I love emergent curriculum opportunities that present themselves during outdoor play, which provides such a rich context for learning social skills such as turn-taking, problem solving, negotiating, joining a game and practicing being inclusive. Sharing and taking-turns can present a challenge for a preschooler who may not yet have the language or social skills to negotiate a solution.
A lack of sufficient play items that are in high demand can lead to conflicts and can cause preschoolers times of play to be frustrating. Once, in an early years setting, two children got the idea of using large stacking blocks to make a tower and were having great fun between the two of them. A couple other children noticed this and came to join in the fun, but now, all of a sudden, there weren’t enough blocks to go around.
So, I offered to help the first two children count the blocks on their towers. We all did this together and had fun comparing whose tower was taller that whose. They then wanted to break down their towers and rebuild them so that they could build and count by themselves at the same time. This gave others an opportunity to join in, have a turn, and help them build their towers. The children had found a solution to the problem.
Together we wrote the numbers on the side of the blocks. We took a picture of each one of them standing beside their tower that matched how tall they were. Then, it flowed naturally to give the others who had helped build and count the towers a turn to make a tower that matched how tall they were and take a picture with their block tower.
We wrote it down on a paper and posted it inside. The lack of sufficient blocks and the initial conflict was quickly forgotten as these capable children were all busy building, stacking, counting, comparing, recording, and noticing together.
A little loving support at the right time can foster children’s development of these skills which can go such a long way to helping their times of outdoor free play with friends to be more positive and meaningful.