Biting...hitting...lying...these behaviors are totally normal, and also, socially inappropriate. In early childhood, we take a developmental approach to such concerns.

"I always love it when people say "baby steps!" to imply they're being tentative, when actual baby steps are a great unbalanced, wholehearted, enthusiastic lurch into the unknown." -Olivia Smith @OliveFSmith

A recent birthday and growing bodies have brought up a topic near and dear to the hearts of 4 years olds. "I'm bigger than you!" one says to the other. "Nah-ah! See!" and so the comparisons begin... who is taller, older, faster, jumps higher. And so for Project Day, I asked the question, "What did you like to do when you were little?"
​I asked the children to start by drawing in their journals. Each kiddos carefully thought about this question and readily set to work.

My younger brother recently had his first baby, and I was so excited to share everything I have learned as an early childhood educator and as a mom with him. As I though about it, however, all this boiled down to two things:
1. Parenting is the hardest best thing you can do.
2. Learn everything you can about Magda Gerber and RIE.
Okay, so that is cheating a little, because the work of Magda Gerber is vast and deep and so so rich. My brother and his wife are quick studies, however, and as they welcomed their new human into the world, they were already deeply connected to the RIE philosophy, and ready to put these princicples into action.

This week, we delved into one of my favorite explorations: real clay.
​Young children are often offered play dough or plastic modeling clay for exploration. These options are easy to play with and easy to clean up, making them favorites for grown-ups. Clay presents another level of challenge--as you work with it is changes from cold and stiff to a warm, malleable medium. Following Ann Pelo's book, The Language of Art, I introduced the children to the clay, asking the oldest to carry the huge 25 pound block of clay to the table. It made an impressive thump​ as he placed it on the table.

So for a while, my assistant teacher and I have been working with our class of 3 and 4 year olds to find ways to solve problems, and to be kind to each other. As is very typical for three and four year olds, however, many children have been experimenting with inclusion and exclusion and what it means to be friends. It seemed like we had been handling the incidents on a case by case basis, often stepping in as adults to resolve the problem. As the teachers thought about this, and how it was affecting the mood of the classroom, we decided to take a new and different approach. We decided to bring the problem to the children, and see if we could investigate the problem. We are calling it: The Meanness Problem. Like many of our projects, this undertaking is not one that we have done before, so we do not have a concrete map of where we are going. Rather we have guiding research questions that we have presented to the children:
What is meanness? How do you know if something is mean? Where is all the meanness coming from? ​

Little people are learning so much about their world, and just like they hammer on play dough to see what will happen, just like they endlessly build ramps for their cars, just like they swirl paint colors mixing across paper, they are figuring out how to play with each other. They are figuring out what happens when they invite a friend to play, when they tell a friend their idea, when they follow a friend's lead, and, yes, when they tell a friend "You're not my best friend anymore!"