The Grinch

Hazel was busy with her play-dough, squeezing them in her hand to make different shapes. She put them on the table and poked her fingers randomly into the soft material. “Here comes the tunnel”, she mumbled while doing so. Then suddenly she stopped, as if the “tunnels” reminded her of something. She started all over again, but this time, she knew where she was going. She made a shape with her palm, flattened the bottom so that the play-dough would stand, and then she poked two holes on the upper part of the play-dough with her finger. After that, she used a toy knife to make an opening below the eyes, then continued to make shapes with her little hands. She turned to me and said proudly, “Look! I’ve made a Grinch!”

The first thought that I have heard her words, was that no, Grinch is green, and this is blue. But then I asked myself, who says that Grinch must be a certain color? Is there really anything wrong with the blue color? I rearranged my thought and asked her to tell me more about this Grinch. What she told me, was that this one tried to steal all the presents that Santa prepared for all the children, but she managed to safe all the presents from this Grinch.

I choose this moment to document because it reminded me that children’s work often comes with their specific interpretations, and in my case, I often have the urge to interpret myself instead of encouraging children to tell their own stories, so this is surely an area that I need to work with. When children transformideas in their head into visual or tangible materials, what they are presenting us? A feeling? An emotion? A memory? Or a story? How should I, as an educator, capture and interact with those feelings, emotions, memories and stories?