Checking in on Singsaker Oppigard, in Week 13

One of my core memories of early fatherhood was when I realized that dropping Annalise off at day care meant that she was living most of her day without us, we would never really know what she did with that time, and the village was raising my child, whether I liked it or not. Most of her feedback, learning, and environment were going to be coming from other people, and she couldn’t even tell us about it. We were having to trust far earlier and far more than I expected. It was the first “empty nest” moment, where we had to give her up for her own good to learn how to be without us.

I’m sure in part to help ease this, Annalise’s barnehage here in Trondheim sends out a weekly update powerpoint to tell us about what happened that week and give us the schedule for the following week. It recently hired a new teacher, who is far more loquacious in the update. I love this new extra information about all those hours away from us, and thought I’d share a week of Annalise’s lessons and experiences at day care. Of course I’ve anonymized all other children.

Translation: Week’s mail, older group, Week 13

Norwegians use this numerical week system. Week 13 started March 24. I have no idea if Norwegians are also always googling week numbers or if they’ve learned it innately somehow?

Annalise is in the right picture in the gray hat and pink raincoat. That gray winter hat is the defining article of clothing for this year for me, it’s fun to arrive at her school and spot her squawking around with her friends in that distinctive pointy hat. It doesn’t fit her but I love it too much to replace it. When we go back to America, I’ll also miss her getting to play so much in mud puddles.

Translation: Child A, Child B, and Child C find a running spider on the kitchen floor. Child A is afraid of the spider and doesn’t want it in the barnhage, even though it lives deep under the kitchen furniture. Then Child C takes action: he steps on the spider so that Child A won’t be afraid anymore. The spider dies, and we have a conversation about what it means that the spider is dead.

What it means that the spider is dead! Right away, we’re deep into that “trust the village” territory. Annalise learned about death! From other people! In Norwegian! In truth, I’m glad, that’s appropriate, but it was a shock. While I’m picturing some big “Mr. Hooper is dead” moment, Annalise’s takeaway that day was “there was a spider,” so perhaps she was distracted during the mortality lesson.

Translation: New books from the library. We have borrowed books about feelings, animals and spring this time. Several of the children have learned to read and have enjoyed reading out loud to each other. Here they are reading about sharks and falling in love.

Often the kids go on a field trip to the library and bring a bunch of new books back to the day care. Annalise is really interested in learning to read, perhaps because these older kids are reading aloud. We’re working on phonics at home!

Translation: Trip to the gymnasium. The trip this week was a whole group trip to the gymnasium at Drånning Mauds Minne College. The children enjoyed dance play and an obstacle course.

Every week the kids take a field trip. Drånning Mauds Minne Høyskole is a local private college for early childhood education (perhaps our new teacher just graduated from there?). In the second slide on the left, Annalise can be seen climbing the ladder thing in her pink shirt and big hair (she’s on an anti-ponytail kick).

Translation: Project: “Let the bumblebee buzz.” We have started up with a new project! The children had visited the younger class, who had made bumblebee boxes. We also became inspired and made bumblebee boxes. We had seen a short film to lay the foundation for the educational work. The film was about bumblebees which lie under the ground to wait for spring, and why their job spreading pollen is important for us people. We have drawn our own bumblebees which we have hung up on the wall, and we are beginning to see signs of spring outside.

As someone who has gotten weirdly into pollinators and native gardening as his dad-hobby, I approve of this unit!

Translation: “Let nature live in peace!” It is time for fruit (the kids have a fruit snack in the afternoons) and we are sitting outside on the bench to eat. Suddenly a curious crow comes. “Wrææææ,” yells a child who gets up from the bench and runs after the crow to scare it off. Several children join in. Another child yells “Stop! Let nature live in peace! It’s afraid. It is only hungry. Let nature live in peace!” The children who were chasing it stopped and said, “huh?” “Let nature live in peace!” repeated the same child. Several of the children around the table agree and say, “yes, let nature live in peace.” We talked on which feelings the crow can have when we frighten it, and that animals out in nature must find their own food. What if we also had to find our own food, but were frightened off? Which feelings would we feel then, we who have read so much about feelings lately? And do crows even like oranges?

First, A+ on the storytelling, especially the onomatopoetic “Wrææææ!” from the chasing child. Love it, no notes. Second, I think you can really see the result of having so much education for the teachers here. The ability to turn a kid chasing a crow into a lesson on empathy is really awesome. Third, it had no effect, as Annalise still loves chasing crows.

Translation: “Will you go home with me?” Friend relationships in the child group. We see that it is popular in the children’s group to meet up outside the barnehage. It is nice to be able to meet outside the kindergarten, and exciting to be able to go home with each other. We who work here see that the children have focused a lot on going home with each other after school. We see that some children often go and receive invitations, while others are rarely included. We see this can be difficult for some children. It is important for us that nobody experiences being left out, so perhaps it is possible to organize playdates outside the barnehage in nearby parks. Then everybody can be invited. We would like barnehage to be a place where all children are included, and want parents to be aware of this. Perhaps meetings can happen outside the barnehage to avoid too much talk about this in barnehage where everyone is involved and some become upset?

The kids are indeed always organizing playdates without talking to parents. Pretty much every day Annalise runs up and informs me of some plan she has set up where she goes home with someone or someone will go home with us (these plans almost never actually work out). She is part of a pack of four or five kids who could very well be the main problem this slide is talking about. The first salvos of the difficult interpersonal relationships of childhood!

Translation: This slide is just wishing us a good weekend, and reminding everyone to neaten their cubbies, make sure clothes have names in them, and to wash their water bottles.

In conclusion, day care in Norway is awesome. Lots of physical and messy play, and thoughtful lessons on empathy, nature, reading, and even death. Who wouldn’t want their kid in this village?

To close, here’s a largely unrelated video demonstrating that Annalise has also “learned” to hula hoop. She is very proud.