One Step Removed at Nursery

I do some teaching at a nursery school occasionally and always come away with amazing moments to reflect on, possibly because I forget how naturally small children can engage with PBs, at times.

Recently, a young child who I know quite well at the nursery came up to me looking unwell and not her usual self. I asked her how she was feeling. "I feel....like an engine," she replied. I asked her "What do engines feel like?" She thought for a moment before answering "Smokey...I feel like that." The child was feeling poorly and her mother collected her.

Another recent encounter at the same school, I was doing a group session with about 10 children. The children had each chosen a soft toy and had a 'chat' with the soft toy and were feeding back on various feelings. One child in the group who speaks English as an additional language often presents with challenging behaviour and can be aggressive to his peers, often using physical means to communicate. He had a brightly coloured fish and he spoke to tell the group "Fish feels angry when [it] have no more friends." For a child with social communication difficulties, he was perhaps able to share his feelings of loneliness in this activity which was really powerful.

I always look forward to these sparkly moments with some of the youngest PB explorers

Judith

More wonderful examples of PBs in practice. Encouraging an emotional literacy from birth is so important and the engagement you get from the children in early years is very encouraging in terms of their long term health and welfare. Good work

Sounds wonderful to me Judith - I remember a boy in a pre-school setting describing having a 'scribble in his head' whenever he started to feel cross and especially when he had to wait for a go on the trikes! Another little girl said she had 'spaghetti legs' when she felt hungry. In my experience young children access PBs readily with very few of the unwritten rules that older children/people have. So feel really excited about all the fantastic work you're doing.
SA