Demolishing Walls: A mud experience with parental involvement

Abstract

There is an increasing need for children to play outdoors and to explore and know the limits of their bodies, and there is evidence of an emergency to recover the outdoors, since children currently tend to remain in conditioned and controlled spaces. The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has revived reflection on the importance of access to the outdoors. The idea seems to be accepted that it is necessary to "return to nature, live more slowly and learn to be more aware of the body and silence, and at the same time experience the seduction of new technologies" (Neto, 2020, p.20). In the first three years of children's lives, they use their bodies to mediate learning. They explore the world around them - they are active learners. It is from all their actions and senses that children gather information for their discovery of the world, because "through the coordination of taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing, feelings and actions, they are able to construct knowledge" (Post & Hohmann, 2011, p.23). This project, supported by a qualitative methodology, aims to understand and implement practices to reduce the constraints on access to the outdoors for a group of children in daycare. The diagnostic reflection carried out initially made it possible to understand the existing reality. The evidence supported the implementation of new intervention strategies accompanied by constant monitoring. Observation therefore became the data collection tool par excellence. In the final phase of the project, families were interviewed, coinciding with the usual end-of-year meeting with parents, to gauge their perspectives on the intervention and their participation. Eight families from the group of children in this study were interviewed. The aim was to create an open and flexible script to allow the interviewees to express themselves more freely about the work carried out. To shape this instrument, the following dimensions of analysis were defined: experiences/opportunities created for the children; children's learning; hygiene and clothing management issues; the most valued aspects of the project; and proposals for improvement. Researchers' initial concern about parents' acceptance of the dirty clothes the children brought home was overcome by the evidence the parents encountered. Children's behaviours of well-being and joy were evident. The fact that the whole project was developed in partnership with the parents helped to prevent any possible constraints. Parents knew what was going on in the classroom and were asked to participate by enriching the mud kitchen and bringing in materials.