment: A lot of time I see folks worried about boys doing this type of play. They view it as effeminate, inappropriate, gay. Then there's a whole subsection that argues that "it doesn't mean they're gay at all!" I agree with this second sentiment, but think we need to also stop framing it as "we can let them do this because don't worry they'll turn out straight heteronormative masculinity is intact phewwww." You know what? They might be gay. And they might not. But either way, learning how to care for littles is an unadulteratedly great thing.
Next Steps: I feel pretty proud how I've built up Casa in response to student-led games like these:
I've added more animals, actual dolls, and a blanket that in addition to being adorable is a more appropriate size than the enormous magenta cobija I had before. Though, I do think my cardboard cuna needs an upgrade.
Types of Play: Symbolic, Socio-dramatic, Social, Object
Now the ukulele player is building a marble run castle, a student in a blue hat is laying out a blanket (and another is pulling out play money to purchase it).... and a whole block civilization has risen up.
See?
Well, it's about to be sacked like Rome: time to clean up!
¡Hasta pronto!
