5-year-old: Miss Robyn, do you want to smell these flowers? 

Me: Sure, they look so beautiful. [Pretends to smell artificial flowers in a vase]

5-year-old yells: Surprise, they’re cat flowers! (Laughs hysterically)

Me: [Pretends to sneeze] “Achoo! Oh no you tricked me!”

My preschool class knows that I am allergic to cats, because the group is very interested in animals, especially dogs and cats, and it has come up in conversation a lot. Lately they have taken it up a notch and have been pretending everything is cat-related to tease me. I pretend to sneeze, sometimes I pretend to be mad or sad that they “tricked me,” either way, hilarity ensues every time. They have also given me cat popsicles, cat cookies, and who knows what will be next!

I absolutely love the silliness of this teasing, and what it represents about my classroom. They can tease me and poke fun in a friendly way and we all know it is acceptable and even encouraged. This is something that I have had to explain to other adults at my school as well as parents, because I know it makes no sense to overhear a class laughing so hard and screaming “Cat flowers!” This has been going on all year, and when we have added new students to our class the kids will explain the joke to them as well, which I love overhearing. The subtleties of humor and jokes like this are so interesting to explore with children and it is fascinating to me how quickly they pick up on things like teasing in a friendly way versus being unkind to someone.

Creating a playful environment helps to cultivate a friendly, welcoming place, and also goes a long way to creating the team environment that I also strive  for with my classes. Some teachers may act in a more authoritative way but that has never been me. Another teacher might not approve of the children in their class poking fun at them or even get angry about it. They might not think that it’s respectful of their authority. Yes, I expect a lot from my class and have high expectations, but I think there is a better way to go about that. Just because I laugh with my class and “let” them make fun of me, it does not mean that they are out of control or not listening. I believe it demonstrates even more that my class is a great place to be. 

Being playful helps me develop relationships while also enjoying myself and making my classroom a fun environment. If I am not having fun, I am not teaching in the way that I like, and that means I am not doing my best work. I really love teaching with a relaxed, playful, and fun attitude, and my goal is to show others how to do the same. 

How Can You Create A Playful Learning Environment?

I try to incorporate a playful attitude anywhere I can, whenever I can. We all know that relationships are one of the most important things in the classroom, if not the most important, and being playful goes a long way in developing those relationships with your class. In addition to cat jokes, here are some ways I go about this:

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Taking attendance:

Does it matter how your class responds when you have to do something mandatory like attendance? Why could you not do something playful like animal noises or silly sounds? If I answer “beep” when I hear my name, that still shows that I am listening and responding to my teacher while following directions? My class has to do attendance whenever we leave our classroom. I sometimes choose how we will do attendance, but often I ask them what they want. The class loves to have that input and ownership and will come up with great ideas like sharing a dance move or sharing a favorite animal.

I have seen teachers get into power struggles while performing this sort of mandatory task. They think that every child has to respond how they want them to and say “here,” but if one child does not want to do that, it immediately becomes an issue. While the teacher is dealing with that one child, the rest of the class is bored, which can lead to more issues. And all for what? To demonstrate that the teacher has “control” over the class? In my opinion, once you realize that giving up some of that supposed control makes the process much easier, and more importantly much more fun for everyone, you will never go back! I know I never have. Years ago, at a previous school, I was going through a roll call with a preschool class when leaving for a field trip and one child said “Can I be an animal?” when I called her name. I responded with “Why not?” and the laughs that came after she said “MOO!” were my introduction into taking this process in a more playful direction. Sometimes I even call my own name while doing attendance so I get to join in with a silly answer, it is always good for a laugh!

Intentionally making mistakes:

I like to do things intentionally wrong when demonstrating something or going through a routine, especially as we are still learning classroom routines. I will review instructions by asking “Where do I put my coat after we come inside? On the floor?” The kids love it and act shocked that I said something so incredibly wrong, and will help by correcting me, answering “NO! It goes in your cubby.” This strategy is also useful when introducing new materials, such as when my class first used permanent markers for their art. I explained that these are permanent so they will not wash off, so I said “Should we color on our clothes? Should we color on our face?” With a resounding “NO!” from the group as a response. This way we all know our expectations for this new material, but it is in a much more fun way than if I just gave the class orders.

Pretending to be someone else:

Where I teach, we eat two snacks and lunch in our room and each child has a color-coded placemat with their name and picture. The primary reason is for monitoring allergy or food preferences, but why not have fun with it too? Something that I like to do, that I learned from a former coworker’s example, is to pretend to be one of the children. If someone has not arrived at school yet during our morning snack or if someone has finished lunch and is gone from the table, I will sit at their seat and pretend to be them by saying their names and things that I know about them. With my current class, this has progressed to the children pretending to be each other at meals or throughout the day, or even them pretending to be me. 

Me speaking in a goofy pretend voice: “Hello, I am Jenna. I have an older sister and I had a mini golf birthday party.”

Child: “Hi I am Miss Robyn. I like tacos and am allergic to cats. I am wearing a dinosaur shirt.”

As I dug a little deeper about why my class thinks this is so hilarious, I realized that it demonstrates how our class feels about each other. We know a lot of things about our classmates (and myself), which shows that we value our friends and think everyone is important. Also, we feel comfortable sharing things with each other. Our classroom is a safe, loving, friendly, welcoming place. This is the goal of every teacher and we have accomplished it together by being playful.

Why Play? 

Teaching in early childhood, I always instinctively knew that play was extremely important, but I didn’t realize so many others felt the same way. There have been many others who have explored the idea of play, and it is endlessly fascinating to me. 

I was introduced to Peter Gray when I was in graduate school. I loved how so many things he wrote about were things I had experienced while teaching, or that intuitively made sense to me. Reading his book was so transformative for me that I decided to write my master’s thesis on the importance of play in education. In his fantastic book “Free to Learn,” Gray wrote, “Learning, creativity, and problem solving are facilitated by anything that promotes a playful state of mind …” This playful state of mind is what I strive for when I teach. Working with children is inherently comical-every day there is something silly, fun, or just completely out of left field to laugh about. Why not take advantage of those moments by using those to bond with children? Another great resource is “The Importance of Being Little,” by Erika Christakis, who said, “a playful childhood is worth more than the accumulation of every conceivable standard, real or imagined.” Both of these authors recognize the importance of a playful environment. I would love for you to take what I have shared here and think about how you can make your day a little more playful.

Meanwhile, you can find me pretending to sneeze and rubbing my eyes—Achoo!

References

Christakis, E. (2016). The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need From Grownups. Viking.

Gray, P. (2013). Free to learn: Why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life. Basic Books.