Homemade Ball Pit

I have a few students who have been digging a hole to China in the sand pit for a good part of the year.  Sometimes it is a tunnel to Lego land.

Recently, a couple of children put some of the playground balls in the big hole and decided it was a ball pit.  A few more children joined in, but then the diggers became upset.  It was very interesting to watch the children try and convince the diggers how much fun the ball pit would be if they would just allow it.  Some really good negotiation had to happen.

They were successful!

Then, we, the adults had to negotiate with ourselves to keep saying "Yes!"  One's first reaction would be to say "no, too dangerous to all be jumping in one place."  "Watch out for the sand table." "Only jump one at a time."

But if you watch them, and closely, as we did, they were monitoring themselves.  They were looking out for one another.  They were learning to self-regulate.  When someone got jumped on or bumped, he would warn his friends that he didn't like it.

They were so proud of what they had built. And most importantly, they were joyous!