Originally Posted by kendallina:
As most of you know, I run a preschool 3 hrs/day 4 days/week. I wanted to try an experiment the week of December 13th (their last week before a 3-week break). I want to have a no toy week. I will have available containers, boxes, some art materials, blankets, pillows, preschool-made books and other materials from around the house. Here is my letter to parents about it:
During free play on Thursday, I watched the children play with just 2 large storage baskets for over 45 minutes. They were climbing in them, dragging each other around and putting them on their heads. I started thinking about what children did years ago before toys were mass produced and before their parents had the means to purchase toys. Now our children are surrounded not only by an abundance of toys, but expensive toys. And toys that DO everything for them. Instead of opening children's minds, many toys today can only be played with in one pre-determined way decided by a manufacturer, not a child.
So, in revolt (lol) I've decided to have a NO TOY week at preschool. When your child arrives on Monday (or Tuesday) next week they will find no toys in the playroom, none in my livingroom and none outside. That's right, NO TOYS!
How will we manage? Instead of toys, I will supply an abundance of everyday and recyclable materials: baskets, boxes, tubing, ribbons, packing materials, pillows, blankets, fabric scraps and several other items from around the house. The children will be encouraged to use their imaginations. If they want to play with a train, they can use boxes to be the train. Or they can draw a train. Or they can use people to be a train. The point is, they will have to figure out how to do it. I will encourage and support, but won't do it for them.
Really, no toys? Ok, I'm keeping in our wooden block set (it's homemade so I figure it's okay...hahaha), crayons, glue, paper, and other art materials so that we can make our own toys if we desire. We'll probably also have several balls available as those are difficult to reproduce from everyday materials and are a wonderful open-ended material that can be played with in a multitude of ways.
How can you help? In addition to NO TOYS, we will have no books! I know, I know, books are important for children's understanding of the world, and their language skills and social skills. I will have book-making materials available to the children all week and I'd like you to work with your child to make a few books for the preschool.
You can pick up all of your book-making supplies at preschool. You and your child can make as many as you'd like.
Book-making suggestions:
1. Follow your child's lead.
2. Don't do it for them!
3. Use simple materials. Allow them to use crayons, markers, paint, whatever (but please, no stickers, glitter paints, sequins etc.).
4. If they want to make a 3-d book, they might use yarn, popsicle sticks, cut up boxes, cotton balls, etc. Whatever you can find around your house.
5. Older kids might tell a story about what they are drawing, feel free to write it on the book.
6. Make sure that you (or the child) puts their name on it.
I will be sure to take a lot of photos and let you know how the week goes!! I've never done this before, so I can't wait to see the results!
This is manageable, right? Do you have any other suggestions for what I should make available to the children? Any other ideas on how the parents can help (they really like to be involved)? Yikes...I can do this, right??
Anything you can do to create excitement around your business is very pleasing to your customers. The parents will love this and so will the kids.
I wouldn't be able to get my parents to make books with them because their lives are VERY busy with their families at night and weekends. I wouldn't want to infringe on their family time and most are not crafty people.
I will have available containers, boxes, some art materials, blankets, pillows, preschool-made books and other materials from around the house.
and
I will supply an abundance of everyday and recyclable materials:
baskets, boxes, tubing, ribbons, packing materials, pillows, blankets, fabric scraps and several other items from around the house.
The kids will love this because it is new to them at your house. ANYTIME you introduce new toys/material the kids are going to like it. The ones you choose will be something they normally don't get to play with at your house so they will love it. You would, however, get the same reaction out of all new toys introduced. It's the newness of it ... most likely not the material, that will keep them occupied.
One of my experiences with adding anything new into the day care is that I have to gradulally add it and not allow a lot at one time. In "my" group the excitement of something new can lead the kids to move to hoarding behavior or increase the tension between the kids and their basic play rules start to get challenged. Our supervision level has to go up a LOT on days when new stuff enter the day care. We counteract this by having single or two kids play with it for a set time.. then offer to the next.. and next over a period of days. We mix and match kids together with it so by the time it goes in play everyone has played with each other with it. When they start to get bored with that we put the toy into regular play just like the other toys. It takes a week or so of rotating them thru before we introduce it.
I can't imagine having
everything be new on the same day.
My little ones would have a hard time with that but you know your group and it sounds like you know they can handle it. Mine would LOVE it but they couldn't handle it and remain within our rules of play.
I watched the children play with just 2 large storage baskets for over 45 minutes. They were climbing in them, dragging each other around and putting them on their heads.
Part of our "rules of play" is that we don't allow climbing inside the house, we don't offer ANY containers to played with by the children (the contents can be played with but not the container) , we don't allow ANYTHING to be put on their head or shoulders and we since we don't allow containers and climbing we wouldn't allow a kid climbing into a container and another pulling them.
My kids would LOVE that for sure but I would be worried about them getting hurt or getting too excited and getting physical with each other. It's high level excitement and the after time of that excitement that you have a high incidence of interpersonal issues with each other. They don't want the excitement to end so when it is over they are full of tension and stress that they can't work off without letting it go on something. Since you only have them a few hours a day... they are not there every day... and then they go home it surely could work for your group. My group are all full time kids who have been raised with each other their whole lives. They would still have a significant amount of time with each other after doing these activities.
The always available art would be another thing that we couldn't manage. Crafts require a certain level of supervision that when we do them we have one adult just there doing/supervising crafts. It pulls one of us away from the group so we have to meter our WHEN we can do crafts built into our feeding/diapering/outdoor/rest schedules in order to maintain the supervision and assistance they need.
So for me this wouldn't work BUT I do think it's darling and I know your parents and kids will LOVE it. It will be a lot of work for you so if you are willing to do the work GO FOR IT.
I started thinking about what children did years ago before toys were mass produced and before their parents had the means to purchase toys. Now our children are surrounded not only by an abundance of toys, but expensive toys. And toys that DO everything for them. Instead of opening children's minds, many toys today can only be played with in one pre-determined way decided by a manufacturer, not a child.
This is a VERY VERY good point and it's the foundation of how I set up my two play rooms and what toys I have available to the kids. I've been collecting toys for 17 years and I'm very very picky about what I allow in the toy areas.
Every single thing available to them has been really thought out. I do not want toys that DO something. I want toys that they can INDEPENDENTLY play with that the child has to DO everything. I don't have battery operated toys at all in either play room. I only allow battery toys for the little mobile babies. Once a baby is old enough to set off the battery powered buttons or action REPEATEDLY and they choose to do that persistently and shun the non battery toys then they are too old for battery toys. I only allow the battery toys when they will not choose them exclusively over regular toys. That happens around a year to fourteen months. When they have the physical ability to fixate on that toy and set it off continuously they are put away or given to the children underneath them in age.
So after a year they never have access to toys that DO anything. Every day their life is playing in a large playroom filled with toys that they must figure out what to do and create their OWN play that is fair to others, keeps them entertained, and does NOT involve an adult.
The toys that do involve and adult such as puzzles, play doh, Mr Potato Head, and any small pieced set toys... are done at a time when we can just like the art activities.
So we don't have any need to give them a non toy day. They really DO know how to play toys with what we have and what we have is abundunt and developmentally appropriate. We are able to just SUPERVISE them while they play and they all keep themselves very busy every day. They love when we add new stuff (carefully thought out) and are introuduced to that gradually over a couple of weeks before it goes on the floor.
It is brilliant and will be a wonderful large activity for you guys to do. I think it will endear the parents to your business and the kids will LOVE it as they would any opportunity to have new stuff available.