Wobblers: Spontaneous Language Games

 

Since my return from maternity leave, the 5 boys in Cohort 4 have transformed from the infants I know so well to wobblers.  This time in between infancy and toddlerhood, like any transition, can be very fragile yet rich with new discoveries.

Language is one of the areas where wobblers start to explore and explode, their babbles and pointing transitioning to more words and pointing.  My day with the boys are filled with naming things, and I can see them filing away the sounds in their language rolodex, getting ready to pull out the right combination when they're ready. 

This is also the time when they begin to play games to help these new skills develop.  This week, our favorite game involves a wash cloth and talking about what things we can wipe.  I noticed first that SW would take a cloth from my stack in the classroom, and start to wipe the table, even when it wasn't cleaning time.  By about the 3rd time, he drew the attention of his friends, and soon all of the boys were walking or crawling around the room with a rag in hand, wiping whatever is in sight.  This time I decided to join in, and begin my narration of what was happening.  At first, I simply talked about what I saw happening:

"SW, you're wiping the table.  You're wiping the dinosaur.  It's getting so clean.  Thanks for helping out!"

Then I realized that this could be an opportunity to play a game about the names of the things in our classroom.  SW , SC and T were all wiping the same things over and over: table, dino, ramp.  To extend their explorations I said, " I wonder what else you could wipe?  Hmmmm..." and I looked around the room.  As soon as I said it, SW found something new and looked at me.  "You're wiping the ottoman.  You're wiping the chair."  Every time one of the children would hurry over to an object or toy, I would name it, and soon everyone was hurrying around the room wiping objects just once then looking at me.  This game was the perfect mix of a wobbler's need to practice physical movement, whether it be walking or crawling depending on their ability and needs, and categorizing their environment.

The game lasted for almost 20 minutes, and by the end, everyone settled into something new very naturally with a big, satisfied smile on their face.  I did not move through the entire process, and when they began to stop wiping things with their cloth, I fell silent as well.  This is the dance that we as teachers do, and sometimes it's beautiful experience for everyone involved.  The room almost felt like it was humming with the energy of what  just happened.