Natural learning

Thought I'd share this piece of natural learning Sunshine and Sweet-pea have taken to in the last few weeks. They call it "play the game of [movie]". Basically, they pick a movie and put it on (usually a Barbie or another sort of animated movie), then they choose who will play who and act out the entire movie in front of the television while the movie is playing. They have costume changes (many different outfits for different parts of the movie - shoes included!). They make special swords with wooden spoons and tie ribbons on the end of the spoons.

Earlier today I wondered if it was good for them to be doing this so much. Shouldn't I encourage them to go outside instead? But then I realised what they were doing. They were naturally teaching themselves a range of things. Here is a short list of what I believe they were teaching themselves (that I can think of - I bet there are many more I can't think of):

1. Drama/acting - they were copying the actions of each character. Facial expressions and arm movements etc.
2. Reciting/memory - they were learning the words and speaking them over and over. Experiencing and reinforcing sentence structure and grammar.
3. Teamwork - working together to achieve an outcome.
4. Social behaviour - learning how other people relate and how to relate to each other whilst achieving the goal of "play the game of [movie]".
5. Interpretation - everything they did was an expression of what they were interpreting of what was occuring in the movie.
6. Independence and innovation - they made this game up themselves. They designed the rules and procedure and defined the outcome.
7. To entertain themselves - an extremely valuable skill in my eyes!
8. To experience natural learning and to be guided by their own interests - I believe this is a key to them developing a lifestyle of learning.

So that is just a few learnings that I can think of off the top of my head. I bet there are more. With all that swirling around in my head, yep, I think it is good for them; and I want to encourage them to "play the game of [movie]" without concern that they are watching too much television; and with peace of mind of knowing that even if I am not sitting down at a table with them making them doing structured lessons that they will learn anyway ... and have fun doing it!