My biggest take away from the past few weeks is the importance of allowing the classroom activities to be child directed (for the most part... I don't mean that the child runs the classroom, but I mean that child's interests are incorporated into classroom activities and to value the process over the product).
Sounds easy enough, but harder said than done, especially when you are (more than) slightly type "A" like myself.
First example: one of my co-teacher's students gets a real sensory kick out of crinkly paper and he likes to reach and touch the butcher paper tree on our wall and pull at it during circle time. Megan is so understanding and always is patient explaining that its a sensory thing for him, never getting annoyed, like I would have. One day he pulled a big piece of butcher paper from behind a cupboard and was playing with it, getting it all wrinkled. I feel like most teachers would have rushed to him and taken the paper away from him and redirected him. Megan let him keep playing with the paper and for our table time we used the paper and taped it to the table and all the students painted on it. Of course, this little guy starts ripping the paper off the table. My first instinct was to stop him cause he was "messing up" the paper. Megan let him rip it off. She helped me realize that its more important for him to get to play with the paper and have fun, then it is to preserve it!
Second example: My little guy came for the first time today. During art time I gave him a red construction paper apple, red paint, glitter, sponges, and some red items to stick on it. He really enjoyed painting with a brush, but soon got very intrigued by the sponges. I gave him some glue, and he went to town on his apple and was having the time of his life! So many teachers get so weird about glue (like kids can only use a tiny little drop) so my instinct was to take the glue away and say something like "you've used enough." This time however, I let him do what he wanted with it. He ended up making a 3-d tower by glueing a sponge to the apple and another on top of it. And sprinkling a generous amount of glitter on the top. Maybe it wasn't what I envisioned for a simple collage product, but I think it was more important for him to interact with the materials and learn through playing with them.
