I can draw spiders!

As we are approaching Halloween, the children are talking about their costumes non-stop. Some of them keep changing their mind but this year the superheroes theme is definitely a winner among the boys, while the majority of girls seem to opt towards witches' costumes. And of course, we have started doing some craft related to Halloween. Funny enough, this morning, a little 3 year old boy was drawing and when he was finished, he pointed at his picture and proudly said "spider!!". I added googly eyes and glued his drawing on a black card paper. Nearly insantly, 3 other children ran to me and asked me if they could draw a 
spider too "to frighten" their mams!! Off they went.... Soon followed by anoher 3 or 4 children! We had a full table of children, totally focused on adding as many legs as they could to the circle they had traced (never mind if spiders only have 8 legs... these ones were to be "monster spiders"). The result was quite good. Havea look   for yourself:

I love when the children take control of what they want to do and take initiatives. This is a great step towards autonomy and a greater sense of confidence. This also means that they will settle easier in primary school. This is why giving them the tools to increase their self-esteem is so important in preschool. Preschool is no jus about play dough, maths and language. The program in our classroom also focuses on opening up the children’s minds and   helping them to develop  new skills they can use not only during their school years but for the rest of their life. And this is just one example of what can be done when we let the children take control of their own learning and activity.