Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
The Power of Play
photo courtesy of artbrothers.wordpress.com
Teaching young children often means a lot of play and even more time spent justifying why this time is so important. This week was a powerful week in terms of the spontaneous play time I allowed in the classroom.
I have a child, M, with autism. He does have some interactions with myself and my teacher assistant (and we are working on increasing the latter), but has next to no interactions with his peers. This week our goal was to have him exchange something with one of his classmates once a day (often times he will take something from them and then give it to one of the adults and seek reinforcement from us). We successfully completed this task minimally throughout the week and then he brought in several toy cars from home. I had no intention of having a free play time that day, but I diverted from the plan because I was curious to see what would happen.
M ended up giving his classmates cars to play with for at least 20 minutes, including putting it in their hands, making eye contact and seeking a smile. He spontaneously signed “bus” as he gave it to a friend and was copying them when they signed “thank you.” I had prompted him and his peers to sign “please” when they wanted the cars, but he ignored my request. Later, however, he began prompting his peers to sign “please” before he gave them the cars. My assistant and I were so pleased with the progress and even more amazed when V, a classmate, went to sit next to M at lunch independently. They didn’t communicate with one another at lunch, but I will do everything I can this year to facilitate a friendship between these two boys.
As a result of this play time, I am now working on a thematic unit involving transportation for next week (including exploring ramps in science, which I never got to in the science curriculum last year). I can only hope that next week’s planned play time elicits some of the same successes we experienced last week and hopefully even more!
I’m sure you’re asking yourself what lavender nail polish has to do with teaching… other than the fact that I’m a teacher sitting here typing this with wet lavender fingernails. Well I’ll tell you. The kids in my class have such minimal language that I often do some out of the ordinary things (like sing my morning meeting this morning) to get their attention and give them something to talk about later. After one of the girls in my class came in proudly showing me her painted fingernails and everyone started noticing the color of my toe nails I decided to start taking requests for what color my fingernails should be. Last Friday they were Essie’s Lapis of Luxury (or blue, which is what A requested since its his favorite color). Today he happened to notice that my nails were bare and asked me what happened to the blue… I told him the blue was finished at which point he prompted me to paint them purple for tomorrow… done my friend.
(I love doing anything for this particular child because he has major behavior issues and needs tons of attention… not to mention he has an adorable voice and I love listening to him talk— even when I can’t really distinguish what he’s saying).
Photo from vampyvarnish.com.
