"I need dirty water"

Four-year-olds at work water painting the steps.

Three four-year-olds boys are outside, water painting the wood steps that lead up to the sand box slide. They had filled small cups with water from the outside faucet and then gathered paintbrushes. The boys began working their way up the steps as a team.
When 3-year-old Aaron came outside to play, he noticed the boys doing this work. He watched them and starting asking them about their brown water, wondering why they had brown water. The boys didn't answer Aaron and kept on painting in silence.

Aaron wanted to join in.

I had been standing nearby, watching and listening. Aaron quickly turned to me and stated, "I need Dirty Water."
He repeated this a few times, perhaps hoping I would deliver his Dirty Water to him. I asked Aaron what he thought we should do, where we might get Dirty Water. We looked at what the boys were using and decided to get the same things they had - one cup and a paintbrush.

Now that Aaron had the tools, he still had his problem of needing Dirty Water in order to be part of the group.
Aaron went to the outside faucet to fill his cup with water, holds onto to his paintbrush and walks over to the edge of the garden. Aaron pours his water into the dirt and watches it soak down..."Oh, that's not right," says Aaron.
He stands there for a moment then leans over to the muddy dirt with his now-empty cup and starts scraping up some of the wet dirt into his cup. He walks back to the water faucet, fills his cup again and stirs it with his brush - voila, Dirty Water!
Aaron goes to the boys to tell them,
"I have Dirty Water, I have Dirty Water...!" The boys look at him and realize what he was trying to do this whole time. "You didn't need dirty water," they tell him. 
"I have dirty water..." Aaron repeats as he walks up the wood steps, sits at the top of the landing next to a new friend and starts painting.

Aaron happily water paints with his new friend.

Aaron's process for joining the big-boy group is a beautiful example of social function at its best. Aaron had arrived in the outside play space, admired children doing something he wanted to do, and seemed to believe that his way into the activity was to have exactly the same tools that the boys were already using.

The need for Dirty Water did not give Aaron pause at all. He requested my help to figure out HOW to get dirty water, yet I only questioned him in order for him to resolve his own needs.
Once Aaron had the dirty water, he confidently knew he could join in with the boys.
Aaron never hesitated.
He never asked permission.
Sometimes, all you need is dirty water to make a new friend.

For water activity ideas: check out NurtureStore's Water Play Link Up!

trapeze girl

Getting into costume to be trapeze girl.

A short story only my four-year-old friend Charlotte could have invented and one which makes me SEE her flying in a blue wig on a trapeze...

 

 "When I grow up - when I am sixteen and a half and 17 inches - I am going to be in the circus! Not the ice skating part but really inside where the trapeze is.

I am going to climb up the ladder and when the trapeze swings back I will catch the trapeze with my hands!

Then I will put my knees down on the trapeze part and flip off and go around and around with the pink jump rope sticking out so people know it is me up there!

 Also, I need a blue wig - that will make me trapeze girl!  When I take off my wig people will say 'hey, that's not a circus star trapeze girl - that's a little girl!'"

-charlotte, 4yo.-

Ready to be trapeze girl.

Charlotte always had a lot to say.

Usually, it involved HER in the middle

of some sort of adventure.

She would incorporate bits of true life

and many bits of

some other life she dreamed of living,

even at the age of four.

sophia's train

The Middle

It was a new school year. In my class of four-year-olds, we had just started using the term "Plan" to think out our independent work.

Planning is a beginning for children to articulate an area of the classroom that they'd like to work, perhaps some materials with which they'll start their plan, and perhaps a concept already in mind ("I want to make a castle with blocks in the block area").

Children can change their Plan, their materials, and area in which they play any time they want - ideally, though, they will articulate that they are changing ("I am done in the block area - I want to plan to use the magnets with Alison in the science area").

Since we had been together as a new class group for only a few weeks, the teachers did not expect in depth plans at this point. More so, we wanted the term 'Plan' to begin to be incorporated into our shared language in class.

This day with Sophia in the art area turned out to be a special day to observe a very focused child who was already comfortable with supplies and - most definitely - had a Plan.

This story is from many years ago and I have shared it whenever I have talked with new teachers about listening and documentation:

The Upper Left Corner

I find Sophia working in the Art Area during the early morning work time. I see that she is working quite intently with her markers and crayons, having already done some cutting and careful application of red and blue tape around her work.

I am curious about her focus and also wonder about the one small piece of red tape in the middle.

The Bottom Right Corner

As I approach her, I ask Sophia about her work, wondering out loud about her tape and the interestingly cut paper...

"Oh, yes," remarks Sophia, "I had thought a lot about this before I did it.

I cut it like this to make a tunnel.
You see? The tape around the sides is the tunnel part. And the black circle coming through is the train. 

"It is a train coming through a tunnel.

The red tape in the middle is the light you see when you see it coming straight through."

"It is a train coming through a tunnel." sophia, 4yo.

  

Understand that this is the amazing part about working with young children.

You must listen to them and give them their time and let them teach you.

They always have so much to teach you.

As soon as Sophia explained to me about her train,

the only thought that entered my mind was... 

"Yes."