Repair Box

"It was an accident!" the four year old had immediately blurted out when the crash of breaking glass subsided. He didn't quite have a look of terror on his face, but he was certainly concerned that he was in trouble. I told him that I knew (though inside I was thinking "How on earth am I going to replace that?!??!) and asked him to carefully take a step back so I could go and get the broom. I swept up the glass while he cleaned up the rest of the food prep activity. The rest of the class either kept working or wandered over for a quick peak then went about their business.

Mistakes happen, especially when you're learning something for the first time.

Things break all the time in the classroom or pieces go missing. As Montessori guides we always try to help children learn first how to be careful to try and avoid these things; and then when they inevitably happened anyways we show them how to pick up the pieces (thought not literally in the case of broken!).

Some kids get petrified when they break something. Others seem to not even notice. I'd rather they fall somewhere in between. In our classroom we have what we call the repair box. It's a plain plastic storage bin that's tucked into the cupboard by our resupply items so the children have full access.

Whenever a child breaks something, or finds something broken we encourage them to put it in the repair box if it's not an easy fix. We also use it for empty bottles of polish, glue, soap, etc; hence the location right next to our resupply area! Basically we explain to the children that the repair box is for something that needs the teacher's attention later.

Most times I know why/how something ends up in there. Usually the children tell me when something breaks, but sometimes random pieces of work show up in there and I wonder what happened. While it seems like this might end up being a "get out of jail free" card, I feel like the ability to take the pressure off those more sensitive kids is worth it.

With our repair box we're saying "It's ok, mistakes happen. Let's try to fix it."

Sometimes they just need to be upset

Today was a stressful day for both  me and the children. We had 4 incidents of broken glassware today.

4.

That's a huge number, despite the fact that nearly everything in the classroom is breakable an item actually doing so is pretty rare. I'd say once a week, even in my young classroom. They were all very legitimate accidents; a heavy tray slipping from soapy hands, a slick tray sending a bowl sliding, a wet floor making a child slip and fall. However, I think it really threw the children off, distracting them and making them feel a bit lost and unable to focus on work. I know it made me upset and have a shorter temper. And I'll be honest, it was my actions that made these children upset.

But I feel they were justified (both my actions and the children!), and that's ok. Sometimes people just need to be upset, and learning how to deal with it is a part of growing up.

The first incident happened when C ran across an area where glass had just broken. The children have already been taught that when glass breaks they are supposed to back away until I clean it up. I had just spoken to C, reminding her to stay back until I was done. She seemed to have heard, but just as I scooted a little bit to reach a different spot I saw her dart across the area.

"Stop!" I shouted to her, making her freeze. "C, you just ran across glass, I need you to sit down on this chair right now so I can make sure you don't have any on your shoes." She stared at me with wide eyes and immediately obeyed. She didn't make a peep as I carefully examined the bottoms of her shoes. I knew there probably was not glass there, but really wanted to reinforce the point that what she had done was not ok. After checking I told her once more not to enter that area until I was done. She nodded, obviously upset and made her way over to the library (her usual 'safe' place).

I finished cleaning up the glass and went over to her. C was sobbing quietly, just like I had guessed she might be. I knelt in front of her and apologized for yelling at her, and asked if I had scared her. When she nodded I apologized for that too, then went on to explain that I had done it because I was afraid that she was going to get hurt. I kept it simple and I could see her listening to what I said. At the end I apologized once more for scaring her, then asked if she forgave me. She did.

I can't say I"m proud of making C cry, but it do make for a great learning opportunity. Not just her learning that I was very serious about the glass rule, but that I was also concerned about HER and wanted to help her out.

The second incident involved W. He was part of the little sound game I was doing with two other children. He was already not  very focused and kept interrupting but I thought I would give him a chance to try. As I pulled out the objects I showed them how the small shovel had been glued back together and let them know we needed to be careful with it. When W successfully identified the shovel as starting with the 'sh' sound, I let him take it from the pile, reminding him that it has just been fixed and was fragile. He immediately started grinding it on the mat and, surprise surprise, it broke again.

"Oh no!" he exclaimed, holding it out to me. "It broke," I said and took it from him. "W, I'm going to ask you to leave our sound game. I can't have you touching the objects if you're not listening to the rules." He looked at me in utter shock, he could not believe I would say such a thing.

"I listen!" he insisted. "No, you weren't listening, you  need to find something else to do." He stood up and started bawling in frustration. After a few seconds I let him know he needed to stop as he was distracting the other children. He cried even louder and I escorted him over to a chair and let him know he needed to sit down because his crying was distracting the other children.

He continued to cry and screech, watching me the whole time. Once he tried to come over and tell me he was ready, still crying and yelling. I sent him back, saying that he was still being too loud for our
 group. The other children couldn't stop staring, but I ignored him. Soon enough he pulled himself together though and went and chose a second activity.

Was he really truly upset, or was he just frustrated that I had stuck to what I first said to him? I don't know. What I do know is that when something similar happened later he recovered much quicker from my reinforcement of limits.

So did it hurt him to be upset? Personally I don't think so. What it did was help him learn how to deal with that frustration and anger. Something that's going to happen again in his life...a lot I might even venture to say.