Play: The Best Teacher!

This particular day started at 4.30am, with Xander marching round the bed chanting the alphabet. I stumbled downstairs and my personal educational journey commenced at this ridiculous time in the morning as I quickly realised that Xanders stomach tube had broken, so his morning meds were hitting the floor rather than his stomach. I replaced the peg end for the first time ever by myself whilst half asleep and it worked! Medicines and feeds could once again commence. Where's the coffee! 

The English session consisted of Kira finishing of her Farm animal reading book and reading the entire of Shirley Hughes 'Sally's Secrets', aimed at an aged five reader. We finished reading and discussing the horse project book and watched some show jumping on YouTube. Sophia later wrote a few sentences dictated to her, incorporating a mix of common words, basic punctuation, and words from the 'At', 'It', 'Ow', 'In', 'On' and 'En' families. She is so excited to unlock the code and to write her spellings by decoding.

Xander chose to concentrate on English on his ipad during this time. He spent his time tracing letters with his fingers across the screen, and then matched the corresponding alphabet letter to twenty six items. 

Sophia later discovered a safari pop out animal book so she spent an hour constructing the cardboard animals, whilst Kira set them up in their varying environments, putting prey with their predators etc. Kira then joined the safari party and was talking about the features and habitats of the animals as she drove through the safari park, and another hour flew easily by, before their concentration waned. I was listening and joining with nuggets of information every now and again whilst I was busy sorting out their bookshelf in the school room.

I would imagine a messy bookshelf spilling over on to the floor is an occupational hazard for most home schooling parents. If you have any tips for a tidy book system I would love to hear them in the comments. I had every book out on to the floor and categorised them into each child's current reading range with future reading growth added for the next half a year at least. Then cubby holes were assigned to each child with their allotted books, with the rest filled with themed books. 

An enormous crash later that day signified the almost forgotten train set being emptied out all along the hallway. Sophia began making the track, Kira sorted the trains out and Xander demonstrated that knack that every toddler has, which is to run off with the most needed part of the track at that particular time. Kira was asking questions on how the trains were magically linking together and was very excited to hear that there was a scientific reason behind the magic. Thus followed a quick break from track building, whilst they had a brief lighthearted introduction on magnets which is one of their science topics this year, covered by Ryans World on YouTube. Whether you love or hate this particular family, it is undeniable that they have good educational content, so it's useful if your children do like watching their regular videos, to use them within education too. 

As Xander napped, the afternoon was centered around a new craft 'Waxi doodles', basically long, very thin strips of multicoloured wax and a white board mat on which to design your creations. It is a perfect tool to cultivate imagination, and was a new one for us. We ask for weird and wonderful new crafts for birthdays and Christmas from friends and family for them to use throughout the year and we get some awesome gems given to us.

Kira settled down to separating each strand and layering them on top of each other to create a multicoloured noodle dish as she named it. She passed the relevant coloured piece to Sophia who was in her design and imaginative element. She drew inspiration from one of her favourite Ryan Worlds educational videos on how a point of light shining through a prism creates a rainbow, and produced this from the waxy doodles. She also created a lovely family picture, of mummy and her under a rainbow which was being naturally produced by rain and sun. Sophia played with this new game for the rest of the day, making dozens of picture variations. 

Kira wandered away to set up a tea party for her stuffed animals and dolls. I followed out of curiosity as her role play tea parties have taken taken both a twisted and a healthy turn lately, which I am finding hilarious to witness. I was not disappointed this afternoon as Kira instead of pouring standard tea (water) from her teapot into the cups, chose instead to serve either smoothies or potions to her unsuspecting guests, along with cake. Her smoothies consisted of adding a varied mix of apples, bananas, kiwis, mangos, and watermelons to the milk, with an added dash of lemon and vegetable powder (don't ask, I didn't). The potion ingredients included apple sauce, vinegar, duck wee and boat oil agitated into a mixture that burns, so you need to wear gloves and safety goggles in order to make it (she kept 'burning' herself by spilling the mixture on her as she was mixing).

There you have it, our random day filled with science and imagination facilitated through the magic of play. Through this medium the wonders of imagination really knows no bounds, and comes to life whether in times of role play or just by giving them a plain piece of paper, and offering them a range of arts and crafts materials and leaving them alone to explore their imagination. I believe as teachers, we can stifle imagination by interference, and sometimes it is far better just to step back, watch from a distance to ensure safety, and just enjoy the imaginations blossoming before you. These early years are precious and fleeting and vitally important. Play is the ultimate teacher and it's why I schedule in free time every day. I did however  thoroughly enjoy being treated to a cup of freshly brewed potion and reinacted a death scene that would make any Romeo and Juliet jealous and which tickled Kira immensely. 

Take care dear readers. Stayed tuned for our next adventure.