Simple Sunday – Child led exploration

I have become increasingly aware in the past few months that even though Collin’s time is mostly child directed, free play it is very much contained within the structures defined by our center.  We must be out on the yard by a certain time, move children around classrooms to stay in ratio, eat and nap together (check out my post on how nap has been going…) and be all cleaned up and done at a specific time of the day.  Not to mention he is rarely alone.  I do consider him to be someone who plays independently but that time is spent with other toddlers in pursuit of a interests not always driven by his independent thought.

I don’t see all of this as bad.  In particular I have seen his social understanding blossom far beyond most children of his age. However, I have been making an effort on our days off to offer him time that is completely his own.  Time for him to choose his direction, take his time and be free from the threat of another child imposing their wishes on him.  In short, simple time to just be.

Here was our walk today, it began as a leaf hunt and evolved into a berry hunt/smoosh session. Then we discovered dandelions in the wet field as the rain fell.   He gently touched the damp flowers, giggled as raindrops hit his silky blonde hair.  Collin found this to be amazing and you know what? So did I.

Finding some type of berry, we found it was smooshy in the middle and far more fun to step on than poke

Oh…but that made our feet dirty 🙂

From way across the park he spied a ‘hill’, we had to run up it!

“Froggy! Collin get in there?”

Trying to figure out how to rock it

Do wet dandelions still blow in the breeze?

Checking them out as the rain started to fall

Trying to blow the wet dandelions