on what a child’ s behavior can offer the child and the group as a whole. This reflection can lead to more responsive planning and interactions that help everyone feel they belong. Indeed, nurturing a sense of belonging is an important part of developmentally appropriate practice, helping to motivate children to learn and connecting to their sense of purpose and agency. A sense of belonging stems from not only physical safety but also psychological safety( NAEYC 2020).
Navigating Space, Materials, and Emotions
At the beginning of the 2024 – 25 school year, my class of 2- and 3-year-olds was experiencing consistent conflicts between Ben and a few others: Liam, Amy, and Greg. Ben would often hit or bite these children whenever he felt overwhelmed or frustrated or when he was attempting to take materials from them. He would also“ collect” as many toys as possible into the biggest container he could find, and Liam, Amy, or Greg would scream at him if Ben had something they wanted. Several times a day, Ben would take a whole basket of materials that were meant for sharing and either dump them on the floor or take them to another area where he was“ collecting” other materials. Jess and I began documenting observations to try to better understand Ben’ s behaviors during play.
During professional development before the beginning of the school year, Jess and I had learned a lot about consistency, routine, and maintaining structure in the classroom. We decided to set expectations about where materials should stay because we thought this would be helpful for children and adults in our setting. After a few weeks of trying to maintain what we thought were helpful boundaries around materials, we realized that approach wasn’ t working for Ben. There was something he was trying to communicate. We needed to pause, observe, and reflect in order to understand him better.
I frequently observed Ben collecting so many materials that there would not be enough left for other children to play with, as in the mopping anecdote in the opening of this article. However, the mopping scenario is a perfect example of how Ben’ s approach to pretend play could provide opportunities for children to navigate space, materials, and emotions to reach a desired outcome. In this case, it was a continuous process of dump“ juice,” mop“ juice,” repeat. Some conflicts arose in this moment because of the intricacies of this play, like Amy screaming because Liam had a scarf she wanted. However, because their interest in the play was so high, Ben, Liam, Amy, and Greg seemed more willing to negotiate with each other.
After pausing to observe, I kneeled down close to Amy while Liam watched. I said,“ I noticed that Liam has a pink scarf. I wonder if you want a pink scarf too.” Amy nodded, and Liam walked over to the box of scarves, grabbed another pink scarf, and handed it to Amy. After this mopping scenario, I noticed that many of the children were more
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