With more than 180 nationalities, Brussels is one of the most diverse cities in the world. This diversity is represented in the children in our daycare centre as well as in the educators that are taking care of the children. In this way the daycare centre is well equipped to respond to the needs of the neighborhood. The children are divided in 3 different groups according to age (horizontal organisation). The children thus have similar developmental needs.
In ECEC, play is very important to promote the social-emotional wellbeing of each child. Through imitation, children’s development can be stimulated. For example: the educator lies down on the floor and rolls over. She draws the attention of the children, immediately several children will imitate what the educator does. Other children will try to turn the educator and will wait to see her reaction.
Together with the children we imitate a train, which is quite funny. Afterwards we enjoy free play together. In which children like to mirror adults and each other. Nice and cozy. Rich, social-emotional, linguistic and cultural play, allows the child to process emotions. It increases social awareness of the children, and a group dynamic is created.
“Playing along is an asset to support the important developmental task in children of learning to recognize, name, experience and express emotions.” (Malfait, Jeannin, & Smits, 2013).
References
Malfait, C., Jeannin, N., & Smits, D. (2013). Het Toverbos uitgetest in de kleuterklas: een spelgerichte methode ter bevordering van de sociaal-emotionele ontwikkeling bij kleuters. In Vlaams Congres kinder-en jeugdpsychiatrie en-psychotherapie 2013, Date: 2013/09/19-2013/09/20, Location: Antwerp.
