Superheros Dress-up day

On the last day of the term, we had superheros dress-up day. The focus is to acknowledge children's recent interests in superheros, like Transformers, ninjia, Spiderman and Ben 10. It's a way to get families involved, as at these young age, parents had to organize the outfits. We also want to communicate to parents that pretend play embodies many learning opportunities, especially for engaging boys.

Personally, I have a goal to use the dress-up event to extend children's imagination. So, I created a superhero character, Super Smiley Girl for myself. My super power was to put a smile on people's face. Therefore, I wore a cape full of stickers, and I simply ripped stickers off my cape to share with everyone. I put butterfly wings on my leggings because I was supposed to run fast. I also used a smiley face as my insignia. I explained my outfit and superpower to children, in order to encourage them to create superheros from their own imagination and creativity rather than from the movies or TV series.

Although most children came in with costumes brought from the shop, I was glad that children showed interests in my outfit and started to ask questions. I applies Desalyn De-Souza and Jacqueline Radell's ideas to guide children to make their own superheros. I declared that my super power was to make people happy; and I asked the children what supeheros usually do. I demonstrated to them how a superhero may look like and asked their suggestions for a unique superhero. We googled images to look at different insignias, and we talked about colors, shapes, letters and symbols of a potentially super insignia.

At the end of the kindy day, some children had developed their own supehero persona, and they asked me to help them make their own outfits. Well, that's what we will do after the school holiday, I promised them. I will collect fabrics, get my sewing machine ready, and buy some face paint as well. May the force be with us!

Superhero Play - More thoughts about the Transformers play

I've done more thinking about my theory of 'princesses and fairies to girls is like Transformers and robots to boys'.

Girls explore the concept of good vs evil through relationships. The princess   tries to find her prince charming; to get along to her evil stepmother and ugly step sisters. Boys explore the concept of good vs evil through battles and wars. While girls narrate their fantasy stories and draw pictures, they express their vision of beauty, kindness and love . Their languages for communication include drawing, writing stories, dancing, and dramatic play. Boys learn kinesthetically and involve themselves in bold actions, physically and actively. Their values are courage, bravery, taking risks, challenging themselves. Their languages include physical body contact, dramatic play.

Just share some observations at kindergarten.

A boy invited me to play, assigning me to be the baddie, I asked what I need to do. He explained that I needed to shoot him, wielding his finger gun. Could he be exploring the feeling of fear? It is sure that he felt safe in this baddie vs the good guy game, there was no real danger. Perhaps he was trying to overcome his fear, his sense of insecurity through 'beating' with the 'baddie', who was a teacher and is supposed to be kind and caring!  I think children don't always feel safe. They are aware of dangers in this world. The child's world is not totally innocent.

Conversely, another boy claimed that he was a baddie, and I'm supposed to chase him and catch him. I had the impression that he was testing the boundaries and limits of acceptable behaviors. He normally follows routines and rules, probably dare not to break the rules, knowing that there will be consequences. So, acting out the role of baddie in his dramatic play could his way of learning about the world?

Well, I will keep my eyes and ears open and to watch and listen for more .

more insights about boys...