Last year, when I joined the Toddler One South team in December, I had to learn the routines and the flow of the day in the classroom. As I tried to give the children (and teachers) space to get to know me, I asked lots of questions. I also found that sometimes, I just needed to watch and listen closely, and then I might understand the reason behind certain routines and rituals in this particular classroom, such as reading a "Big Book" together, picked out by one of the children, as a way to center ourselves and feel a sense of calm before naptime. During the hour or so between lunch and naptime, I enjoyed sitting on the floor beside the children. As we got to know each other, I had become accustomed to being invited to be a part of their play throughout the day - whether it was acting as a partner in a game of catch, or helping to wrap a baby doll in a scarf - so I would make myself available to the children after lunch, by positioning myself in close proximity. I will always remember when my co-teacher pointed out why she preferred to stay on the sidelines and observe more than interact during this time. It seemed in some classrooms, for various reasons, teachers might offer only books as part of a "quiet time" before nap. In our team meetings, we talked about our classroom's post-lunch time as being "a whole other playtime." The children are focused, their bellies full, and they are ready to work! As our active Infant South babies move toward toddlerhood, and a common lunch and naptime, I have enjoyed the moments when I can sit back and witness their "whole other playtime." One day last week, I found myself taking a video of an interaction between Anika and Nate, and I ended up panning the camera around the room in an effort to capture the focus and intensity of so much of the work being done and the interactions between babies. I couldn't decide where to look! While I usually try to take videos that focus on a certain experience, without moving around too much, I'm glad my indecision provided us with this look at the level of activity in our classroom after lunch. It is often the one time of day when every baby is present and awake, and there are very few interruptions. I wonder what drives the babies' choices when they are brought to the carpet as teachers clean up, change diapers, and write on daily sheets (and take videos!). Do they rely on us less at this time of day, now that most of them move around the room independently? I hope you enjoy this special peek into our classroom as much as I enjoyed being there for it:
What captures your attention when watching this video? How might our babies' work during this extended time of little interruption play a role in all their work throughout the day and over time? With love and curiosity,
Last week Christina shared a video with Dilcia, Susie, and me that really got me thinking about learning to move. I cannot remember, of course, what it was like for me to learn how to roll, sit, crawl, walk, etc, but this video made me realize that I learned how to move in new ways when I took a rock climbing class a few years ago. After figuring out I could go up the wall easily if I just used any of the holds in front of me to pull and step up, I was trying a planned route for the first time, but had trouble reaching a particular hold that seemed too far out of reach for me. "Maybe if I had longer arms or legs I could do this," I said, after trying and falling (while on belay) multiple times, "but I'm just too short to reach. I can't do it." The instructor assured me that I could; I just had to figure out a different way to move my body in order to reach. Finally I started swinging my body to the right in order to gain enough momentum to reach the hold up and to my left. After a couple of tries, I was finally able to hold on and hoist myself higher up the wall. Once my body learned what to do, my muscle memory took over, and I could do it again with ease. Until my muscles fatigued, that is, at which point a little rest was good. The instructor didn't hold my body to help me move; he used simple words of encouragement to help me get my body to try out new things until I got it on my own. And what better way to feel a sense of accomplishment than to do something on your own? This video helped me put it all together by connecting this idea to my personal experience.
I know, Liv is not one of our babies, but I have witnessed a similar process in all of our Infant South babies. There is lots of information out there about how to help babies develop their gross motor skills, but I have learned that they can learn how to move on their own if we just give them the space to figure it out. First, Liv experimented with ways to move until she could roll easily from back to front and front to back. Next, she found ways to move her body to let her crawl.
One of the things that I think is so cool about babies figuring out how to move is that they do it in all different ways.
Adi army crawls.
Edith learned how to crawl by moving from a sitting position to leaning far forward on her hands.
Anais rolls and rolls to access anything she sees. She is developing so much coordination to help her start moving forward.
It took me some time to see that babies are capable of moving independently just as preschoolers are, though in different ways. I used to work in a classroom of 3-5 year olds, and the monkey bars on the playground were very enticing to those children at recess. When I first started working there, I would get requests from some of the children to help hold them up as they would move their hands from one bar to the next. I thought it would make them happy, so I would yield to their requests. Then the teacher I worked with explained that she doesn't help them across the monkey bars because it doesn't help them learn how to do it on their own and I would just end up holding them up there every recess. That made so much sense! So I stopped assisting them and started encouraging them if they expressed interest. Soon the children were climbing up, holding on to the first bar as long as they could, and finally dropping down when they couldn't hold on any longer. But that helped them gain the strength and confidence required for them to move on to the next bar and the next, until they could do it all by themselves. Why do we so often want to help babies and young children move in new ways before they can do it independently? I learned not to do it with preschoolers, so why did I start helping our infants stand up before they were ready? I know that it feels exciting to see them develop so quickly, and they usually seem really happy and excited when someone helps them move in new ways too. It feels like they're making so much progress, and that feels good. Maybe we worry that they won't be able to do it themselves if we don't help them, but we don't show babies how to roll and they figure it out, so why do we help babies walk? Sometimes people help out of convenience, such as using a seat to prop a baby when our hands are otherwise busy. And lastly, it's really hard to watch a baby struggle when trying to do something they haven't quite figured out how to do yet. But as educator Magda Gerber said, “Wait as long as you can stand it. And then a few moments more.”
We must have an opportunity to struggle in order to learn how to do something, whether rock climbing, moving across the monkey bars, or crawling forward. The struggle is where the learning happens. My job as a teacher is to support learning in this way.If I see a baby who is struggling and is visibly upset, then I tell her, "I see that you've been working really hard and are getting upset, so I'm going to pick you up now." Then I can hold her and give her some comfort until she is ready to do something else or try again. But a little frustration is fine!
Here Nate was struggling to move forward, and now he has figured out how to crawl!
The struggle really is worthwhile. It will lead to learning and will help develop confident, independent children.
