For kids in 2-Day, this is often their first school experience. Because of this, we talk a lot with families about the social and emotional development taking place in the classroom as kids make their way through separation and manage their feelings of being away from home without a parent. Kids are also navigating their peers, learning how to be with them and voicing their likes and dislikes to each other or through the support of a teacher. We thought we’d use this week’s newsletter to tell a bit about the cognitive development that we see at school as well, specifically executive function skills, a group of skills that can help us throughout our lives. As adults we use executive function skills on a daily basis. These skills help us hold a grocery list in our head, focus on an email amidst background distraction, and change our route home if a street is closed. Executive function skills can begin to develop in children through play in settings that promote social relationships, varied experiences, and safe and stable environments. School can be that kind of setting, and we’re certainly noticing the early development of executive functioning in the classroom.
Executive function skills can be broken into three categories: working memory, inhibitory control, and mental flexibility. Following the rules of a game is calling upon working memory - knowing the different steps to take and which order to do them in is working memory in action. As we described in last week’s newsletter, we’ve been playing a game called Feed My Dog at school. By introducing games that require a multi-step process to play, kids can start to develop working memory by holding those steps in their head and then carrying them out through the process of the game. We’ve used eye droppers throughout the school year in the water table and also when we colored the rice in the sand table. Now we are using basters in the water table, tools that require the same kind of multi-step process as the eye droppers. We’ve been using the basters to empty and fill tubes in the water table. Similar to using eye droppers, using basters calls upon kids to 1) put the baster in the water 2) squeeze the top 3) stop squeezing 4) take the baster out 5) squeeze the water into the tube (or into the water table). This multi-step process, as in the Feed My Dog game, is another way kids begin to develop their working memory in the classroom.
We know we ask a lot of kids while they’re at school: drive the truck instead of crashing it, stir the bubbles instead of splashing them. Sometimes what kids want to do impulsively isn’t what’s best for the materials or the kids around them. Asking kids to inhibit some of these behaviors can feel challenging. Through play, however, kids can practice inhibitory control, another one of the executive function skills, without feeling the challenge or the demand they may feel outside of play. This week we started acting out the story Pete’s a Pizza in which Pete’s dad pretends to turn Pete into a pizza. Kids who want to be pizza dough lay down, and the pizza makers - teachers and sometimes kids - put the ingredients on. When the pizza maker says it’s time to put the pizzas in the oven, the pizzas run away and the pizza makers chase them. When kids lay down and keep still while pretending to have cheese and pepperoni sprinkled on them, they are practicing inhibitory control. Many kids are excited by the chasing part of the game, but by staying on the mat until it’s time to “go in the oven” they are developing their inhibitory control. Pretending to be a pizza helps suppress the impulse to get up and run.
Finally, the practice and development of mental flexibility is a daily occurrence at school. Using toys in different ways (a wrench as a mustache or a block for cat food), turning a puzzle piece around and around until it fits, hearing how another kid is using the blocks on the block rug and then changing your idea so you can fit into their play - those are all ways that kids are exercising their mental flexibility. Having exposure to new ideas, just realizing there are other ideas out there other than your own, is a way for kids to develop mental flexibility. That exposure can be a big part of group time. Kids get to hear other kids’ ideas about what body part gets stuck with bubble gum or what food to add to the soup, and they get to see what kids act out when it’s their turn to go in the middle. Each kid might have a different idea which means everyone is getting experience with how others think differently from them.
So much is happening at school everyday, from washing hands upon arrival to singing songs just before dismissal and everything in between. We certainly continue to enjoy all the parts of the day with your children and delight in seeing the growth that’s been taking place throughout the year.