Baby Play: Looking more at families

Cohort 5 recently welcomed a new baby to one of our families! As the date of the baby's arrival rapidly approached, the children became more and more aware of the babies in the front room and the mom's expanding belly. Often the children would ask to visit Briana's room. They wanted to simply watch how her babies moved and what kind of activities they enjoyed. 

As the interest in families started to emerge a little while ago, I brought babies and a play house into the room. The play house has many animals, furniture, and some small people to use in it. For the first few weeks both the house and the dolls saw little use. Lately, though, they have been the center of much of our play. LC especially has greatly enjoyed using both of the new materials. She especially is interested in playing out parts of our day with the dolls. For instance, she often takes them to where we sleep at a nap time and helps them to sleep. IS will walk over to warn me it's time to be quiet. He brings his finger to his lips and quietly utters "Shhh! Baby!" to me. LC quietly sings the babies a song and pats their bellies or backs as IS keeps watch over her and them both. QM has also begun to want to help the babies to sleep and can often be found behind our brown chair helping one doll to fall asleep in a nice, enclosed space.

The baby play has also spread to other areas of our play. Outside, as I've posted before, we've been gathering sticks and building nests. This has been happening in the classroom, too! Nests have been made out of towels, piles of clothes, the brown chair, piles of trains... pretty much anything in the classroom! So far these nests remain uninhabited but that may change over time as we continue to explore habitats and homes. For now, we've been welcoming the arrival of our family book and discussing more about what our lives are like in our own homes away from our school.