Have you ever noticed a child doing a action and you think to yourself, that's how you would handle it? Or, a child tells another child to do something using 'your' words? You are an important role model to the children in your group and in the day care.
There are many areas you'll need to 'model', social skills, vocabulary and pronunciation, motor skills, dealing with our emotions, new abilities and creativity.
Yes, creativity! To model creativity means more than creative arts, it means a way of thinking. Creativity is being creative by problem solving. It's a way of life.
Creativity let's us take any project, problem or situation and find more than one solution. We need to have different ways of thinking. Here are a few ways to let you model and encourage the children in your group to think a little different and think a little creatively.
A ROLE MODEL: Don't be afraid to let yourself go. Find your inner child, act curious, energetic and ask questions. Lots of questions! Don't ask the standard closed questions with a 'yes' or 'no'. Ask open-questions, where children will have to think a little more for an answer. Once they have expressed their answer, encourage them to think of another, or to elaborate on the first one.
ARE YOU SPONTANOUS? You work extra hours to structure and plan your weekly (daily) program but learn to let yourself go and follow the mood of your children.
"Last year, a sewage pipe burst at the corner of our day care. The city workers came, the shovels, the digs... and all the kids wanted, was to stay at the window and watch. There went my program and their attention. So I took out the sandbox, trucks and toilet paper rolls. The children made themselves hats. We created our own broken pipe, added water and transformed the classroom into a busy city with lots of broken pipes. I could have forced them to do what I had planned but I opted to take advantage of this to do something different and let them be part of their learning-playing. This lasted for a week." Says Jenny, educator working with the three-year-old group.
FREE PLAY: Children learn most during free play as they have decided to play with what interests them. Free play doesn't mean free-for-all. Make picture cards to identify how many children allowed in each station/center. Have the rule signs up such as: no running, and taking turns. There are some rules during free play, let them play safe in a structured and supervised environment. Let the children tell you what rules should be enforced in your classroom, by including them in the thinking and implementing chances are they'll respect the rules more. They might give you a safety concern you overlooked.
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