I wonder why we sometimes direct children to be little adults rather than the young children they are. Childhood is truly an amazing stage of life. Lately I've been doing a lot of observing on our playground and it's been wonderful to listen to children's imaginative stories, watch them observe and carefully play with many insects crawling on trees, sheds, and grass, splashing in water, playing with mud. building a fort, swinging, playing sports games, doing gymnastics, climbing on the playground structure and more. The whole time they're working with strategy, imagination, exploration, communication, problem solving, and creativity--it's truly amazing! There are so many smiles.
I decided that I'm not going to make any big decisions in the next few weeks, and instead focus solely on the children as we carry out the many end of the year celebratory learning projects, special events, and presentations. I want to let children be children.
This was so evident today as I watched children taking care of our little tadpoles and tiny toads. Again it was evident as they problem solved in math and asked many questions. Further when they worked on their biographies, it was wonderful to talk about and research famous global change makers through a child's perspective and questions.
It's time for the long weekend, and next weekend I'll return to the world of children I live in during the day time hours five days a week.
