This term for Linus at Playcentre can be easily and comprehensively summarised in two words: light sabres!
He’s very into playing Lego Star Wars on the Playstation 2 and has watched the original three movies, and this obsession has been his focus this term. One of the Playcentre supervisors RW worked with Linus to make a light sabre out of rolled-up newsprint, and somehow these light sabres have bred – most of the boys at Playcentre have constructed (or requested) one, and there is a huge stash of spare ones building up in the collage area.
This single interest has led to or supported lots of different activities and learning for Linus.
Arts and Craft Projects
Until now, Linus has never shown much interest in arts and crafts. However now he has something he loves to apply it to, he’s starting to get the idea of putting effort into producing output in the collage area. Thanks to a book from Aunty Andi and a morning without sisters, he made a robot costume at home with Nana. He followed this up by asking to make a knight costume, so we took the book to Playcentre and – in a team effort involving him, me and two other adults – produced this snazzy outfit (not to mention the fantastic face!):

Playfighting
Linus and Ada have enjoyed playfighting for a very long time, but now Linus is getting lots of experience having “battles” with other children. Our Playcentre has lots of boys who are around 3 at the moment (CV, DV, OG, HW, OM), and many of them are giving Linus the opportunity to hone his playfighting skills: establishing ground-rules, making sure everyone is on board with what’s happening, knowing how far to push things, paying attention to other’s reactions, etc.
New Relationships with Adults
Linus is by far the oldest child at Playcentre – the next oldest boy who goes on his days is 3 1/2! So while playfighting with children gives him some satisfaction, he has really enjoyed engaging in battles with willing adults this term, in particular with SK and CT.
SK enjoyed extending Linus by introducing ideas like “duelling” and “honour” to their battling. However Linus wasn’t too impressed when she suggested that they were fighting over SK’s daughter’s hand in marriage… I think 6 years of age may be when the ability to feel embarrassment really kicks in!
Other Developments
Less pronounced changes and interests this term have included:
- Friendships with other children, especially 4-year-old boy HB (sadly now gone to kindy) and 3-year-old boy HW;
- Offering to read stories to other children (he’s been doing this at home too over the past few weeks, especially with Zoe – so sweet!);
- Interest in documenting his own learning – this was only a one-off, but I got Linus to sit and narrate captions for a series of photos of things he was doing. He sat with me at Playcentre and captioned an impressive 8 or 9 photos before he got tired of it, so I must continue to give him these opportunities!
- Increased ability to focus on a task, e.g. 1 1/2 hours spent at the carpentry table a couple of weeks ago.