Lately our toddlers have been very interested in babies. Some of our friends are becoming big siblings and they were told Jess is having a baby too! This has driven their play with babies, they feed them with the food from the kitchen, give them bottles, rock them and pat their backs and sing them to sleep! We have noticed that especially on Monday mornings, two children are very eager to feed the babies, “need food” one says while sitting the babies down at the table and one child is already hard at work, cooking them food in the kitchen. After the babies are fed they get rocked and sang to, one child normally starts singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and then soon the whole class is singing along! The babies are then gently placed in one of our toy baskets for their nap.
To expand on the interest with babies Jess made a chart that asked the toddlers if they thought Jess was going to have a boy or a girl, they then got their hand painted either pink or blue and were asked to cast their vote! The toddlers were super excited to put their guess on the chart and to see what their friends picked. Every time a child was asked, boy or girl, one very excited child would say “Jess baby boy”. The vote resulted in 6 children voting for a boy and 5 children voted for a girl! We had a few friends, including Jess, that couldn’t decide so they did half blue half and pink hands!
We extended the play and decided to invite the children to bring the babies outside to see them interacting with them in a different environment. The toddlers at first were showing the babies around the playground, showing them the sand, and the forest tree area where they would climb and place the babies at the picnic table. A few took their Babies into the sandbox and placed their babies' feet in the sand. One took her Baby to the wood chip area and had her baby sit in one of the chairs and she sat in the other. One child decided to give his baby a makeover and draw on it with wet chalk, others quickly followed…. The babies took part in some messy play.
