Creative Minds is a Fighting-Game-Free Place

Responsibility is a concept the children are exploring in depth this unit.

A learning opportunity has come up recently that is helping the children to deepen their understanding of rights and responsibilities. In the past several weeks many children have been engaging in fighting-themed games, especially in the forest, the result is that some children are feeling scared by the aggressive actions in the games or are feeling upset at being "shot"at or being identified as the "bad guy".

This morning the teachers and the children had a big meeting in the forest. The children all agreed that everyone at Creative Minds has a right to feel safe. I explained that the fighting games were interfering with people's right to feel safe. There are 4 teachers who care for (and play with) the 25 children as they move through their day.  If this type of play were to continue we would need more adults to help them learn the skills they need to play safely and respectfully of everyone's feelings and needs.

Everyone has a right to feel safe so we have asked the children to save the fighting-themed games that have pretend weapons or fighting actions, for play time at home where their parents can help guide them and be mindful of that play. The children agreed to keep Creative Minds a fighting-game-free place.

Today as we left the woods Aiden said to me "Thank you Wendy" (referring to the "everyone has a right to feel safe talk") I asked him, "Did you feel safe in the forest today when there weren't any fighting games?" and he smiled and said "Yes!"

Our Responsibility in Friendship

The Expectations of Friendship 

The three concepts for this unit are function, responsibility and connection. Many of the children have retained an understanding of the concept function, today we focused on the meaning of responsibility.

When you're finished playing with toys, what's your responsibility?

"To clean them up!" Simone

When your mom says go to bed, what's your responsibility?

"To go to sleep" Sofia

When we think of friendship, if we expect our friend to play with us, to help us, and to be kind then what's our responsibility?

I used the story "Hello" as a launching point - the children looked at a picture of a group of children playing Ring Around the Rosie and coloured of the children they imagined was themselves. We played the game and then read the story till it came to the part where there is a boy left out. What's he thinking? wanting? feeling? What should happen in this situation? What would YOU do if you were a child in the group - what's your responsibility?

Choosing a character

This brought up a question by Rocco "What if I don't want to play with my friend?" (when they ask me) Wanting to play on your own or with someone else is okay, but we have a responsibility to deliver the message in a kind and caring way. How could this sound? "I don't want to right now but I'll play with you later" "I'll play with you when I'm finished this game."

Noticing someone is left out

Being left out makes me sad

"Would you like to join us?"

The children recognized they should include the boy in the story and thought of some words

"I'm sorry we left you out."

"Would you like to play?"

Simone added that the boy had a responsibility to ask if he could play "Can I play too?"

Drawing how it feels to be included

How did it feel to be included? Happy! Good! Nice! The children drew pictures of images that felt happy, good, and nice to represent how they felt when they were included in the game

The Expectations of Friendship

Line of Inquiry:

The expectations of friendship

Question:

Are there rules of friendship?

The children expressed their opinion to these three questions:

• Do you expect your friend to play with you?
• Do you expect your friend to help you?
• Do you expect your friend to be kind and caring?

Everyone answered yes to these questions with the exception of these responses:
"Sometimes my friend plays with me and sometimes they don't and that's okay" - Rocco
"Sometimes my friend will help me and sometimes they don't." - Simone
"I don't want help, I like to do it myself." - Alfie

Expressing an opinion

Do friends ever get mad at each other? Most of the children thought friends do not get mad at each other. The story of Matthew and Tilly illustrates how two friends can play along happily and then sometimes things go wrong and they feel angry and can even say hurtful words. I wish I had a picture of the children's faces as Tilly and Matthew yelled names like stupid, stinky and mean, all showed expressions of sadness for these characters. Sometimes friends do get mad at each other, it happens, what can be done about it? They gave ideas of what Mathew and Tilly could do next - say sorry, give hugs, give kisses.

If we expect our friend to play with us, be helpful and be kind then we have a responsibility to include our friend, to be helpful and to be kind ourselves. This is an idea we will explore further. The children made puppets of themselves and finished the sentence "I am a friend when...."
"I play with someone." (Alfie, Simone, Roy)
"I'm happy with someone" (Rocco
"I help." (Sofia)

I am a friend puppets

Function of Friendship: To Love and Be Loved

As a teacher it never amazes me how I can come with a group time plan in mind and then the children present their own opportunities for learning and making connections!

For the past week I have been taking photos of the children that illustrated the three functions of friendship as identified by the children: to have someone to play with, to help and be helped, to love and be loved. The children's task was to stick the photos onto a web that organized their ideas.

The children initiated an opportunity to further understand an unexplored aspect of friendship: friends listen to each others ideas. My idea was to give the children a picture to stick, their idea was to express how they wanted to receive the picture "I want Simone to pass it to Bela and pass it to Sophia and give it to me" Everyone had an opportunity to express how they wanted to receive their photo and and to be listened to by their friends.

Sticking the photos onto the web

Deciding how to receive the photo for your turn

I picked the story "A Kiss For Little Bear" to illustrate how friends might show love to one another. I didn't expect the wonderful discussion amongst the children as they debated this idea.
"No kissing at daycare, right?" Rocco
"Only kisses at allowed at the big school." Simone
"No fair!" Rocco
"You can't kiss because germs will get on your lips, you can only kiss people in your family." Julia
"And in the big school too" Simone
"You can kiss at the playground." Julia
"Can friends kiss?" Wendy
"Yes!" Sofia, Esme, Bela

The hen passed the kiss to frog "Mmmmwah!"

The performance of A Kiss for Little Bear

After hearing the story the children made a puppet of one of the characters and acted out the play. The children initiated the idea to present the play again and invite the other children and a performance was held! Be prepared Debbie! This was a hit and the Fire Group would like to present more plays this week!

Function Continued

The role friendships play in our lives (function)

Continuing the work the children did last week, we explored this concept a little further making new connections. 

While sorting pictures, the children discussed what friendships do in our lives and identified a role they hadn't yet thought of!

• to have someone to play with
• to help and be helped
• to love

What does it look like when you play/help/love your friend? Using the sorting pictures for inspiration, the children thought of different scenarios that reflect these ideas and we took pictures. 

Friends play dress up.

Friends show love to each other.

Friends help clean up

Oliver Jeffers book "Up and Down" is a beautiful story of how friends help each other. What child can resist making a catapult?! We stepped outside and in pairs the children played together making a catapult with a ruler and block and sent balls of play dough high in the air taking turns helping each other to retrieve the little balls! Passerby's enjoyed the squeals of laughter that filled the air!

Helping each other launch the catapult!

While outside we had an unexpected visitor: a neighbourhood cat! This prompted many questions including "Can a cat be a friend?"

Function: The role of friendships

The Role Friendships Play in Our Lives

To begin today, we explored the meaning of function - one of the key concepts in this unit. I presented a tray of items and it wasn't long for the children to connect the meaning of function to what something does. For example, the function of scissors it to cut things.

We discussed what the function of friendships could be. They recalled that one function is to have someone to play with but they couldn't think of another idea. I presented the story Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and Julia recalled hearing a story by the same author where the friends helped each other. "Do friends help each other?"

Sharing stories of helping each other.

The children recalled memories of friends helping each other.

Julia – A week ago at Teigan’s house we were in her bedroom singing, she had a CD and we listened to the songs and danced around but then her pinky got blood and I had to go because she had to go to preschool. Later when I met up with her I asked her “How’s it going?” and she told me about her toe. I think I made helped her feel better because she knows I care.

Rocco – My mom babysat my neighbour’s kid and me too. The mom and dad had to go out and my mom helped them by taking care of the kid.

Simone – My dad has an Ipad and it has a story of Barbie Rapunzel and she helps her friend out of a hole.

Esme –  I helped Sofia find the magnet tiles and I helped her to make a castle.

Sofia V – Today in the forest we were playing Batman and Orin helped me get the bad guys.

Inspired by the long journey the penguin and the boy took in the story the children used their feet to paint a picture representing the journey.

Making footprints

Not sure about how the paint feels

The Journey

New Unit: We can be friends

Our focus on exploring the theme Who We Are will be the concept "we can be friends".

The lines of inquiry are

• the role friendships play in our lives (function)
• the giving and receiving of friendship (connection)
• the expectations of friendship (responsibility)

To begin this unit I have observed the children are aware they have friends that they like to play with. We will look closer at the function of friendship - what role do friends play in our lives?

Today we played a music game called Johnny Put Your Hand Up,  in which the children practiced some important ideas in friendship: listening and turn taking. It also provided an opportunity to label body parts. One discussion that came up allowed the children to discover that the bend of your hand is called a wrist, not an ankle, and the children found their both their ankles and wrists.

Johnny put your tummy up!

The children all identified one role of friendship - to have someone to play with. They all agreed it was important to have someone to play with. It took some thought to label the play and identify the activities they did with their friends. 

Simone - play princess, read together, build with magnet tiles, play mom and dad

Sofia V - play basketball, play Cinderella, play Sleeping Beauty

Rocco - buy trains together, play ninja, pretend to be different people, play outside

Alfie - play magnet tiles, play golf, play baseball

Roy - play with toys

Illustrating their ideas: things I like to do with my friend