Greetings from Giggles and Chisels, where Maurice, Mme Rigolotte and myself have continued to elevate the uniqueness of young children this week. Those two wooden Fellows are indeed fullfilling their job of keeping me grounded into the magic of early childhood years, tagging along on my desk, in my bag, especially I am always seeking new resources to share with you as well. I hope they fullfill their job with you too. 

I recently read an article published in a French journal that aligned beautifully with the purpose of Giggles and Chisels.

In “Devons nous proposer des ateliers ou des activitées encadrées tous les jours aux enfants?“* (EJE, no104, Sept/Oct 2024), Anthony Stephanov takes us on the pros and cons of child-lead vs more structured, adult-directed activities. As previously mentioned on our blog, it is, indeed, a question of balance, built up from the child’s interests, and adults’ purposes or goals they have for the child to extend their learning further, or more broadly, their understanding of the world they live in. Let’s take the example of the coloring page and the free painting, both made by a child under three. Asking the child to stay within the lines of the coloring page would be developmentally inappropriate. Yet, the child may be excited about “coloring a train”. And as long as the child has access to plenty of opportunities for free painting and reassurance about being outside of the lines, the coloring page can bring some joy to the child, pride to access a “big kid” sheet, and, with time, strengthen their fine motor skills, critical to later writing. How does one know how a child may feel about a coloring page? By understanding some child development milestones but also taking time to observe and listen to the uniqueness of each one of them 🙂

Key points driven from the article

1. One one hand, offering young children time for free exploration is essential for them to first discover who they are, before they discover the world they live in. On another hand, guided activities can assure that young children access a wide range of opportunities, that they may not encounter on their own.
2. Guided activities can stimulate the development of social-emotional skills, when they are offered to small groups of children. However, some activities may be developmentally appropriate for some, but not for others. A fit-them-all activity may put some children in failure, affecting their self esteem. In addition, activities that are too structured may limit the creativity of the child.
3. Structured activities throughout the day can offer a reassuring routine to young children, but too many activities may overstimulate them.
4. In both types of activities, the freedom  to participate, or not, should be considered, as well as the interest and the joy of children.
5. The concept of “free exploration” often go against a belief that, to be a good educator (or, I would add, a good mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, etc), one must offer guided, structured activities; Listening, observing, is not enough. This comes from a societal pressure, present in France, but even more in the U.S., to do things, take actions, that often make us forget to step back and simply be, as if, somehow, we did not have permission to do so