Harshil tries really hard
A story of Harshil’s grit, effort, & self-engagement.
What is your image of a child? When you see a child doing something, what sense do you make out of it? What do you think the child is doing?
Well, Children are essentially trying to make sense of the world around them — How things work? How people react? What can be done? What is scary? What is safe? and a countless more questions. They are questioning things & are then trying to learn.
According to the EYFS, grit is a behavioural trait which make the process of learning much more effective. It’s a characteristic that even adults strive to inculcate in their being. And what makes children so wonderful? They are born with it and learn to practice this behaviour all by themselves if we simply let them be.
Off late, during our play with Harshil we encountered certain incidents that made us confident that he is acquiring and practicing these traits, so we thought it would be worth sharing. After all, it’s these tiny observations & their positive reinforcement that makes children into wonderful individuals.
A i m
Every once in a while, we make a few changes to the class & wait for the children to observe & interact with it. Recently, we added a hanging in the middle of the play structure. Harshil observed and started throwing balls towards it. While he missed the target most of the times, we kept encouraging him & when it finally hit- he would smile ear-to-ear.
What we thought might be a one time thing, ended up becoming one of his favourites in the class. In fact on the second day of his play he even picked up the term ‘A i m’ and started repeating it like taking a shot.
Everyday for the next whole week, he would come to class and rush to the play structure, he would try different techniques, different places from the slide.
He would grab a basket of balls, take it up the slide & start aiming on the hanging. He also started listening to and following our instructions when we would tell him something and make an aim that would actually hit the target.
Later we created a proper invite that allowed him to make more tries to hit the target, and somewhere in between all these days, all the instructions and all the tries- Harshil’s aim had become so much more accurate.
And while it may sound a really simple thing but it has been a big milestone in our journey towards nurturing Harshil’s hand-eye coordination.
Let’s take the Fox up the slide
Construction is an essential part of a toddler classroom, it enables them to bring to life their ideas and stories. Children go through a spectrum of stages of construction during their play, starting from simple dumping stuff in one place…it has endless possibilities.
In the past few weeks Harshil has started to self-engage for longer duration without the need of an adult. It was during one such episode of self engagement that he took the next step in his construction journey- The tote & carry stage.
One of these days, Harshil started picking up felt animals from the window to take them into the tunnel and dump them there. However, What looked like a casual episode of play proved to be such an amazing story to look back to. Harshil demonstrated immense grit in making sure he takes up the exact animals that he wants — especially the Fox, no matter how much time and effort it takes. He lost the fox, very carefully looked for it around…found it under him…
he picked up armful of animals along with the fox, leaving no way to hold the sides for balance & started walking up the slide…he lost balance once & came down…
then started again…and finally he was able to reach the top.
The smile on his face at this moment was precious and it is micro wins like these that shall make him more confident and independent in his future pursuits.
Let’s fit all these cups
An amazing thing about children is that once they discover something new, learn something new, figure something out, it becomes their favourite thing to do.
To encourage Harshil’s recent spree of self-engagement, often we let him play by himself while carefully observing him and his efforts & stories. One of these days Harshil started interacting with the Grimm’s cups & the game was simple — He had to fit all the cups in the box.
Harshil took it as a challenge for himself to fit all the cups inside the box, he made a puzzle out of it, trying multiple strategies. Taking out the bigger cup, placing the smaller one, using different orientations and so on. One could observe that he was figuring it out more and more with every additional cup, reducing the time & effort it took to adjust.
And it is about episodes like this one that go a long way in developing patience and problem solving among children & would allow them to learn more things.
Once we had figured out this pattern, we planned to use it as a tool of introducing and developing various skill sets appropriate for Harshil & in general for things that excited him.
Harshil likes the Scratching-stick
As an educator at a progressive preschool one of our biggest learning is that the job isn’t really to teach, it is to make them want to learn. And the best way to do that is to inspire them by exposing them to different things, and so was the case of the scratching-stick.
We got two scratching sticks and without absolutely any instruction as to what is to be done, we started to use the stick in a very useful way — dragging balls for cleanup.
While we are not sure but it looked like Harshil saw it as a Superpower to be able to a long stick to drag all balls or anything for that matter. And then that was that. The kid who would otherwise be throwing balls around, now wanted to drag out every single ball there was…From under the table, behind the chair, beside the mattress and more.
Harshil spent good time figuring out the stick, how to hold it, which side’s up, how to use… over a couple of days. This incident has opened up so many avenues for us to add to Harshil’s learning journey.
What this means
These stories show how Harshil now puts sustained efforts in learning something that excites him, while keeping himself busy in the act.
Simply put, the will & want to do something is much stronger than the abilities that he has, which allows him to struggle and see it through.
What this also means is that Harshil is letting us know that he is hungry and ready for learning more & being more independent and self engaged.
Opportunity to grow
Harshil’s recent attitude and approach has helped him in becoming more equipped for his day to day tasks as well as other challenges like lacing, opening locks, opening the water bottle, his own shoes, his lunch box...tasks which were either too difficult or too complex only a month ago.
This unlocks the opportunity to help him in acquiring different skills sets, based on his fondness & interests. Then be it — Building a sand castle, or riding a cycle, or opening a lock. We are so excited to see what excites him next.
Thank you
