"Ma'am Aad broke it!" came Avi running to me holding 2 pieces of a plastic block they were playing with.
Aad looked concerned.
I bent down to the mirror cave he was sitting in with a blank expression and asked him what had happened.
"I was playing with it and it broke", replied Aad.
"Okay. How can we fix this?" to which he said with so much hope, "I'll fix it with a glue!!!", and he runs to his class to get the glue. Aad and Av are part of the Cubs (4 year olds at SM). This happened before the class started (around 8:40am).
He came back with 2 glue sticks and a fevistick. He realized that with the glue stick, the pieces wouldn't stick. So he switched to fevistick without a word. "I am putting only little ma'am", said Aad. Since children were pouring in too much fevicol to stick little things, we had a discussion on how much glue was too much which, he seemed to have remembered at this point and put to practice. He came to sit next to where I was sitting, trying to get it together, without giving up.
It was so evident how much he had grown as a person when I saw him not giving up on it because it's easier to give up and not try harder if the first few tries fail.
"It's not sticking ma'am", said Aad with a perplexed expression.
"Don't give up. Keep trying!" I reinforced. And he followed suit. He did not give up.
Aad looked concerned.
I bent down to the mirror cave he was sitting in with a blank expression and asked him what had happened.
"I was playing with it and it broke", replied Aad.
"Okay. How can we fix this?" to which he said with so much hope, "I'll fix it with a glue!!!", and he runs to his class to get the glue. Aad and Av are part of the Cubs (4 year olds at SM). This happened before the class started (around 8:40am).
He came back with 2 glue sticks and a fevistick. He realized that with the glue stick, the pieces wouldn't stick. So he switched to fevistick without a word. "I am putting only little ma'am", said Aad. Since children were pouring in too much fevicol to stick little things, we had a discussion on how much glue was too much which, he seemed to have remembered at this point and put to practice. He came to sit next to where I was sitting, trying to get it together, without giving up.
It was so evident how much he had grown as a person when I saw him not giving up on it because it's easier to give up and not try harder if the first few tries fail.
"It's not sticking ma'am", said Aad with a perplexed expression.
"Don't give up. Keep trying!" I reinforced. And he followed suit. He did not give up.
A few minutes of trial and error, comes Aad with so much excitement yelling," I did it ma'am! I did it! See?" And he showed it to me and everybody around. Av who initially showed it to me that it was broken seemed just as excited.
It was such an important moment in Aad's life where he realized that he could solve anything if he kept trying, to start trusting his capabilities. And it was very important that he was given the freedom to fix it and to keep trying. Watching him work was also a very inspirational moment for all of us too. Because it reminded us of what children are capable of with the right amount of encouragement and trust...and the freedom to make mistakes.
It was such an important moment in Aad's life where he realized that he could solve anything if he kept trying, to start trusting his capabilities. And it was very important that he was given the freedom to fix it and to keep trying. Watching him work was also a very inspirational moment for all of us too. Because it reminded us of what children are capable of with the right amount of encouragement and trust...and the freedom to make mistakes.
And it wouldn't have been possible to learn this important lesson if the pieces of the blocks were taken away from him and/or just left it at 'Be more careful when you play.'
Contributed by Sruthy Krishna, Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz Global Preschool.
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