Sticks and Stones

Two boys with sticks in the woods

I could say no, should I say no?

No, I'll let it go

Two boys with sticks racing, chasing with sticks, poses pulled, spinning and twisting

"This is our throne, let's go!"

I could say no, should I say no?

No, I'll let it go

Two boys with sticks running passed others, stopping briefly, fixed stare, pose, speeding on

"we need to get the baddies into prison, the prison hole"

I could say no, should I say no?

No, I'll let it go

Two boys with sticks see the others up a slope and charge towards them, weapons brandished...

I could say no, should I say no?

Two boys with sticks get to the bottom of the slope, their eyes fixed on the children up above, sticks in the air...

I could say no, should I say no?

"We're ninja turtles, we're here to help you cos you're stuck

No, I'll let it go

Understanding Childhood Development Part 2

Our second speaker, Professor Colwyn Trevathon, continued the idea of ‘touch points’ in his talk extending its definition to include the development of pride in young children, its meaning to parents and how it is shared in conversation between child and adult. To start: what is pride, how do we develop it as a creative feeling and how, as adults, did we develop in ourselves? The first thing to break down is the idea of pride being a purely adult, or ‘learned’ trait:

• At birth the human brain is one third the size of an adult brain, but has all the parts in place for a creative human life, including a unique human face, eyes, voice and hands for sharing emotions, intentions & states of consciousness. They wait for bright company.

Clearly we need to be passed the point of thinking that at birth and even beforehand, babies are blank slates, waiting to communication to be acted on them rather than with them. What is it that allows young children to be creative and have the awareness to interact with others from birth and before, in Prof. Trevathon’s words;

“There is something to life that is: Adventurous, Speculative, Hopeful, Imaginative”

Children are not born with memories to draw upon and enact, this means that they are born with the imagination to move, interact and predict the results of their movements and interactions...

Life is creative because it is imaginative

pretty hard hitting stuff: we were 5 minutes into the lecture.

Every movement we make is based on internal rhythms and sequence, those same rhythms we learned when we were still in the womb growing from part of our mother’s body into a foetus that lives in amphoteronomic ‘shared regulation’ and finally sharing expressions by moving syn-rhythmically, ‘in synch’ with our mother before joining the world and our families to share our learning with a wider audience. So even before we have been born, the building blocks have been put in place for us to be interactive, imaginative and creative beings. During our time in the womb we are also developing a sense of ourselves physically, research has shown how foetus’ will explore themselves using their hands being more gentle when we touch delicate areas e.g eyes. Research also shows that twins the womb will explore each other more gently than they explore themselves... if you had listened hard when I was told that, you would have heard the sound of my brain exploding.

This is where the lecture opened up into the world of shared experiences and conversations between parents and children that had been recorded and analysed in terms of the rhythm and pitch of the adult and child: children just a few weeks old were shown lecturing and conversing with adults, giving equal amounts of time between speech, filling in pauses offered by parents and moving rhythmically, it’s far too much to try and bring across in this post but head HERE to check out the slides and data from the talk.

• Moving in sympathy - Creating stories of life with people we love

This talk opened my eyes and mind further to the way that we process information and apply it communicatively in an incredibly effective way from a very young age. We all love to talk and love hearing the voices of our children, we always need to make sure that we are ready to listen as we can’t ever be quite sure when it’s going to appear.

I started writing up notes for the final talk by Prof. Vasudevi Reddy but Pen Green have been ever so helpful and put all of the videos up online! Click the link an have a look: Understanding Children's Development slides and videos

I would love to hear you thoughts, please get in touch!

A massive thanks to all of the speakers at the conference and the team at Pen Green for putting the event on.

Tim

Our children learn how to box...

Whenever I see a discarded box outside a shop waiting to be recycled or (gasp) thrown away I always feel an urge to grab them and cart them away to FR HQ for transformation into the most fantastic creations. This post is dedicated to that most wonderful of forgettable items: the cardboard box (applause)

My favourite comic growing up (and indeed now, all good children's products can be judged on how much they interest adults) is Calvin and Hobbes: if you haven't heard of the adventures of this six year old boy and his 'stuffed' tiger then head here to have a read: Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin always had a hundred different uses for the humble cardboard box and we have started to explore our own imaginations with a few sides of corrugated cardboard.

Building tunnels and castles, the children drew their own windows along the sides

Space rockets travelling to space: one child would sit inside whilst the others stood around the edge giving them a countdown before shaking the box and welcoming them out

We've also created robots, dinosaurs and used them as slides: the possibilities are endless with boxes, the next time you have one, leave it lying around and see what you child makes of it... or with it!

[gallery ids="3450,3449,3446,3445,3444,3443,3439,3441,3442,3428,3429,3431,3430"]

A lot of our creations have been made possible because of an excellent construction aid called Makedo that a parent put me on to a little while ago. I mentioned it previously in this post: check it out as well.

Tim

Me, You and everything in between!

As children grow up they become more aware of people around them, from primary carers to extended family, friends and strangers they develop a sense of what they feel and apply those ideas to others using empathy. Emotions are incredibly hard to recognise and describe for young children (and for adults) and so our role as caring adults is to provide the words for them to talk openly about how they feel.  Being able to recognise and respond to other people and their emotions is a key aspect of social development and we also highlight it during conflict resolution: Our approach to conflict resolution

• The practitioner acknowledges and responds to the children involved "I can see that you're looking angry and frustrated X because the toy wasn't being shared but because you hit out, Y is scared and sad"
• We see if we can come to a resolution "What could you have done instead of hitting"
• Various solutions might be raised "I could have asked" or "But we need to share" "He had been playing for a long time with the toy"
• The practitioner mediates the discussion until a resolution is come to that is agreed on by all parties

As these steps progress, other children often come into the discussion with suggestions about what could happen as well, it's vital that all of our children know that their input is valued, their emotions are valid and they can communicate how they are feeling in any appropriate way. It is a very long process but our role is to plant the seeds that will hopefully flourish later in life. It's also important to recognise that children experiment with emotions during their play, particularly role play and that for them, it provides a really powerful tool to explore ethics, actions and consequences; Dinosaurs roar and some are meat eaters, superheroes fight and kill baddies etc... meeting the challenges that such play can present requires skill and quick thinking from the adult: why do superheroes kill baddies? To save and help others. As for dinosaurs, I always accept that they have every right to be in the setting but that if they want to join in, they have the responsibility to adhere to the same rules as everyone else: we all have our own personalities but our rights and responsibilities are also vital to make our nursery a positive place to be.

Here are two more examples that I have dealt with recently, their differences are clear but they both involve emotions and conflict in different ways:

• A child (S) had pushed another (T) to the ground and had been going to kick him when a coworker brought them in to me. As we entered discussion, I made it clear that I hadn't seen the incident so it was vital that they could tell me what had happened. S said that he had pushed T over because he had been hit by T. T in turn said that he had hit S because S had snatched a toy from him. It then turned out that the toy that T had belonged to another child and S was trying to get him to give it back. From backtracking the entire disagreement and letting the children describe to me what had happened (I said very little during the talk) both of the boys were able to recognise the causes and repercussions of their actions.
•  A boy (J) had just jumped off of a chair toward a cushion when another (A) ran in front of him and they collided. J looked shocked and upset as A shouted at him "you have to look before you jump" and started to cry loudly (I have to note that A was looking towards me and his cry seemed to outstrip the pain he was actually in) in response, J started to cry in reaction to A's own cry. Attending to the two children I had to acknowledge that A was feeling hurt but that because he was crying so loudly he was making J more upset in turn and for us to get to the bottom of the problem, A needed to calm himself to show J that he was feeling better. Once A had taken the time to calm himself, J calmed down and we started to come up with rules for safe jumping.

For any society to work all people involved need to feel positive about their interactions as well as actively attending and sorting out their conflicts: there aren't negative emotions, just negative actions. Have a look at the gallery below as well, think about what might be happening and what the children are thinking. Write what you think in the comments below!

[gallery ids="3350,3349,3348,3347"]

Tim

Mo Seeka Seeka

Here is a story that I've been telling recently, I heard it first from the wonderful Noah Messomo, originally from Cameroon and who now works in Dorset. This is a misremembered and edited version, drawing slightly on a couple of ideas from Aesop's fables 'Androcles and the lion' and 'The lion and the mouse'. [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/82636822" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

One day Mo Seeka Seeka left his home  a walked into the jungle

'Step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step, cheep, cheep'

Suddenly, out of the dense foliage came an Elephant

Elephant looked down at Mo Seeka Seeka, Mo Seeka Seeka looked up at Elephant

"Mo Seeka Seeka, what are you doing out in the jungle by yourself, don't you know it's dangerous?"

"Mr Elephant, I am going to see the king! I am going to ask him for some food and some water because my parents are so hungry and so thirsty that they are feeling tired... and I want to play!"

"OK, off you go: but be careful."

And on he walked

'Step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step. cheep, cheep'

Suddenly, out of the dense foliage came Giraffe

Giraffe looked down at Mo Seeka Seeka, Mo Seeka Seeka looked up at Giraffe

"Mo Seeka Seeka, what are you doing out in the jungle by yourself, don't you know it's dangerous?"

"Mr Giraffe, I am going to see the king! I am going to ask him for some food and some water because my parents are so hungry and so thirsty that they are feeling tired... and I want to play!"

"OK, off you go: but be careful."

And on he walked

'Step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step. cheep, cheep'

Suddenly, out of the dense foliage came Monkey

Monkey looked down at Mo Seeka Seeka, Mo Seeka Seeka looked up at Monkey

"Mo Seeka Seeka, what are you doing out in the jungle by yourself, don't you know it's dangerous?"

"Mr Monkey, I am going to see the king! I am going to ask him for some food and some water because my parents are so hungry and so thirsty that they are feeling tired... and I want to play!"

"OK, off you go: but be careful."

And on he walked

'Step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step. cheep, cheep'

Suddenly, out of the dense foliage came Snake

Snake looked down at Mo Seeka Seeka, Mo Seeka Seeka looked up at Snake

"Mo Seeka Seeka, what are you doing out in the jungle by yourself, don't you know it's dangerous?"

"Mr Snake, I am going to see the king! I am going to ask him for some food and some water because my parents are so hungry and so thirsty that they are feeling tired... and I want to play!"

"OK, off you go: but be careful."

And on he walked

'Step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step. cheep, cheep'

Suddenly, Mo Seeka Seeka came to the king's den

Mo Seeka Seeka heard a rumble and he shivered, Mo Seeka Seeka heard a grumble and he quivered, Mo Seeka Seeka heard a growl and he shook.

Out of the den came LION!!!

Lion looked down at Mo Seeka Seeka, Mo Seeka Seeka looked up at Lion

"Mo Seeka Seeka, what are you doing out in the jungle by yourself, don't you know it's dangerous?"

"Mr King! I am here to ask for some food and some water because my parents are so hungry and so thirsty that they are feeling tired... and I want to play!"

Lion laughed "why should I give you anything!?" but as he stepped forward to eat Mo Seeka Seeka he stood on a thorn: OW!!!

Mo Seeka Seeka leaned forward and pulled the thorn out with his beak. Lion was so grateful that he gave Mo Seeka Seeka a huge sack of food and a huge jug of water and Mo Seeka Seeka put them over his shoulders and off he walked

'Step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step, cheep, cheep; step, step. cheep, cheep'

All the way home.

Since telling this story, the children have come up with new and different ideas: what if Mo Seeka Seeka could see in the dark jungle? How can he carry such huge amounts of food and water home with him? Is Lion really nasty? We also looked at the story through a 'story map' so that the children could tell the tale by following the sequence of pictures

Have fun with this story and see what suggestions your child has for it.

Tim

Addendum: We just wrote a new story this week with two children narrating, me 'illustrating' and then three others colouring it in.

"One sunny day, all the dinosaurs grew big. Felix the dinosaur was being chased by poachers in a helicopter. the other dinosaur was being chased by soldiers and a giant was about to eat him.

Suddenly Triceratops said "stop trying to eat dinosaurs" the giant felt sad and so did the poachers. The dinosaurs cheered them up with a big ROAR!"

Understanding Childhood Development Part 1

It was my privilege and pleasure  in February, to take the long drive up North to the Pen Green Research Centre in Corby. I was attending a series of talks entitled ‘Understanding Childhood Development’ given by Joshua D Sparrow MD, Professor Colwyn Trevathon and Professor Vasudevi Reddy.

The vision, creation and expansion of Pen Green is a wonderful testament to what can be achieved with the right mindset; when the original nursery opened in the 1980’s, Corby was undergoing a terrible spell after the closing of the local steelworks which left 43% of the male population unemployed and the infrastructure depleted and infant mortality rates high due to poor healthcare. Over the last 30 years the nursery has expanded into a centre for children and families and an internationally renown research, development & training base and leadership centre catering for over 1200 families and offering professional development training, degree courses and (of course) seminar, research and conference events.

This particular event focussed primarily on the development of children from their antenatal growth up to a year but its applications and the knowledge can be applied anywhere along the developmental path. I want to give a brief overview of the three talks that happened during the day, full notes and slides are available here: Early Childhood Development 09/02/2013

Joshua Sparrow MD came to present the work of Dr T Berry Brazleton whose career has focussed on the developmental progress of children and the effect that it has on the parents and primary carers, key times that he identified included

• When a child is able to look further around and may suddenly become distracted during close times with the adult
• When a child is starting to learn to walk
• When a child starts to toilet train

The process of such developments is one of regressions, bursts and pauses and can be trying for families as their routine is disrupted in turn by the child’s own disorder. Highlighting these areas made me aware further of the relationships I had with parents when their children were heading through these periods (particularly toilet training), their own worries and stresses and how they found it difficult to see beyond this period. My response has always been one of encouragement and perseverance, following the parents’ lead and offering complementary advice: when I’ve spoken to these parents again after their children have passed through this stage they actually find it hard to believe that they went through that time. As a general rule, following children's developmental paths is far harder than pre-empting it.

Through his talk, I was impressed by the emphasis that touchpoints put on family care rather than child care: practitioners can extend the knowledge of primary carers but have a responsibility and duty to emphasise and learn from their expert knowledge in turn.

• Gatekeeping: The natural competition felt by any two adults who care passionately about the same child

The point at which relationships destabilise and break down comes when the different forces’ (parents, grandparents, professionals etc...) desire to push their own view of the child and what’s best for them outweighs the desire to work for the overall wellbeing of the child and loses focus on what each adult can bring to the child’s life. To paraphrase a story we were told:

“We (touchpoints) were asked to give a parenting class in one of the most deprived areas of Harlem, we agreed to the session but made it clear we weren’t going to be the teachers. At the first meeting the parents sat down and we asked them what they, as experts, could tell us about their children and each point that was mentioned was written down on a flipchart. By the end of the session the flip chart was full of their knowledge.”

What was the perception of the authorities who asked touchpoints to give a lesson on parenting? How could this session have gone if this view was accepted and not questioned? How do you think the parents felt at the end of the session as it ran? They were the ones who were given a chance to express themselves, whose knowledge was valued and recorded, not through a complicated or rigorous test and an average score, but through an open forum and an attentive, caring audience.

At the end of the opening talk, we were given this quote bringing together what touchpoints sought to achieve and provide:

• “What parents need to be the kind of parents they want to be for their children”

It took me a few minutes of consideration to fully understand the force behind this statement. Parents need to perceive themselves as competent, they need to feel empowered to make a difference to children’s lives, they need to feel connected to others through supportive networks and relationships and they need to be connected to their pasts, to be emotionally available in the present and dare to hope for their children’s future.

In our day to day work with children we share their pain, their joy, frustrations and resolutions and, all in all, we take them into our hearts... and we share that with their family in whatever form it takes. For everyone involved in a child’s life empowerment is key and with it the power to open up to others, accept their ideas and empower them in turn.

And this was just the end of the first talk... the learning continues in part 2

Tim

Gung Hay Fat Choi

We're coming into the year of the Snake on the 10th February and this week we've had a blast at Free Rangers getting into the spirit. The week started with us telling the story about the creation of the calendar: the race between the 12 animals and how the rat climbed atop the ox's head before hopping off right at the end to win the race! In celebration of this year's animal we put together a giant snake, painted in bright green and pink with foil stuck over it, the children decided that it would look more snake-like if it was wiggly and helped to cut out the shape before it was put up in the Den for everyone to see. The week was capped with a real lion dance, the path was mapped out beforehand, the lettuce for the lion was carried by a (willing) volunteer and then the lion was released amongst the noise of drums and shakers! We're certainly looking forward to a year of good luck at the nursery!

This celebration was made all the more enjoyable by one boy, T, whose family is partly Chinese. During one session he started talking to an adult about how he and his dad have "Chinese hair" but not his mum; he demonstrated his knowledge clearly not only of what made him 'him' but, because he also has a strong friendship group, he showed that he has a positive view of himself as an individual. Working in a primarily white setting leads me (the equailty officer) to the question of how diversity and different cultures are expressed in a meaningful and un-tokenistic way in order to provide positive learning experiences for all our children. Our children's interest, recognition and pride in their own individuality and that of others is key to unlocking this question and our Chinese New Year was a perfect chance to work with such a vital and delicate subject.

In discussion with T's Mum, she told us how as a family they went to watch the celebrations at the M shed in Bristol each year and expanded on what we already knew about T, that he recognised Chinese writing when he saw it and that when the family went to China town in London he was amazed at how many people looked just like him! To help us with our learning, she asked him to choose a selection of his favourite decorations and items from his home to bring in and share with us and provided us with some red pockets to hand out as well.

I felt so pleased with the way the children all got into the spirit of the event and though there were some worried looks at the lion when he came to life, all the children who were concerned took themselves to a safe distance... though where they could still watch!

Good luck and best wishes to all and and may you have a prosperous and joyous new year,

Tim

The Rise and Rise of The Den

We were making bread at Nursery today thanks to the interest of one of our children. This boy had approached me and asked to do some baking and we had listed some of the things he wanted to make up on our planning board; bread, cake, biscuits, bacon sandwiches, popcorn and burgers to name but a few! I'm a keen breadmaker and so with all the ingredients ready we set to work... I had a crack team of bakers all keen to mix, measure, stir and pat, roll, shape and splat, we discussed the different parts of the process that needed attention and I was really pleased to hear the children confidently telling an interested onlooker how they were kneading the dough before we proved it.

This activity also had an impact at home as well; I was fortunate enough to meet the mother of the boy who asked to bake this morning, she told how excited he was about seeing me. Meeting the parents and seeing how happy they are about their children's anticipation of the day or how confidently they can trust us when their child is not as sure in the transition gives me a real buzz and highlights an important issue about the way we as Early Years practitioners work with and respect the impact of the families around the children.

We’re now a little under a month settling into our new rooms and it seems like a good time to reflect on the positives of the room change and what we can do to keep everything working at a top level. I would like to invite parents from all four rooms to take some time to let us know how you feel about your new room, what you like and what your children like and want to add. Talk to your key person, drop us an email or a note in the office and remember this is our nursery and we make it better by working together.

Tim 'Wild Boar' Graham

P.S The bread was lovely and orders are now being taken!

A very Free Rangers Christmas

I'm sure you've all been checking out the various wonderful creations by our own Red Fox over the last few posts, I felt that it was, however, due time to shine a light on what happened inside the Den in the run up to Christmas. As we approached the season of merriment, I wanted to make sure that our build up was natural, had a home made feel and gave the children ownership of their room. I plan to go into the theory and practicalities of ownership in the setting in a future post but for now have a look at our results:

The star was kindly made for us by a parent (& a very creative bunch they are too!), the tree by Laura (one of our apprentices) and decorated over the month by the children. The night sky scene came out of pure happenstance: Nin found some gold spray paint and involved the children in a new mark making experience creating beautiful swirling patterns, I had been cutting out some kindness baubles (see below) and the left over material was uncannily star-shaped. Once the paint was dry we stencilled with silver paint: all the children exhibited great control over the cans and the result was impressive. The children especially loving the spacey look of it when I held it up: we'll have to do more next year...

The used shapes did not go to waste however, they were put up on our skylight!

The kindness baubles came from an idea inspired from my Mum's playgroup to promote kind thoughts, actions and deeds. Each snack time we discussed how we can be kind to others, after we had had some ideas then I said the kind things that I had seen happen during the session and wrote them out to be hung up with our other decorations. The children came up with lots of great ideas and the idea will be coming back in various form during the next to keep promoting our "Play, Share and Take Care" charter.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year and exciting for both the children and adults and it has been so enjoyable working as a group to create the festive feeling.

To finish, and as an interesting point of discussion I think we need to be considering how Christmas gets presented to our children, particularly as they get to the ages of 3-4 and understand what this day represents, not as a religious holiday, but as a cultural event. I was talking to one parent who was felt that her son was getting more and more worn out each day in the run up to the 25th and it didn't seem a coincidence that this was the first year he appeared to have 'got' Christmas, in fact all of our older children were far more aware of the concept of "x number of sleeps until Christmas" and as the last week passed, they were bouncing higher and further off of the walls (I'm just glad they took their shoes off first).The charged energy was palpable in the room* and I've been considering further how healthy this is for young people; with shops starting the advertising drive from Autumn, sales, media and the access that young people have to this I think it's vital that we keep promoting the ethos of this festive season as one of giving, kindness, valuing others and the enjoyment of celebration wherever we may be and whoever we may be with. What are your thoughts?

Have yourselves a very merry festive season, be kind, stay safe and here's to a fantastic 2013!

Tim

* I'm convinced that children's perception of the weekend is already cementing itself around this age as well.