AnjiPlayDate: Week 4

New participants arrived, repeat visitors build on past play.

We had our biggest indoor crowd yet (52, I think?) and still the room, while full and busy, didn't feel overwhelming.  (at least not to me--parents, did you feel crowded?  Should we start spreading out into the main library areas?  Chime in in the comments section!)

This week, the red tops saw a large variety of play.  They were used to spin toys around in:

 And spin kids around in:

 (check out this awesome static hair!)

 And here one was incorporated into making a "duck":

early construction of the duck:

 

Here is the play story for this duck:

And here they became turtle shells:

 

the blocks made tall buildings:

 rocket ships:

 And these fabulous structures:

 These siblings worked very hard on their house.  They spent a lot of time discussing the colorful scarves that they were adding.  Check out their play stories!

 

The clay is being slowly broken down into smaller bits.  This kiddo spent a very, very long time working at the clay table to create this amazing road.  His persistence was incredible to watch.

 

 

 

another method for drilling into clay:

Here were some more unique play ideas today:

 This little one loved putting this pen into this tube, over and over and seeing it pop out of the other end if he pushed far enough that it popped out from the bottom edge of the tube.

 She told me she was in a boat.  The ball is a wave crashing into the boat and the scarf is her oar.

 He enjoyed jumping with this rope until the hook popped off the wall (just attached with adhesive, no big deal) then he played with the hook trying to put the pieces back together for awhile.

 

One more fun story from this week:  

The same little guy from last week was putting this plastic bucket on his head and enjoying running around the room, softly crashing into people and tables and anything in his way.  Then, he stopped and tried putting the bucket on a friend's head:

She wasn't too sure if she liked it, so he put it back on his head.  A few minutes later, he head-butted her with his bucket and she cried.  About15 minutes later, I noticed she'd decided to try it out again on her own:

Please note: "Anji Play,” refers to a specific philosophy and comprehensive approach to early education developed by Ms. Cheng Xueqin in Anji County, China. I use the term "Anji Play" to describe my programming and throughout this blog with the explicit permission of Ms. Cheng because our programming has been developed as part of a close collaborative relationship with her and her team of Anji Play educators. If you are interested in learning more about how you can bring Anji Play to your community, please visit www.anjiplay.com

AnjiPlayDate: Week 3, a snow day

Snowstorms change the dynamics of this indoor program!

School was cancelled today because of a snowstorm, but the library remained open and a few intrepid families showed up and had a great time at this week's Anji Play Date.  The group was both much younger than usual AND also included two school-age siblings that normally can't attend because they're in school  Attendance was also about half the usual and most people showed up later because of the bad roads, so we didn't start with our usual review of the previous week (at the beginning of the program only two parents and two kids, none of whom had attended Week 2) but just dived right in to the play.

The markers themselves were lots of fun this week.  I lost track of how many times they were dumped onto the floor!

 Even the marker bucket became a fun toy helmet!

 I believe this red rope designates a "sidewalk" here.

 Several young folks dressed up as "robots" with the cardboard tubes. This is one of their favorite ways to play with the pop-up tunnel if they're lucky enough to have it to themselves.

 Great balancing on this spool!

More great balancing and pathfinding on blocks (and a spool in the background):

 

A play story from this week:

Please note: "Anji Play,” refers to a specific philosophy and comprehensive approach to early education developed by Ms. Cheng Xueqin in Anji County, China. I use the term "Anji Play" to describe my programming and throughout this blog with the explicit permission of Ms. Cheng because our programming has been developed as part of a close collaborative relationship with her and her team of Anji Play educators. If you are interested in learning more about how you can bring Anji Play to your community, please visit www.anjiplay.com

Anji Play Date: Week 2

 Same materials, a few new kids, always fresh play.

Week 2 saw a continued interest in the clay.  There was stacking:

 

And whacking (I'd shown the video of last week's clay hammer at the beginning of today's event, so it's possible that this kiddo was inspired by that.  I loved his energetic banging on the table--he was definitely getting some full-body motion out of this play!)

 And last week's hammer turned into this week's popsicles!

 One of the older children who attended today made this clay person.  She described it to me and said that the top piece of clay was the person's face ("she has lots of eyes"), the rolls on top are her hair, the sticks on the side are her arms, the stick connecting the two pieces of clay is her neck, the second piece of clay is her chest and the other two sticks are her arms.  I was intrigued that the anatomy of this 3D person seems to follow developmentally the same trends that you see in children's drawings of people at this age.  Here's a nice blog post about the different stages in children's drawings.

There was also a little more action on the red tops this week.  I liked this innovation:

 

Also, lots of piling and lining up:

 

 

The blocks saw some excellent structures this week:

A "horsey"

Here's the play story about the scene above:

 see that toe?  It's JUST about to knock down this great tower of circles.  What a fun crash!

This artist chose to make drawings for his parents.

These kids found a way to have fun while doing the clean-up!  Having the kids clean up their own playthings is a very key part of Anji Play.  It affords opportunities for them to continue the play like this but also come up with ingenious ways of moving materials from one place to another, working together with other kids.

 

The kids who are attending this event tend to be a bit younger than the 3-6 year old age range that Anji Play in China was created for.  Therefore, our Play Stories look a little different (see link above about children's development in art).  Here are a few from this week, some with dictated notes taken by parents.

 The picture below says, "My picture is itchy." which is what the artist had said, confounding her mom until she realized that she'd offered her daughter a sheet of "scratch paper."