As both a teacher and a parent, I am fortunate enough to witness children play every single day. One of the greatest joys is watching children of different ages play side-by-side. On this day, I observed a little girl, around three and a half, and a little boy, nearly two, deeply engaged in soil, water, and imagination.
A year and a half might not seem like much to adults, but in early childhood, it's a vast developmental gap. The little boy is just beginning to use language to navigate the world. The older girl, meanwhile, is growing in her ability to articulate her thoughts, engage with peers, and create structured games. She’s learning to play with others. He is still mainly exploring on his own: testing, experimenting, and often unaware of others’ intentions. These two different ways of being collided, briefly, during their muddy adventure.
For a while, both children played alongside one another with ease. The little girl had created a project: mud pancakes and pizzas formed by carefully mixing soil and water on a concrete surface. The boy was deeply focused on moving soil. Sometimes with his hands, sometimes with tools, sometimes into my water bottle, which the children had borrowed for their play.
Eventually, their play converged. The boy began mimicking the girl's actions, helping shovel soil onto the same concrete area. For a time, this became a shared project. But as young children often do, he suddenly shifted direction. He began throwing the mud off the platform (his version of fun) unaware that this act was dismantling her carefully constructed mud creations.
The girl was upset. Her pancakes were ruined.
I approached calmly and crouched beside them.
"He threw the mud on purpose!" she said, clearly and accurately. She was right. He had.
“He did,” I acknowledged gently. “He is still very little and learning.”
At nearly two, the boy wasn’t trying to disrupt her play; he was simply immersed in exploratory behavior, typical of his age. Developmental psychologist Mildred Parten described this stage as parallel play; children play near each other but not truly together. The girl, however, was entering the realm of cooperative play, where negotiation and shared goals begin to emerge.
By naming what was happening and offering a calm, non-judgmental response, I was helping her make sense of a frustrating experience. A small act of co-regulation, where an adult supports a child in managing big emotions.
"The mud is on the floor," she said, still processing what had happened.
"It is," I replied. "Would you like some help fixing it?"
She nodded, and we began shovelling the soil back onto the surface. Seeing this, the little boy joined in. The mess had become something new. And for whatever the little girl had planned, she needed more water!
According to Lev Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development, children learn most effectively just beyond their current capabilities when guided by more experienced peers or adults. In this case, the little girl and I modeled how to respond to and repair conflict: not with scolding, but with calm restoration.
For the remainder of their play, the boy no longer threw the mud. Instead, he helped build the pile. They had found a rhythm and something had shifted.
These are the real, messy, and magical moments where learning happens.
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