Location: indoor or outdoor

Materials: none!

One of the ways that we can support the brain development of young children is by modeling our own processes for thinking and problem solving. You can do this on a daily basis by making your thinking visible to the children in your class.

For example, if a block tower the children are trying to build on the carpet keeps falling over, you could say, "It looks like this might not be a good surface to build on. Look how squishy it is. How can we make this more stable for the blocks?" Give the children a chance to think through their own solutions, since chances are they will have a good one. If they can't come up with something, guide them to a possible solution. For example say, "I think this rug might be too soft to build on. Is there are harder surface we could use instead? Where could we go?" Perhaps you have a piece of plywood you could lay down for them to use, or maybe they relocate to a different area.

Another common example is when children ask a question you genuinely don't know the answer to. You can say, "That's a good question. I don't know the answer, but maybe we can look it up. Where could we find that information?" Help the child look it up in a book or on the internet. The act of "discovering" together can be very powerful.