I am perfectly content to take as much time as it takes to get dressed to go outside. Snow pants, jacket, boots, hat, mitts. But really: one leg, one foot, other leg, other foot. Suspenders. Zip fly. Getting each arm of the jacket figured out. What about shirt sleeves inside? Zip up. “I’ll get the zipper started, and you finish.” “Are you wearing a hat today?” “Which hat?” “Which mitts?” Making sure each mitt is on the right hand. Boots: how does each child like to put them on, sitting down or standing up? “Is that comfortable?” And finally, “good work.” Because it was. And repeat, mindfully.
But The Schedule.
Or the walk back to daycare. We “need to” make it back in time for lunch, I guess. So we can’t stop when F is counting the bright green bushes among the muted greys and browns. And we can’t stop to discuss the delivery truck backing into a docking bay. What wonderful learning opportunities we are missing, I think. For the delivery truck – A was entranced by the sound of the back-up beeping and slowed to a stop. I hadn’t even noticed it. Maybe they had never seen a delivery truck backing up before, or maybe not in a way they had words for yet. We claim to follow children’s interests, but I guess we only do it when it’s convenient. How much more enriching would it be if we actually committed to following children’s interests (emergent curriculum), and how much would we actually lose?