Entry #7, 29 October 2009

Today, there were only 3 2-3 year olds, so our room was joined with the 3-4 year olds.

I did a jelly play activity, which was just 2 large jellies with sweets inside them, and allowing the children (one at a time) to experiment with them. That experimenting included tasting, and if they wanted to, eating. It therefore didn't take long for C'r to decide he'd try and eat as much as he could. E'e picked up on this as well, and started to devour the jelly and sweets.

As I was trying to make it a child-led experience rather than dictate what they should do, I allowed them to do as they wished, but stopped them after half the jelly was gone, as I was worried it would make them unwell. How C'r protested!

Oddly, the rest of the children were not very interested in the jelly play. Most outright refused to come sit at the table and have a go. Those who did were quickly bored of it, and chose to move on to other activities. I assume that it's because they've had jelly play many times before (and were probably stopped from eating it then).

I met J'b today, who had very interesting behaviour. He was very good at faking distress!

When the children are in an argument which gets bad enough that one is crying, an adult will normally ask the crier what's wrong, who did it, and get the offender to apologise, and maybe even punish him. All the children are familiar with this practice, with some even running to hide once they've upset another child. J'b has taken it a step further by trying to manipulate the system!

When he was in a disagreement with another child, he immediately threw himself upon the ground, as though he'd been pushed (he hadn't), cried out loudly, and said "Ow! We mustn't push our friends! It's not nice! Why did you do that?". He was trying to frame the other child!

I also saw him stick his hand out intentionally so that another child would touch it, only slightly. He then acted as though his hand had been injured, drawing his hand close to his body, crying out in pain, and crying loudly. I told him I had seen what had happened, and told him he was alright. He carried on the show for a few seconds, before stopping altogether and carrying on as normal.

There were several times J'b would throw himself on the ground, as though he had fallen down, and start to cry loudly. Each time he would carry on the show for a little longer after I told him I'd seem him doing it and that he was OK, and then he would stop crying altogether.

Moving Forward

I wonder how many times it takes for children to get bored of an activity, and therefore make it pointless? They seem to enjoy standard activities like drawing and painting countless times without getting bored, so why would they get bored of jelly play?

I guess you really can't plan when you'd like to move on from an activity and avoid it in future because the children are tired of it. The only real way to tell when they're bored, is when you're actually there and they're clearly bored.

I think J'b was acting as he did because he wanted attention. Later in the day, he received a lot of focused attention from staff (J'b does not take naps, unlike most of the other kids, so when the rest were asleep the staff ratio actually went to 4 staff to 2 children). He was so well-behaved then that the staff were discussing how surprised they were that he supposedly often got in trouble.

Once the room was crowded again, he did start acting up again, but that was only once out of a roughly 2 hour period.