To mix it up a little, today I welcome a fellow teacher, blogger and friend, Jeanne of Zella Said Purple, to the hotseat to talk about one of the challenges facing teachers today…

First of all, Thank You to Christie for offering me a guest blog opportunity during her maternity leave from Childhood 101. Christie’s blog has been an inspiration to me since beginning my Zella Said Purple blog in 2010 and personally it has been thrilling to establish a blog-ship (is that like a friendship?) with Christie over the two years. Cheers to Christie and her new baby!

While Christie is focusing on her newest family member, here’s the Question that she proposed for me:

“What are the current challenges facing teachers today?”

I thought for quite some time about it. Hmmm, there are a zillion answers and there are no answers.

I asked the students in the college course I instruct about this topic to hear their interpretation as Brand New Teachers and discovered one absolute answer: What it all came down to is Time.

Don’t we all wish we had more of it or more control of it?

Don’t we all wish time could slow down when we needed it to and yet also speed along at other times?

As Time relates to Teachers in an early childhood classroom, however, the challenge varies from trying to be in the moment with children, implementing curriculum, addressing state standards, to cleaning blue paint from the art tables!

Here a few keys to fight time head on:

Big 3 Time Stealers and How Teachers Can Steal Time Back

Time Stealer #1: Teachers focusing on Teacher Agenda
Ok, sure, it is important to Think Ahead and have a sense of the big picture for the school day. Teachers need to be intentional in their planning and have a flow for the routine of the day. However, a Time Stealer is when teachers are not “present” with the children in the moment to witness learning, scaffold an experience or take photos and/or document an exploration. Teachers instead have the children “busy enough” in class so that the teacher can prep the NEXT thing they want the children to be engaging in or doing. The day is a blur of next, next, next.

Teachers are so worried about what should be happening NEXT that they do not connect with what is happening NOW with children. Your true time is lost because your focus is on the Teacher Agenda instead of on the children right then, exactly then. The children have so much to teach you if you allow them to be a significant partner in the planning of what happens in your classroom.

Steal Time Back #1: Leave room IN your agenda for children’s discoveries to guide your teaching. This requires you to focus on the children, listen, photograph, record conversations. The value is that you Really Understand where the children are in their development around a certain skill or exploration. When you sit down nearby a group of children building in the block area, examine the materials they have chosen, listen in to their drama they created around the Cave for Dinosaurs. Your formal or informal collection of this kind of data in turn authentically informs your teaching for the next day or weeks instead of needing to hurry up to prep a butterfly art project that has no connection to what the children are really DOing.

Real example: One of my favorite stories is of a girl named Sophia and her Train. She had worked in the art area over a period of time to create a train coming through a tunnel. My privilege was to sit near her and listen to her process and explanation of the train being born onto her paper with tape and crayons. “Oh, yes,” remarks Sophia, “I had thought a lot about this before I did it. I cut it like this to make a tunnel. You see? The tape around the sides is the tunnel part. And the black circle coming through is the train. It is a train coming through a tunnel. The red tape in the middle is the light you see when you see it coming straight through.”   Read more here: Sophia’s Train.

Time Stealer #2: Teachers impose their exact way for children to do something
Teachers often have learned a certain way that they believe children would benefit from doing something ~ paint “like this” or use these magnets “like this” or press the stampers “like this.” Even more complicated, teachers often have 3 or 4 steps of How To for children to do something exactly in one certain way: First, hold the paint brush, then dip it in the water, then dip it in the paint, then glide it on your paper….

This kind of ‘teaching’ usually has a complimentary “Don’t press the brush” “Don’t dip in two colors” “Don’t use too much paint”. Not a favorite style of mine. This is a Time Stealer because children don’t require our guidance in this way.

Steal Time Back #2: The classroom environment is set for children to USE and EXPLORE materials and tools on their own.

This can happen. You can think about What and Why you offer materials and tools in different areas of the classroom for the ages you teach. You can be deliberate about how you lay out a game or blocks or paint that makes it child accessible and child inviting. Sure, you should introduce the items in large/small groups so the children are familiar with their possibilities and properties. Yet, really, does paint require a How To? What if children surprised you with how they mixed and dabbled and smushed and dotted different colors? Wouldn’t that enrich your understanding about that child’s creativity and exploration with color and tools? Would all the colors being mixed to brown be the worst thing? Would smashed bristles on a paint brush be the worst thing? Would paint dripping off the easel be the worst thing? All of these can be used a discussion of “Oh, what happened here?”

As adults, we lose the vantage point of something being brand new and how to investigate its properties in unusual ways: This is a gift you can give the children. The children would have so much Extra Time to investigate and explain and invent ways of playing with paint if teachers didn’t have an exact “right way” of painting. If teachers let go of How To, there will be huge amounts of Time given back to exploration in all areas of the classroom. You don’t need to teach children how to play. We need to let children show us how they play.

Real example: I have so many stories of children inventing ways of playing that I would never have dreamed of myself. One group of three children created a whole scenario of The Dinosaur That Might Be Dead when they investigated a goat skull we had in the Science Area. They used kaleidoscopes, magnets and magnifiers to research this “problem” of the dead dinosaur and created doctor roles for themselves such as Doctor of Bones and Doctor Wizard. If I had told them they could only do certain things with the skull or the science tools they would never have been able to invent this dramatic scene that lasted for over a week and also inspired my master’s thesis at university. Read more here: The Dinosaur That Might Be Dead.

Time Stealer #3: Teachers need to Prep and Clean all day
Teachers need to wash, disinfect, sort, stack, prep, organize all day long with food, materials, and children’s items. Teachers allow this part of our job to Become Our Job all day. Similar to the Teacher Agenda, teachers focus on the cleaning to a degree where teachers want to limit what children do or explore because “it is so messy” or “too many blocks” or “too much drippy paint.” Sure, part of our job is to have a safe and clean school experience for all children and staff. Yet, we all know cleaning could be a full time job itself in a classroom.

Steal Time Back #3: Teachers partner with children to care for the classroom.

Children who take ownership of the classroom have a much stronger role in the care of the classroom. When children are in an environment where they choose their materials and tools, have extended choice time to play, and have authentic relationships with teachers, they in turn have an awareness of the care that is required for their classroom and desire to be caring members. Children usually want to clean tables for snack time, to sort the blocks back onto the shelves, or to recycle the extra art paper from the exploration table. Children working with teachers to think about preparing and cleaning the classroom invites an unhurried tone where the before/after play is an equal part of being at school. It is not only for teachers to clean and prep. Children learn sorting, sequencing, organizing, as well as being a member of a group, helping, and recognizing what a ‘cleaned up’ classroom looks like. Other than cleaning, children also like helping prepare materials for a small group game or exploration, lay out snack or get books chosen for reading time.

Real Example: I would always have the children start cleaning up in the area that they were currently working in, then join another area if that group needed help. Lastly, I’d always offer an “I SPY for 3” more things around the classroom which the children really enjoyed finding that one scrap of paper under a table, or the one marble that rolled away, or straightening chairs “nicer.” A sense of pride as a class group was evident. Granted, teachers were equal members of the clean up, but Everyone Helping was modeled everyday.

Time is a gift for you to take hold of and offer to children in the richest form you can.

Breathing, Letting Go and Partnering with Children can steal time back into the school day.

Jeanne is an early childhood educator, artist, blogger and children’s book collector. She is committed to constructivist learning environments, documentation and photography as teacher research tools, and joy in the classroom.

You can read more about Jeanne’s work on her blog Zella Said Purple.

This post is by regular contributor Cath Oehlman aka Squigglemum.

Character is higher than intellect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is of little traits that the greatest human character is composed.
William Winter

Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.
William Henry Channing

What are your best character traits?  If your best friend had to sum you up in three words, what would they be? Perhaps you are witty, confident, and reliable.  Or maybe you are loyal, sociable, and daring.  Which words would you use to describe your child’s character?

Character is tricky to define.  The word originally came from Ancient Greek, and referred to the markings pressed into a coin. Today the word refers more to the mark of a person, and encompasses a range of attributes, qualities and behaviours.  Some character traits are highly desirable, while others are less so!

Both of my children have many wonderful qualities, and some of these traits have been evident from a very young age.  For example, my daughter has a vivid imagination, while my son is an excellent problem solver.  These strengths have been apparent since they were toddlers, and I expect that they will continue to be evident into adulthood.  They are not qualities I have “taught” but rather those which are naturally part of their make up.

Other character traits are learned.  Often we talk about how difficult experiences can be “character building” for a child. But I wonder, is character only built through trial? Can we intentionally, and proactively build character traits into our kids through positive experiences?

I hope the answer is yes!  In addition to those traits I see innately occurring in my children, I hope that I can further build beneficial attributes, qualities and behaviours into their lives. My husband and I value integrity, honesty, respect and kindness – and so these are some of the character traits we would love to see growing in our kids.  This means we need to set an example, living out these attributes as parents and as people ourselves.

Every family is of course different, made up of unique individuals and a set of family values. Which character traits are highly regarded in your home?  What would you like to build into your children’s lives?  And which attributes are already evident in your family?  While far from exhaustive, the alphabet of character traits below may help you to think through this topic further.

Adventurous
Bold
Conscientious
Diligent
Enthusiastic
Friendly
Generous
Honest
Imaginative
Joyful
Kind
Logical
Mature
Neat
Optimistic
Polite
Quiet
Responsible
Sensitive
Trustworthy
Unselfish
Vulnerable
Wise
eXuberant
Young-at-heart
Zany

Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Today’s fabulous Mum in the hotseat, Sarah of That Space In Between, answers the tricky question, “What is the best mistake you’ve ever made?”

I didn’t realise, before I became a mum that there was so much that you could stuff up. From the moment you stumble through the door after leaving the hospital you can guarantee that most things, on most days can be questioned, dissected and explored. Mistakes are to parenting, like moths are to flames. They stick, even when you don’t want them to. So when Christie asked me what as the best mistake I ever made it made me stop, there were so many to choose from but only one stood out as the winner.

The mistake was something that happened almost 15 years ago. It was late in the evening in the basement of a seedy bar a few months after my 21st birthday. I was playing pool and an irritating guy was hassling me about the purple flares I had chosen to wear that night (with a maroon t-shirt…not quite sure what that was about). After giving him the death stare for the tenth time a youngish looking guy with a British accent stepped in and asked the guy to move on, he said he was my husband…winking at me at the same time. The guy moved on and the Brit stayed. We chatted, we flirted and he told me stories of his travels. He was a fair bit older than me; he had picked rock melons in Israel, thatched cottages in Holland and eaten a scorpion in Thailand. I listened. I liked. I was in my final week of a 4-year university degree and I hadn’t gone anywhere further than the central coast of NSW with a bunch of girlfriends. He seemed pretty cool to me. He seemed pretty international.

He rang the next night and the night after that and he took me to a little restaurant that served angel hair pasta and we laughed and we danced and talked about the cool places we’d go.

He moved in 2 weeks later. Like they all do. He moved into a share house that I had been for a while, it had bikes permanently parked in the hallway, a guy that lived in the loft had a cat who had kittens that had free rein of the house, they used to jump out of the cupboards and scare the beejesus out of you when you’d cook ramen noodles or tuna surprise. It cost $58 a week. It smelt.

I was talking to a friend the other night; about the joy of parenting children post divorce. About the challenges of explaining to ex-partners what the needs of their kids are, how to talk to them, how to ask questions that a 6 year old would be delighted to answer. We lamented at the crap decisions we had made at 21, how those warning signs soon after the novelty of life in share houses wore off, where once quirky English backpackers soon became irritating men that couldn’t hold down a job. Where months stretched out to years and you found yourself almost 30 and still living with a man that hadn’t yet grown up. The end was quick. The end was a relief.

Playing pool that night was the best mistake I ever made. It set off a chain of events that led me to the birth of my girl. It paved the pathway to meeting my soul mate just after I turned 30 and it provided me with the most beautiful baby boy who winks when you call his name (and lovingly throws trains at my head).

Best mistake I ever made, without a doubt.

What is the best mistake you’ve ever made?

Sarah Wayland has been working as a Social Worker in the missing persons field since 2003 and after years of sharing stories with the media she now writes about life and loss and the spaces in between. Sarah is currently a part-time stay-at-home mum, part-time public servant and part-time postgraduate student in the field of hope and loss at the University of New England. She blogs at thatspaceinbetween.com.

A peek inside a reader’s play space…

This is my sons pirate themed room. It has been a work in progress since he was a baby and is now his favourite place.  It has made bedtime so much easier in our household and he often has quiet time in there playing with his soft ocean toys.

I hand painted a mural over one wall, it is not complete as I try to do a little bit here & there when he is not watching (I don’t want him thinking its ok to paint all over the walls). He has a boat shaped shelf and on the opposite wall there is a funky wall shelf with Pirate/Nautical items and pirate wall stickers. But the coolest thing is his boat bed that I had custom made. It has a built in toddler barrier and is shaped like a boat. He loves it!

We have some pretty “out there”spaces in our house and I love themes, this is no exception. This room is our son’s own little sanctuary where he can do his own thing and drift off into a pirate world or imagine what lies beneath the sea. I have a post on my blog that shows more pictures and I may up date it in the future when everything is 100% complete. I think I may just keep adding to the mural til we are happy with it.

Happy Adventures

Thank you to Renee of Adventures at Home with Mum for sharing this playful bedroom space. Do you have a play space to share? Submit your play space hereand you too could be featured on Childhood 101.

Be sure to visit the previous Our Play Space posts for more playful kids decor inspiration!

I felt so spoilt when a friend organised a small baby shower get together the week before AJ was born, it’s not often (at least in my experience) that Baby #2 receives such special attention, and it was nice to take some time out of the nesting frenzy to sit, chat and enjoy morning tea with some wonderful mama friends.

I received some really precious and thoughtful gifts when both Immy and AJ were born (as well as being someone who loves to buy gifts for new bubbas) and thought I would share five of my favourite ideas for baby shower gifts…

1. Picture Books: My favourite gift to give at baby showers, especially for #1 babies, is picture books. Reading is so important to child development and good quality books truly keep on giving for years to come. I generally choose a selection of well known titles as well as books my small girl has loved for the expanding family to enjoy together. Some of my favourites include;

• The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? or The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
• Who Sank the Boat? or either of the Grandpa and Thomas titles by Pamela Allen
• Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins
• Hairy Macleary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd
• Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss
• Where is the Green Sheep? or Time for Bed by Mem Fox
• Any of the Maisy books by Lucy Cousins
• A selection of the ‘When I’m Feeling…’ books by Trace Moroney

Alternatively, you might like to gift an illustrated collection of fairy tales or nursery rhymes or a classic series, like the stories of The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton, for the family to enjoy once bubs is a little older.

2. Handmade: I love the thoughtfulness of a handmade gift and have so many talented, creative friends ~ AJ has received some beautifully sewn gifts and a painted canvas, and my grandmother is crocheting a special something for the nursery. If you can sew, embroider, draw, paint, collage, knit or crochet then why not use your skills to make a perfectly unique gift.

3. Pledge a meal: This is one I struggle to give (I am such an unconfident cook) but love to receive! Providing a meal takes the pressure off both the new mama and papa for a night which is sure to be appreciated at a time when both are likely to be tired and eating well is so important.

4. Feeding basket: What about a basket of goodies for the new mama to enjoy during the long hours of sitting still and feeding?!?! Suggestions to include (depending upon what she likes, of course) ~ her favourite TV series on DVD (thanks to my friend Danimezza for this fantastic suggestion), a pile of glossy mags related to her interests, a novel (maybe something light and easy to read), a selection of easy to eat and nutritious snacks (some nice crackers and cheeses or dips, fresh seasonal fruit, nuts and seeds, muesli bars, dried fruit, etc), a pretty, refillable water bottle, burp cloth, breast pads, a pretty scarf to use as a breastfeeding cover, nursing bracelet, notebook and pen, an iTunes gift card.

5. Cleaner: An extravagance most definitely but perfect from a large group of friends or work colleagues, a voucher for a month’s worth of weekly visits by a cleaner has to be the ultimate gift for a newly expanded family. I was so fortunate to receive this as a gift from my colleagues and some of my clients when Immy was born and I can’t tell you what a difference it made, especially once my Mum who was staying with us returned home and Dad 101 returned to work and I was learning to negotiate full time motherhood alone.

What are your favourite baby shower gift ideas?

A warm welcome to Fiona of Inner Pickle to the hotseat. Fiona’s blog never fails to inspire me ~ with yummy recipes, stories of family life on a farm and the challenges of establishing a family business selling organic and free range produce. Plus she is really nice in person! Today Fiona is sharing a little of what playtime looks like at her house…

When Christie asked me to write about what playtime looks like at my house, I struggled to think of anything other than MESSY! Oh my goodness the mess. The plastic tubs of craft. The washing up from the baking. The dried paint on the floor. The musical instrument corner. (I have a friend who calls it the Arts Precinct. I love that.)

When we lived in the inner city, our playtime was either inside or in a park. When we first moved home to the country, and now the farm, I enforced a ‘green hour’ from 4pm – 5pm every day, when the kids had to play outside. They were so un-used to it, they didn’t know what to do out there.

It’s different now. Playtime for my three means different things, like it would for your kids. For Ivy, not quite two, it just means being outside. She’s what we call a farm native. If she’s missing, she’s in the hayshed. Or the chookyard. Ideally not in the pig pen.

For Tilly, five, playtime is everything that’s not school and hopefully involves a friend. She’s a girl who adores her friends. It might also involve being in the trailer behind the quad bike, if you’re lucky it’s very windy, or maybe, on a very good day, playtime involves mud. Lots of it. (And a friend.)

And if you’re our almost eight year old Henry, playtime is measured in allocated doses of iPod time and computer time. Everything else is meaningless. Apart from dedicated Lego love.

The most precious thing about playtime at our house, right now, is that it’s primarily together. And I know that won’t last, but I love it, I love that they love each other’s company and we’re incredibly lucky there is minimal fighting. For the moment. Which makes this moment a good one to be in.

What does playtime look like at your house?

I’m Fiona of Inner Pickle. At the beginning of 2011 we moved from inner west Sydney to an acre in my hometown in the Illawarra and we couldn’t believe our luck. It was green, surrounded by dairy farms and occupied by a startling number of spiders. Some harmless. We took our worm farm and our intentions for a commercial kitchen and organic produce on my nearby family farm.

It’s now early 2012 and we’ve moved to the farm. We’re raising free-range laying hens, free-range pork and pastured poultry. We’re drawing up plans for organic market gardens and increasing the size Dad’s coffee plantation. My fella, Adam, spends his time chasing pigs and I spend my time (when not peeling children off the tops of fences) in a hired commercial kitchen baking for our little biscuit business, Buena Vista Farm Bikkies.

A warm welcome today to Megan of Writing Out Loud who is sharing her response to the question, “What is your biggest parenting struggle?”

A few years ago, kids always appeared in the background when I imagined them, second to my mantra: I must never change. Life was to go on as normal. And, although that might sound a little heartless and selfish, I was simply trying to guard myself. I think I knew that if I let that guard down, I’d have to face some scary things.

I still remember the conversation with my boss at the time, when I told her I’d be back from maternity leave within a few months. She suggested I take the full year, but I laughed, ‘That’s an enormously long time to be sitting around the house!’

Things changed. During the first year of my daughter’s life, I felt entitled to be home. It was, after all, a well accepted amount of time to be with one’s child; it’s even legislated as a right. The second year, however, was the toughest of my life. By that time I had realised that I couldn’t do it ‘all’, that I couldn’t be the person I’d always envisaged. And the fall from that was, as I’d feared, rather scary.

I cried every day that year. I just couldn’t escape the feeling of being trapped, of having given up everything, and having no option to change things. I was jealous of my husband, who was able to walk out the door each morning with a sense of purpose, leaving me playing with a toddler and dealing with tantrums.

It took me a long time to shake off that feeling and come to terms with the choices I’d made. It also took me a long time to realise that I had a problem with other people’s perceptions of me. People had always seen me, I believe, as intelligent and successful, determined and gutsy. And although no one has ever indicated anything different to me, I saw their eyes telling me I was now worthless. Just another mum in a playground.

But what I saw in their eyes wasn’t actually their judgement – it was my own, staring back at me. Looking back, that was exactly what I thought of stay-at-home mums myself. Although I had many friends who were at home with their kids, I never wanted to be like them. Imagine giving up everything that made you, you… No way.

And yet, three and a half years later, here I am. Still ‘sitting around the house’. And loving it – but getting to that point, accepting myself as a full-time parent, has been my biggest struggle.

It’s taken all this time to realise that I do exist beyond the walls of an office, that my life has meaning even without a large salary. I know now that I haven’t changed completely: I’m still that intelligent, successful, gutsy woman. After all, I jumped into the realms of some big fears and came out better for it.

What comes first now is the life I want for my daughter (and the next one, currently growing inside me) and the type of parent I want to be. Everything else falls into place around that.

And it’s no longer a struggle.

What is your biggest parenting struggle?

Megan Blandford is mum to a gorgeous and hilarious daughter, and a freelance writer. In between, she likes to travel at any given opportunity, and also writes a personal blog, Writing Out Loud. Megan lives in the hills on the outskirts of Melbourne with her husband, daughter and a crazy labrador.

I included today’s Mum in the Hotseat, Kellie of 1000 Homes of Happiness, in the 2012 list of 12 Great Blogs to Read earlier this year because I love the mission that her family have set themselves – to release 1000 origami houses out into the world as a means of spreading happiness. Today Kellie is sharing 10 ideas for cultivating a little happiness in our homes every day, an important mission for all of us, I am sure that you would agree!

I’m a lover of lists.  Give me a to-do list with its own little tick box and I am blissfully happy.  I especially like to start my list with a really simple task, like have a cup of tea, just to get some momentum. With three little ladies on the go, being a Mumma, a wife and someone who loves my job, it’s hard not to get swept up with all the busy that comes with living.  Here are my to 10 tips for cultivating a happier home.  Thanks Christie for inviting me to share them!

1.  Pyjama days…have them and have them often.  They allow the little people in our home to potter, explore and be free.  I adore the days when we can ditch schedules and clocks.

2.  Fun is important to happiness.  Ever swing on a swing, roll down a grassy hill with your little one or giggle until you can’t remember what you were giggling about?

3.  One of the best ways to makes yourself happy is to make others happy.  Ring a friend who you haven’t spoken to for a while, buy someone flowers, smile at a stranger, give out hugs.

4.  Less is more.  De-clutter your home.  I love a good clean out, whether it’s the junk draw in the kitchen, a wardrobe, or the pile of paper work taking over the bench top, there is something therapeutic about getting rid of unwanted clutter.

5.  Wake up before the little people in your home (unless they wake before 6am).  My favourite time of day is the quiet in our home before everyone stirs.  A relaxing cup of tea and moment to rest the mind before the busy begins.

6.  The days are long but the years are short.  Don’t wish it over.  I found myself caught in this trap, wishing the teething stage would end, the waking for night feeds, the clingy stage, the busy of Kinder and discovered very fast that the next stage is just around the corner. Remember the here and now because time moves quickly.

7.  Celebrate the silly.  Sing, dance, jump around like a monkey, find your inner child.

8.  Make your bed.  Makes climbing into it all the more sweeter.

9.  Sleep is important.  Grab onto whatever sleep time you can.  Nap in the afternoon when your little one is sleeping, switch of earlier at night.

10.  Surround yourself with people that make you happy.

What makes your little home a happy one?  Do you have a tip you can share?

Our home is a mixture of chaos, laughter, clutter, mess, love and silliness….it is perfectly imperfect. My blog 1000 homes of happiness is a blog by me, Kellie, Muma of three girls.  It’s about my family’s everyday adventures and our quest to bring a little happiness to others. We set about creating 1000 little origami homes to set free and delight those who serendipitously stumble upon them. Each home has a special message to make the receiver smile.  We hope you find one.