Look closely at the child and imitate the behaviour. This can strengthen the child’s play.
Example: if the child starts to dress a doll, you can take another doll to dress.
Make sure that you don’t lose yourself in your own game, but that you pay enough attention to the child playing.
Make sure your imitation looks natural. A spontaneous and relaxed qualitative teacher-child relationship is more important than strict imitation.
Example: Suppose the child chooses to draw. You don’t need to draw the same thing as the child. The fact that you are drawing together is in itself conducive to the teacher-child relationship.
Next, you can watch video fragments where the teachers of our project imitating the behavior of the children in their classroom.
These videos are financed by the EU Erasmus+ grant. Authors are responsible for the content.
Playing with Duplo on the floor
Teacher Dana is imitating the play of Oliver (6 yrs. old). She asks if she can play with him and mirrors his action with cubes. They have eye contact and Dana follows Oliver´s instruction in play.
Did you notice that she is not using questions what are you doing or why are doing it?
Rodrigo and Alberta play with green clay
Teacher Alberta is imitating the play of Rodrigo (3 ½ years old). She follows Rodrigo’s lead by mirroring his actions and repeating some of his words. Because of Alberta’s actions, another child is also imitating Rodrigo’s actions. Rodrigo show signs of emotional wellbeing throughout the play situation.
How comfortable and natural do you feel when you imitate children’s play? At the beginning, this didn’t come naturally for Alberta, but as she practiced, she felt more and more confident and is now able to involve other children in these interactions.
Imitating – Play with motors
Teacher Jorge is imitating the play of Farhat (4;2 years). He grabs similar materials and mirrors actions of Farhat with small variations. Jorge regularly makes eye-contact with Farhat and also mirrors the play sounds and facial expressions of Farhat.
Did you notice? Although Jorge would in general not approve of playing with cars or motors on the walls, he now follows Farhats play and then naturally shifts the attention from the wall to the table again, without having to correct Farhats behaviour explicitly.
Don’t ask questions all the time
Abdel (3;6) is playing with play dough. His mother tongue is Turkish, which is not the school language (Dutch). Soumia joins his play and connects non-verbally by playing with the same materials and mirroring. She doesn’t force Abdel to interrupt his play by asking questions.
By listening and observing, Soumia gives space to Abdel to play what he likes and to make contact with her when he is ready. Do you mainly talk or listen when you play with children? Why?