Area of Play 5 - Music

photocredit:Chantelle

I should have been a groupie. I am like a puppy dog in my adoration for those with musical talent. I am in desperate envy of my jazz singer friend who can mesmerize a room of children (and me) with her singing. I find myself gazing longingly at my friend's husband who settles his babies to sleep with his guitar. In my younger days I fell in love with a guy when he serenaded me with his clarinet (a surprisingly sexy instrument), and another who made up songs for me on the piano ... and don't get me started on boys in bands.

Alas I'm not much of a musician myself ... given a choice, I will listen to National Radio rather than a music station ... and faced with an array of musical instruments I just freeze. This makes doing music with kids a little bit intimidating.

"Get to know the (musical) equipment well yourself. Try out all the instruments and find what different sounds you can make. Be alert for spontaneous music play ...' Maureen Woodhams, Making Music With Children.

Playcentre, Montessori and Steiner/Waldorf all have very different approaches to musical education for preschoolers ... and given my own dunce status I hesitate to assume any authority here. So, as always, comments and debate always welcome!

photocredit:anonymous

"Become attentive to what the children are doing musically, both in focused music sessions and in their general play. This may involve stopping being active yourself so you can spend a few minutes just watching and listening. Children often chant or sing a pattern of words or a snatch of tune, especially during solitary play... musical interactions, like conversation, often occur while adults and children are doing something else together and are a joy when you start to notice and extend them." Maureen Woodhams

Playcentre

photocredit: KarmieC

In a Playcentre, the 'music area' will usually be well resourced with a range of musical instruments - shakers, tambourines, drums, ukuleles, perhaps an old piano. There will usually be a CD player and a collection of recorded kids music ... which will often play loudly during the session.

Adults are encouraged to recognise when children show an interest in the music area, and play along side them, exploring the different instruments, dancing and singing.

"The provision of an attractive display of musical instruments and objects ensures that children have independent access to some music experiences whenever they choose. It also ensures that when a play interaction takes a musical turn, or an adult sees a way to extend a child's learning following a music interest, some materials which might support this are directly to hand. Maureen Woodhams


Steiner/Waldorf

As in all areas of play, Waldorf education is concerned with protecting and nurturing the senses, so in this instance it’s the sense of hearing. As children's hearing develops, they need first of all to hear real, living, human sounds - voices of course, and clapping rhythms are often considered very appropriate. The pentatonic scale is recommended for the early years -this has five pitches per octave and sounds lighter and more 'floaty' somehow.

You won't see many, if any, musical instruments in a Steiner/Waldorf kindergarten. Carrie was very kind to share some excerpts from 'In a Nutshell' with me that explain why.

"Because we prefer to offer the children open-ended play materials- that is, materials which can be used in many different ways, according to the child's needs of the moment - we also do not provide many of the traditional rhythm toys. However, some teachers do have bells, gourds or perhaps a drum or pentatonic xylophone available in the classroom.....It is important that these instruments produce a good quality sound, and in the case of the xylophone, that the notes are in tune. The children may play freely with these instruments, as long as they treat them with appropriate care and the sounds do not become disruptive to the mood of the classroom" Nancy Foster, In a Nutshell

Montessori

You might say that if Steiner/Waldorf is concerned with protecting the senses, Montessori is concerned with perfecting them. I think no where is this more obvious than with music.

In the Montessori 3-6 programme, children are given materials to encourage them to listen carefully and learn to differentiate not only different sounds, but different pitches too. Games such as sorting objects by sound, recognising pitch using glasses of water, or the Montessori bells encourage this precision.

Making a joyful noise

photocredit:Melissa

Of course, what these three very different approaches have in common is seeking to encourage and develop a sense of musical appreciation in our children (so they can be groupies too!). I love the idea of teaching listening skills in Montessori, I love that the Steiner approach doesn't abuse a child's ears with tinny poppy kiddy music, and I love that Playcentre lets kids really have fun and enjoy music in all its wonderful guises. After all, banging pots and pans in the kitchen is as much a music lesson as anything else! Children love and deserve the opportunity to listen to live music where possible, and to experiment with making their own music too.

So, a few fun ideas for bringing music into your pre-schoolers home!

- sing all the time. Have special songs for special times of the day, and lots of songs just because. Don't worry that you can't sing in tune, honestly, your child won't mind!

- make lots of 'ad hoc' instruments. Bang pots, put small objects in glass jars (with supervision), fill glasses with water and tap them with spoons.

- play silence games ... encourage your children to listen to the quieter sounds around them.

- take your children to see live music - buskers, brass bands, folk bands playing at the markets ... start asking about where you might be able to find real instruments being played

Enjoy!

photocredit:Rodent

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

I'm sure I've mentioned before how much I love Nicole's 'Planning with Kids' blog ... it is hugely inspiring. One of her regular posts is her monthly review, which usually motivates me to jot down a list of my goals for the month too.

Up till now I have just been too embarassed to post, as I just wasn't achieving anything other than feeding, clothing and occassionally cleaning up after the children. But, spring has given me new motivation ... and I am really keen to keep going with it!

So, in the spirit of public accountability here is my 'Monthly Review' for September:

Goals for September

- Organise wardrobe
Did this - and its wonderful! No longer do I have to wade through all my preggie clothes every time I need a clean pair of jeans, or a change of pyjamas at 3 in the morning when the baby has spilled up all over me. However, I now have a very large bag of clothes that need sorting through to dump/sell.

- Create a plan for TradeMe selling
Did this - and managed to sell about 5 'lots' so far. I have another 12 lots to go, plus all those old maternity/fat clothes ... but progress has been made. (this was on my to-do list back in May, so good to finally get some traction).

- Organise medicine cabinets
- Done ... I can't tell you the joy these give me when I open them! (yes, I'm really THAT sad!)

- Organise linen cupboard
- Done, and in the progress I found a whole pile of cloth wipes, saving me a big of money as I thought I was going to have to buy some more.

- Stick to grocery budget, implement 3 weekly shopping
- FAIL FAIL FAIL. Bad bad month for grocery shopping, and the worst thing is I didn't even realise till I did our monthly financial spreadsheet.

Goals for October

- write 2 more 'areas of play' posts. one on music, the other on either creativity or blockplay, depending on what books I can access.

- stick to grocery budget - strictly. Still working on how to do this - thinking about taking Sophie Gray's advice on a 'cash budget' - but detailed menu planning will be a part of this.

- bring Little Guys' baby book up to date.

- write list of Christmas gifts and stick to a maximum of $15 per person for gifts.

- organise spare room wardrobe. This is the last of my decluttering projects, but for some reason I am putting it off.

- get at least 8 more listings up on TradeMe

So, what's on your 'workplan' for the month ahead?

Toddler snacks and lunches

For some reason, I find lunch the hardest meal of the day. If Munchkin and I had our way, we would have sushi every day ... but the budget of doom doesn't allow it and my one attempt at making it was an un-mitigated disaster. I love cooking, but I'm rubbish at anything fiddly and sushi is definately fiddly.

From time to time we fall into the trap of having marmite or peanut butter sandwiches every day for a week or so, which quickly gets boring, and means that I am personally starving my 4pm and start eating everything in the cupboard (including peanut butter by the spoonful). So, as a general rule I do try to put a bit of effort in. (as always, my apologies for my dreadful photos but I thought they might give you some ideas!)

While I do often bake little things for snacks and lunches (I must get around to posting some recipes), a lot of the time I want things that are really simple and quick. In the interests of nutrition I very loosely aim for a mix of proteins, carbohydrates, vegetables and fruit. I thought I would share my 'master list' of lunch ideas, many of which double up for snacks.

Protein
- hardboiled eggs
- omelette strips
- canned tuna or salmon
- freedom farms shaved ham (hooray, you can now buy this at the supermarket)
- leftover meat especially sausages

- cubes of cooked tofu that has been marinated in a little soy sauce
- chickpeas whole or as hummus
- chunks of edam cheese
- yoghurt (great for dipping fruit)

- feta cheese

- fried haloumi cheese

Carbohydrate
- pita bread triangles
- small sandwiches with marmite, jam or honey
- baby pinwheels (cut crusts off a slice of bread, butter it, roll it up and slice it)
- pasta - penne or spirals
- couscous (best eaten outside - its really messy!)

- israeli couscous

- breakfast cereal
- bagel slices
- mini crackers

- new potatoes (cold with mayonnaise for mummy!)

- pastry shapes

Vegetables
- avocado chunks

- cucumber slices
- cherry tomatoes
- frozen peas
- broccoli (my daughter loves broccolli so we eat it A LOT)
- grated carrot
- bell peppers (red, yellow and orange are the sweetest)
- grated beetroot, carrot and apple mixed together
- sweetcorn

Fruit
- apples
- pears
- mandarin segments
- grapes
- banana slices

- persimmon slices

- gorgeous summer stuff like strawberries and blueberries

- tinned peaches, pears or pineapple

- kiwifruit

- dried apricots, sultanas or apples

Leave me a comment and let me know whats on your lunch table at the moment.

Getting my act together

I promise I am still here, and I am still working on these areas of play posts. I have fallen into the trap of being so busy researching that I haven't got to publishing ... but I hope to have some more 'areas' up soon.

The other thing I've been up to is a massive organising binge (I blame Nicole!). Actually, I've been working at it for the last couple of months, but its taken a long time to get real traction.

Originally this blog was intended to be an organising and homekeeping blog (hence the title) ... I've always loved tidying and cleaning, and until I fell pregnant with number 2 I was one of the most organized people I know (and one of the most modest right!!!)

But, during my second pregnancy things got more and more on top of me, and when my little guy arrived I was totally shell-shocked by the tiredness, and the busy-ness. Fortunately it never got to the point of post-natal-depression but I think it got pretty close ... I suffered from some reasonable severe panic attacks and was lucky to have a supportive holistic doctor who sorted me out.

So, after a couple of months of sorting, de-cluttering, and re-organizing I am now at the stage of feeling really motivated again. I'm back to having a planning notebook full of lists (in five categories!) my wardrobe is in perfect order, even our bathroom cabinets are spick and span. To top it all off hubby made me an organiser for my 'utilty drawer' so I have little cubbies for things like my stapler and holepunch, notepaper, mending kit, string and sellotape ... it really is a 'good thing'

As a result of all this organising, we have been able to turn our spare room into a playroom (which means the baby may have to stay in the teeny-tiny baby room for ever). We now have our ' Steiner' open ended toys in the lounge, and Montessori-ish activities in the playroom. We don't have any classical Montessori ... we are more Michael Olaf than Neinhuis, but for us its a great mix. I thought you might like some photos ...

Must go clean a cupboard!

Sand Play

Photocredit:NZEcoWorrier

I still have so much to write about stories and literacy, but I have been desperate to write about sand play since EcoWorrier sent me this photo, of her son in his pyjamas in the Playcentre sandpit.

You’ll find sand play pretty much everywhere in ECE – Playcentres usually have enormous sandpits, and Waldorf/Steiner kindergartens see sand play as essential. In Montessori pre-schools it will be set up for ‘free play time’ and sand trays are often set up for children to practice writing. And of course, playing at the beach should be part of every childs' summer memories.

The nature and value of sand play

‘To very young children the simple delight of rolling in dry sand, pouring it over themselves or burying themselves in it provides an all-over sensory satifsfaction” Gwen Somerset, Vital Play in Early Childhood

I have yet to meet a child who doesn’t love playing with sand, even ‘mess-phobes’ enjoy it (even if the mothers aren’t so keen!).

The youngest toddlers love the tactile experience of sand … the feel of it between fingers and toes, the way wet sand drips off their hands, the way it sticks to everything, the way it can be dug to make a hole, or mounded up into a pile, or poured out of a bucket (And yes, they will even try to eat the stuff!).

As children get older, the sandpit becomes a stage for imaginative play .. so you will see kids making pretend birthday cakes with twig candles, or creating a maze of sand-house villages, or digging trenches for cars to drive through. Other children will see sand as an artistic material for creating intricate sand sculptures and collages.

The value of sand play is immense. As a natural material, sand is an ideal way to learn about hot and cold, wet and dry. It is a first stage of science to see the changes sand goes through from so dry it can easily be sifted, to wet enough to hold its shape, to sopping wet and able to be poured like concrete. Playing with sand develops hand eye co-ordination and fine motor skills ... and it provides great stimulation for imaginative play and artistic creation. They say everything you need to learn can be learned at kindergarten … perhaps in fact it can be learned in the sand pit.

Setting up for sand play

‘No back yard is complete without sand and water. When we think of sand, we want to think big, and lots of it’ Sharifa Oppenheimer, Heaven on Earth

Sand is a relatively easy thing to set up at home. In New Zealand, you’ll often see the large plastic clam shells filled with sand on the front deck. These are easy to set up - a couple of bags of sand from a landscaping supplies depot and you are done. The downside is that there is nowhere for the water to drain, so they fill up and get gloopy. Also, they are pretty small for more than one child … so they don’t really facilitate the kind of ‘sand work’ that pre-schoolers like to get into.

So, if you possibly can, go for ‘big, and lots of it’! You’ll want to make sure its open at the bottom so your kids can ‘dig all the way to China’ … and so the water can drain away keeping the sand fresh. (You’ll also want a good quality cover so the local cats don’t mistake it for a litter box).

Sand is not a lot of fun without water, and Oppenheimer suggests the water source is put “far away from the sandbox to encourage plenty of running ... running back and forth, bucket in hand, is full of meaning and purpose for your child as is creating great river systems in the sandbox’.

Sand play ‘accessories’

Toys for the sandpit are everywhere … any plastic household item is likely to be great. From sad experience, I can say that metal and wood will have a hard life in the sandpit … even our Waldorf/Steiner kindergarten uses plastic materials in the sandpit!

Some of our favourites

- tupperware containers that have lost their lids, or lids that have lost their containers
- ladles, slotted spoons, salad servers, tongs, scoops, fish slices
- colanders, funnels and steamer baskets
- microwave cooking equipment like those funny egg cookers and muffin trays

- those random accessories that come with food processors, smart grills, blenders etc. I always seem to end up with weird odds and sods from these appliances, and they make great toys!
- tubes and half-tubes of all shapes and sizes – clean drainage pipe is great, but cardboard postage tubes will last at least a few days unless they get dunked in the water

Natural resources are great for sand play – so collect up things like leaves, twigs, rocks, shells, pebbles, flax fronds, seed pods, acorns, feathers etc. (these natural materials are wonderful for all sorts of open-ended play).

Gwen Somerset (grand-matriarch of the Playcentre movement) says that sand play ‘accessories should be of at least three types:

1) for filling, measuring, pouring – buckets, containers of graded sizes:
2) for carrying or working as adults – large lorries, trucks of different sizes, wood off cuts, vehicles and small cars for roads etc
3) for shaping, digging tunneling – scoops trowels, shovels paua shells and in addition oddments for decoration


Extending sand play

There are just so many ways to extend sand-play. Those of you involved with Playcentre have probably done most of these … but I thought I would list them here anyway!

Set up a sandpit ‘volcano’. In a plastic milk container put 1 cup of baking soda, and some food colouring or tempera powder. Pack up the sand around it in a ‘volcano’ with the top of the milk container exposed. Then, when the kids are ready … pour in a cup of white vinegar and watch it bubble over.

When there are enough adults for supervision, set up a mini bonfire in the sand pit. Roast marshmallows or put pre-baked potatoes in foil at the bottom of the fire to get all smoky and delicious.

Put a paddling pool in the sandpit with a sun umbrella for a beach party. Don’t forget to make some pretty drinks with those little umbrellas and floating cherries.

For dinosaur obsessed 4 year olds create a dinosaur excavation. Bury a range of plastic dinosaur toys, and maybe any 'bones' you can find in the sand. I have heard the idea of partly covering the dinosaurs in plaster of paris, letting them set, and then getting the kids to find them and then ‘dig them out’ … I haven’t tried this one myself but would love to hear how it works!

Messy play … in a bucket put too much water in some sand and then drip it off your fingers - it looks really freaky.

So, tell me what your favourite ideas for sand play are!

Another spring story

Over at the fabulous Artemis Moon blog , is another spring story 'Peter and the Willow', which I just love.

Go check it out!

Area of Play 4 – Stories and Literacy

Photocredit:Nova

I’ve always been a total book worm – and I know in blogland that puts me in good company. Knowing the immense pleasure that reading gives me, a love of books is right at the top of my list of things to ‘pass on to my kids’. Actually, I think every parent wants their child to develop a love of reading - but it isn’t always easy.

Developing literacy skills is pretty controversial … the spectrum ranges from the ‘teach your 3 month old to read’ to the unschooling approach where children simply learn to read in their own good time … and there is everything in the middle.

So, I’ve been puzzling over how best to tackle such a huge subject. There is so much I want to write about here. There are huge differences in approach here between Playcentre, Waldorf and Montessori to children’s literacy – in fact I would go as far as to say that this is THE area where the differences are really obvious. It is also an area where I personally disagree with the Waldorf approach, but more about that another day!

I think now is a good time to remind you all that this is a blog – not a textbook – so please see all these thoughts as just my interpretation, and feel free to debate with me in the comments!

The book corner of my dreams
Photocredit:Rainbow Mama

The Waldorf/Steiner approach

One of the most controversial aspects of the Waldorf/Steiner approach is not teaching children to read until they are 7, or the change of teeth. This is because, in the Steiner philosophy, children under the age of seven are still developing their physical bodies, and should not have their intellectual capacities called upon. Its not that they can’t learn to read, but Steiner considered that it was actually damaging to teach this to young children.

"It is quite possible to teach young children reading and writing by rote .. but it is also possible to deaden something in them by doing this, and anything killed during childhood remains dead for the rest of one's life" Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf education and Anthroposophy

"People will object that the children then learn to read and write too late. This is said only because it is not known today how harmful it is when children learn to read and write too soon. It is a very bad thing to be able to write early ... A child who cannot write properly at thirteen or fourteen ... is not so hindered for later spiritual development as one who early, at seven or eight years, can already read and write perfectly" Rudolf Steiner, Kingdom of Childhood

So in a Waldorf/Steiner kindergarten you won’t see many, if any, children’s books. You won’t see charts on the wall with the alphabet and numbers on them. You won’t see children’s names on cards for them to find and put on the attendance board. While mainstream ECE strives to be ‘print rich’, a Waldorf kindergarten is deliberately ‘print poor’.

However, Waldorf kindergartens are very rich in language and story telling. Steiner teachers are trained in therapeutic speech techniques, so you should hear teachers speaking slowly, calmly, with a particular emphasis on the vowels. They will ‘paint pictures’ with their words rather than give directions, so a jacket might be ‘crying on the floor’ rather than ordering a child to ‘pick it up’.

A daily story, which will be acted out with handmade puppets, is a key part of the kindergarten curriculum. Usually, the children will be told simple fairy tales – Steiner himself had a real thing for ‘Grimms’ – so for the kindergarten years (4-6 year olds) tales like ‘sweet porridge’ ‘the star child’ and ‘the gingerbread boy’ are common fare. Stories are repeated every day, often for weeks at a time, so that the children can really absorb the story.

Picture books are still certainly part of a Waldorf child’s life … I was told by a Steiner Association supervisor that we should ‘surround our children with books’ and that we should read to our children all the time, even when they are teenagers if they will still let us! There are many wonderful children’s books that you will see commonly recommended by Waldorf teachers and parents … I will put up a list in a future post!

Playcentre

Playcentre, being more aligned with modern ECE approaches rather than a particular pedagogy, values and encourages the development of literay skills, but does so from a basis of free play. One of the ‘areas of play’ is the story corner, and literacy as a curriculum area is woven across the entire centre.

Playcentre mama Mary explained the Playcentre approach to me like this

“Numeracy and literacy are dealt with holistically in each area of play. We might roll playdough snakes together and count them - 1, 2, 3, 4!. We might fly to the moon on the swings - countdown with me! 10!, 9!, 8! etc. We might ask a child if we can write their name on the top of their painting, saying the letters as we write them. The child might like to write their own name on instead. We might set up the home corner as a print-rich environment - telephone books, shopping list books with sharp, ready-to-use pencils, posters on the wall with labels at child height, drawers labeled. The carpentry area has the tools labeled, has builders' pencils and metal tape for measuring. We might make stop/go signs for the diggers in the sandpit, and build walls with blocks. If the children show an interest in extensions along these lines, the adults can go with the flow. So, you might see all sorts of stuff going on at Playcentre that comes into the numeracy and literacy areas. Is letter and number recognition seen as a good thing? Sure, but so is a child immersed in concentration at the fingerpaint table, or a child who has shown empathy to another. Children showing an interest in learning is a positive thing - and if that so happens to be an excited 2 year old recognising the letter his name starts with, then that's good.”

During our (rather brief) time at Playcentre, I saw the ‘gingerbread’ boy being read from a book, to a bunch of children all huddled in the outdoor boat. After reading it the children went to the ‘kai’ (food) table and decorated gingerbread boys of their own to eat … which I think is a very classic Playcentre story extension.


Montessori

When many people think of Montessori they think of the sandpaper letters and the moveable alphabet … which are very tactile materials that children can use to learn letters. As with all Montessori activities the children are not in any way pressured to use these materials – rather the materials are there whenever the child chooses to discover them.

Tim Seldin describes the Montessori approach as the ‘writing road to reading’. Children learn to write, firstly using the sandpaper letters to experience the ‘feel’ of each letter, and later a moveable alphabet to construct words .. a little bit like magnetic letters on the fridge. Rather than being taught the names of the letters, children are taught the sound of the letters … which given our crazy alphabet is probably incredibly sensible. (As an interesting aside in Montessori children are taught only lower case letters in the beginning - in Waldorf they are first taught upper case letters!)

It was very hard for me to learn how to read. It did not seem logical for the letter "m" to be called "em," and yet with some vowel following it you did not say "ema" but "ma." It was impossible for me to read that way. At last, when I went to the Montessori school, the teacher did not teach me the names of the consonants but their sounds. In this way I could read the first book I found in a dusty chest in thestoreroom of the house. It was tattered and incomplete, but it involved me in so intense a way that Sara's fiancé had a terrifying premonition as he walked by: "Damn! This kid's going to be a writer."
— Gabriel Gárcia Márquez Nobel Prize recipient for literature

Books certainly have a place in a Montessori classroom, and in the daily group time the teacher will read from a book. Books for under 7s are chosen based on their ability to represent ‘reality’ rather than fantasy, so fairy tales are saved until children are older and have a firm understanding of what is real and what is not. Extension activities are set up so the child can do them independently, as with all Montessori activities. Here is a beautiful example of a Montessori extension activity – where toddlers can match the animal figures to the pages of the book as they look at it.

So, three very different approaches to the literacy question for young children, and not a flashcard amongst them. What all these approaches have in common is that there is no pressure for the young child to learn to read and write before he is ready.