We are always looking for good examples to help our students understand a constructivist view of cognitive development. This one is classic demonstration of how prior experiences are processed, assimilated, and adapted to create a new construct – in this case understanding what a game is and how rules apply to playing one.

One of the Sunflower’s (3 year olds) current finger play/game favorites during the transition from group meeting to lunch is “One Little Leaf.”

One Little Leaf

One little leaf, two little leaves,

Three little leaves today.

Four little leaves, five little leaves,

Blow them all away.  Whew!

Five children at a time are chosen; each child is given a leaf with a numeral 1-5 on it and holds up his/her number when it is said.  At the end, the children blow their leaves, then go wash their hands for lunch.  This continues until all children have had a turn.

Katharine announced at large group time that she had brought something to share and had made up a new  game for us to play, “but only four people can play.”  When asked to describe the game, she said, “You get one of the leaves then you gotta do what I say.  You shake it and then blow.”  We let Katharine go and get her leaves, which was a branch containing four leaves (so she clearly understands the one-to-one correspondence connection that determines how many can play).  She called four children at a time to stand up, then handed each child a leaf.  Then she said, “now shake it and blow!”  The children happily followed her directions, then Katharine told them, “Now go wash your hands!”

The 4/5K garden was in need of mulch around the plants, so Ms. Deanna and Ms. Mary brought in a bale of straw. As the children were planning their haunted house event, they decided to make the  visits of the 2/3’s to their classroom even more fun by giving them a hayride before they put the last of the straw on the garden. Many trips were made around the playground and a great sense of satisfaction was expressed about how good it feels to work hard to do something nice for our friends.

Several of our children in the 4K group remembered that last year the “big kids” constructed a haunted house out of a large box in the hallway that all the children thought was very cool! They asked if they could build a new and improved version and invite the 2’s & 3’s to visit a “real” haunted house if they promised not to make it too scary for the little ones. Long story short, with the assistance of the experienced builders (5K) it started out as a one-story house, gained a second floor, a red entryway, four chimneys (with smoke) with working windows and doors, and recorded sound effects. On the designated day, the 2’s and 3’s were invited to visit and knock on the door….whereupon the window opened and the mysterious inhabitants gave out treats.