{"id":826,"date":"2018-12-13T16:02:28","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T23:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/?p=826"},"modified":"2020-07-23T14:20:35","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T21:20:35","slug":"using-block-dolls-in-the-junior-kindergarten-classroom-to-help-teach-social-emotional-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/2018\/12\/using-block-dolls-in-the-junior-kindergarten-classroom-to-help-teach-social-emotional-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"See How Block Dolls in the Junior Kindergarten Classroom Teach Social Emotional Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Dorian Okano, Junior Kindergarten Teacher<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cFeelings are mentionable and manageable.\u201d \u2014Fred Rogers
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Hillbrook\u2019s junior kindergarten class has a special relationship with another school; it is a pretend school called \u201cBrookHill\u201d but its positive impact on our youngest students is very real. It starts with little \u201cblock dolls.\u201d
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\u201cBlock dolls\u201d\u2014on a literal level\u2014are wooden unit-blocks with a short bio on one side for teachers, listing a pretend name, race, family structure, and behavioral traits of a pretend child whose picture is glued on the front. These are the imaginary students at \u201cBrookHill School\u201d who live in a basket by the JK Morning Meeting rug. For the children in junior kindergarten at Hillbrook School, however, they are more than blocks\u2014they are real students who reflect the diversity of their own households and life experiences. They are children who happen to get in a lot of the same \u201csticky situations\u201d at BrookHill School as they do in real life working and playing every day at Hillbrook School. The block dolls need a lot of support solving their problems and, luckily, the JK children are there to help them each week in our Community Talks.
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The idea of the block dolls originated years ago from a diversity workshop held by Monique Marshall at Wildwood School in Los Angeles about nurturing our youngest activists. Monique showed the early-education teachers in her annual training how block dolls can add layers of nuance and depersonalization of conflict to the social and emotional lives of young children. Former Hillbrook kindergarten teacher Eliko Ozeki, as well as current kindergarten teacher Megan Collins, attended this professional development workshop at Wildwood. I learned from watching these brilliant educators about how to effectively use ordinary blocks to teach children about their feelings, about their family dynamics, about conflict resolution language, and about inclusion and exclusion in a community. I was able to observe and experience firsthand when the teachers talked about how \u201cAsame\u201d had a dad and a mom that lived in separate houses, a child in the back quietly used the \u201cI connect\u201d sign language to show his teachers that this was also true for him. When \u201cErika\u201d was introduced to the group as a child who often came home from school with little things taken from her classroom, another little boys eyes lit up and he announced to the group: \u201cThat\u2019s just like my sister! She takes things a lot\u2026\u201d
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As young children develop vocabulary to talk about big feelings and difficult emotions, it is common for children to express their feelings physically. Block dolls can help surface the difficulties of physical behavior in a way that is accessible for early learners. Imagine one of the block dolls (Kelly) is having trouble because she is solving problems physically and is also very physical when she plays with her friends. The block friends really like this little girl but often when they play with her someone gets hurt. They don\u2019t know what to do.
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Me:<\/strong> What advice do you have for Victor? He really wants to play with Kelly but it doesn\u2019t seem to be working out safely when they play\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JK child<\/strong>: Victor should tell a teacher\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me<\/strong>: Yes, Victor does tell his teacher but he is already hurt when he comes to talk with her. He really loves Kelly and wants to play with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another JK child:<\/strong> He needs to use his words! He can say, \u201cI don\u2019t like it when you punch me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me:<\/strong> Yes, that\u2019s a good I-message. Lets see what happens when Victor gives Kelly that I-message\u2026.
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The block dolls \u201ctalk\u201d to each other and one of the children at Hillbrook gives voice to Victor, while I play the other block-child, Kelly, who gets very physical in her play with others.
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Sometimes, using an \u201cI-message\u201d works out and the problem is solved for the block dolls. Sometimes, as it often is in real life on the playground and in the classroom with young children who may be physically impulsive, the problem continues. The next time we have a Community Talk, Victor tells the JK that even though he uses I-messages, he is still getting hurt when he plays with Kelly. The children at Hillbrook are silent and very thoughtful. This is, indeed, a \u201csticky situation\u201d and they know a more nuanced solution is needed that probably requires grown up support and a lot more time and thinking.
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JK child<\/strong>: Well, I think Kelly needs to take a big break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me<\/strong>: Tell me more…like, sitting out from recess?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JK child:<\/strong> Yes. Well, sometimes. Kelly should play alone. She\u2019s still learning the rules about being kind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me<\/strong>: I think that sounds right. Maybe Kelly should learn about having fun in a safe way and she needs more practice playing with a grown up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JK child<\/strong>: She can play when she is a better friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me:<\/strong> Yes! Until then, it\u2019s not okay for friends like Victor and others to get hurt. No one is allowed to hurt your body and your feelings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JK child:<\/strong> Once there was a friend who was mean to me and he hurt me! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me<\/strong>: Really? That sounds like a problem that does happen in life sometimes. What did you do to solve it?
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The block dolls become catalysts to have conversations with children that may feel too personal or too close-to-home. If the children at BrookHill School have complicated social and emotional lives, the four and five year olds at Hillbrook School can reach beyond their own experiences, connect the conflict to their own experiences, and talk as a community about how to work and play together peacefully. They see themselves reflected in the block dolls: Kevin speaks two languages; Holly doesn\u2019t look like anyone else in her family; Jamal loves to play with dolls and lives mostly with his grandma; Janey often feels embarrassed because she doesn\u2019t like to talk and gets nervous if her teachers call on her; Kentaro gets really jealous of the new baby in his family who is getting attention while he feels ignored\u2026.etc.
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During fall conferences in JK, we will sometimes introduce JK parents to the children of BrookHill School, just in case their child has mentioned a new student who is not on the class roster! Often, the block dolls will carry a special role in the conflict resolution development for young children who are negotiating a wide and diverse array of social interactions at home and in school. They become one of the tools we use as educators to help children see their experiences as normalized and their feelings as valid, to gain an understanding that all of these interactions and feelings are mentionable, worth discussing, and manageable. These simple dolls made of wood have no special characteristics or electronic gadgetry, but they help children give voice to their feelings and navigate a sometimes complicated world. Their role in the JK classroom exemplifies one of the ways in which Hillbrook strives to meet children where they are developmentally and helps nurture and inspire them to be their very best.
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By Dorian Okano, Junior Kindergarten Teacher \u201cFeelings are mentionable and manageable.\u201d \u2014Fred Rogers Hillbrook\u2019s junior kindergarten class has a special relationship with another school; it …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,20,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extraordinary-educational-experience","category-lower-school","category-social-emotional-learning"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1499,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions\/1499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}