It was raining today, which meant we didn't go outside - the teacher was surprised when I told we go out no matter what (ok, if it's raining cats and dogs, we might go out only once a day and for a short time, like to play in the puddles in front of our building because the dog wouldn't want to walk more than a few steps anyways- but I kept this for myself) - not the point, though, the point is I had time to observe the whole kindergarten class dynamics because about half of the kids come when we go outside, but today they came and had to stay in. This whole kindergarten experiment with Teodor is a great observation study for me, like seeing the theory in action.
Most of the kids (1.5-2.5? years) are sad. The only ones who seem fine are those who already have some kindergarten experience. There are a few crying newbies, especially one girl takes it really badly, she keeps crying all the time, which makes me feel really sorry for her. It is even sadder that the teachers are not able to distract the children (involve in some play), so they seem to be stuck in their misery. I am not really sure what exactly they should do, but those things the current teacher is trying to pull out seem not very age-appropriate (seems like she is suggesting activities for older kids), but she is really trying unlike the helping teachers who are just sitting surrounded by a few sad children, they just tell them to go to play.
It is also very interesting to watch how the children interact together. One has something interesting, the other ones join. Also how they deal when some other kid takes their toy. Or how the younger ones try to pull some social contact with each other, but it is simply awkward.
Montessori was totally right, children love to work with their hands and they choose tasks for practising fine motor skills. And they love to do this over playing with other toys (ok, Teodor loves the cars there, he might be a lost montessori case :)) The only problem is that there are not many toys for that and they are kept not very organized. Today we tried to cut some wooden fruits with Teodor (too difficult for him), but then one other girl joined, she enjoyed it a lot but there were so many missing pieces and the fruit was not kept in a separate basket, so it was generally impossible for the children to find and play. Another example from today: A girl found a shape sorterer and suddenly a lot of kids were around wanting to play with it. Interestingly enough, children older than Teodor were not much better than him :-O
I miss building blocks there so badly, also stacking cups/cubes, some musical instruments (what can be better than five children drumming, righ?), stacking rings, more of shape sorters, all toys easily accessible (they have jumping horses on a top shelv - wtf?), but mostly the building blocks. Children at this age love to build towers, they love stacking cubes/rings....it really seems to me that many toys are there for older children.
Anyway, Teodor was so excited today to play with the cars that he attempted to go to the playroom on his own (while I was eating breakfast in the changing toom), but got stuck in the middle. Here I got very disappointed with the teacher, she could have taken him to the classroom and could have played with him but she did nothing, so I had to go and save him. Another annoying thing is that the teacher said I should start training him to be there alone. When I saw the sadness in the classroom, I just thought
why would I want to do that? I mean I want him to be there alone for a couple of hours per week, but I have no intentions to stress him, it is just not worth it. Plus I feel much better now (still vomitting a few times a day), so maybe if they start pushing, we won't go there any more...
