free play

[daycarediva]

I have free play pretty much the entire day (outside of meal times, nap time, story time, circle time, arts/crafts and outdoor play).

My kids have access to all toys at all times. They need to put away the current toys they are playing with before getting out new toys. Right now I have a 15 month old and 2 2 year olds. They do great!

I do preschool lessons (with games, set up in centers that we rotate 2 at a time) and circle time, music and arts and crafts time, but other than that, it's free play.

They have access to everything. They pick up as they go along, and my oldest even incorporates it into her play most days, like today "Look at this big mess in my kitchen. Kids and husband, we can't go to the store until we wash all these dishes! Here, you put them away and I will wash them."

Only when they have difficulty cleaning up do I limit their access to toys. I had that happen recently and it lasted a few days where they had just one bin of toys each, no sharing, and needed to clean it up before switching. NO FUN and nobody wanted to continue that way.

[kendallina]

I have preschool kiddos (ages 2.5-5), so it may be different for those with younger kids. I have done it this way before with young 2-year olds too.

During free play (which usually lasts 45 minutes-1 hour, they have access to everything in the preschool room. The room is set up with centers, Block area, Pretend area, Art area and Quiet area. There are several materials in each area. They are expected to clean up their area when they're done with it before moving to the next area, most kids need reminders as they're leaving the area for a while before they do this on their own. They are not allowed to just dump out toys and not use them, but of course, at this age, they don't really do that anymore.

There are times when things get crazy and there is just too much chaos. Usually that means that there is too much stuff out and I'll put a few things from each area in storage. I have also noticed that the chaos sometimes (not always) increases if we are doing free play for longer than an hour.

The other times that we're not doing free play, we're outside, having circle time, small group (like art time), etc. I mostly have just morning kiddos, but I have two days a week where I have kids that stay all day and on those days we usually do no more than 1 hour or so in free play and then we go outside for the rest of the day.

[Jack Sprat]

I have free play pretty much the entire day (outside of meal times, nap time, story time, circle time, arts/crafts and outdoor play).

My kids have access to all toys at all times. They need to put away the current toys they are playing with before getting out new toys. Right now I have a 15 month old and 2 2 year olds. They do great!

This is us as well. Except my kiddos are 23m, two 19m, and two 4.5 yr olds. They do amazingly well together. The older two tend to play their own thing, while the younger three play alone, side by side. I let them have access to everything at once. They do know that if it starts to get to overcrowded we put at least one thing away.

[misslori50]

http://www.playcountsdenitadinger.blogspot.com/ read this blog

[LaLa1923]

I can email you so I don't take up this thread if you would like. I am actually going though a class right now with an in-home coach. The class targets this age group. I started out where you are, not really feeling like I knew what to do with them and now I feel a lot of confidence while working with this group. They are actually slowly becoming my favorite age group.....For years I have steered away from the under 2 crowd, preschool was always my favorite.

It's fun when you learn the science behind WHY we do things and being able to implement them.

I will Pm you my email address. Thank you!