Order

 Children are developing their sense of the world and it is important for the things in their world to be consistent. They need consistent caregivers, environments, materials, routines and expectations. When things are out of the ordinary, they become unsettled and we see this in separation and stranger anxiety, tantrums, meltdowns and irritability. Something as simple as having a substitute teacher or moving their cot to a new location can send a young child through a loop and make them extremely emotional. When things go back to normal, they are soothed. To support our infants’ need for order, we try to keep everything as consistent as possible. We use the same phrases, routines, rules, teachers and schedules. Any changes that need to happen are met with understandable unrest by the young children. For example, in September after a long break from the Covid-19 pandemic, we anticipated some very difficult separation anxiety from our students. When children are met with compassion and consistent support, they acclimate to changes quicker and settle into their new understanding of order within their world. We empower our older infants to become active participants at maintaining the order of our classroom. We have a structured work cycle where they learn that they need to return their materials to the place where they found it so their peers can know where to find it next. They understand the expectation and have begun to independently clean up after themselves. The older children know where the work belongs on the shelves and know where to find their belongings when they need them. We also employ the use of work rugs to define ownership over work. We consistently teach boundaries and the children have internalized this and are drawn to use the work rugs in order to protect their work. As is seen in one of the videos below, sometimes older infants realize when someone is infringing on their work and are unsettled by this disruption to their control of the situation!