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Susan Isaacs: Let Children Think for Themselves

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

“They had been chasing him round the garden and teasing him, and he had run away and hidden. And in the morning, he was dead. He was very old and had had a long life. The children had looked after him and loved him. But now he was dead. They put him in a box and made a funeral. And they all cried.”
— Susan Isaacs, diary, Malting House School

When I was at university, this story shook me to the core. The incident reminded me of the Lord of the Flies book scenario, where children run wild without any educator’s guidance. Is it what objective observation is like?

We were studying pedagogy and documentation, surrounded by readings on Piaget and Vygotsky, when my lecturer read this passage aloud. It was from Susan Isaacs’ diary, documenting a moment from the Malting House School. The children had chased and teased their beloved rabbit, not out of cruelty, but play. The next morning, they found him dead. He had been old.

The children made a box, held a funeral, and wept.
Isaacs let them feel it all. She didn’t redirect or fix — she witnessed.

It was the first time I understood the way children may think and how they approach death as a concept to process.

I also reconsidered the role of the teacher as a researcher, as an observer and inquirer who witnesses play, documents children’s learning and their thoughts as they occur.

Susan Sutherland Isaacs (née Fairhurst) was born in 1885 in Lancashire to working-class parents — a saddler-turned-journalist father and a musically gifted mother. When her mother died at age six, Susan’s life changed sharply. Her father’s remarriage created family tensions, and when she later rejected religion and declared herself a socialist and atheist.

As Jane Murray (2021) explains, Isaacs’ strength was her ability to draw from three fields, such as pedagogy, philosophy, and psychology (PPP), to understand how children build knowledge through play, inquiry, and social experience.

The Malting House School as a living lab

Isaacs’ breakthrough came when she was appointed the head of Malting House School (1924–1927), an experimental learning community in Cambridge. Children could explore, problem-solve, and even philosophise freely, which seemed like a RADICAL idea for the time. Teachers were not instructors but co-thinkers and observers. Does it sound familiar? No wonder… Reggio Emilia and Anji play approaches are based on similar ideas.

“Play is indeed the child’s work, and the means whereby he grows and develops.”
— Isaacs, 1929, p. 9

Here, Isaacs saw children as natural researchers. Whether observing how wood floats or debating fairness during a game, children were constantly forming hypotheses, testing ideas, and refining their understanding of the world (Isaacs, 1930; Murray, 2021).

Children are natural researchers. They observe, they think, they have theories about the world.

She later wrote:

“The child’s cognitive act is similar… to his later acts of understanding, of reasoning, or of practical organisation, as a historian, a scientist or a man of affairs.”
(Isaacs, 1930, p. 65)

This wasn’t romantic idealism. It was based on systematic observation, experimentation, and analysis, the same principles Isaacs believed every educator should apply (Murray, 2021).

Children and Phantasy

Susan Isaacs’s The Nature and Function of Phantasy book is one of the most interesting and influencial texts on children’s thinking. Isaacs made major contributions to the field of psychoanalysis, especially through her seminal 1943 paper, “The Nature and Function of Phantasy.” In this book, she argued that unconscious phantasy is present from the start of life, shaping all instincts, relationships, and perceptions. Take , for example, my niece, who merges real and imaginative all the time (she is 8).

This theory deepened our understanding of how children process the world, not just intellectually, but through imagination, inner conflict, and emotional meaning-making.

Isaacs also understood that thought isn’t just cognitive, it’s emotional. In her work with psychoanalysis, she expanded on Melanie Klein’s theory of unconscious phantasy, stating:

“There is no impulse, no instinctual urge or response which is not experienced as unconscious phantasy.”
(Isaacs, 1948, as cited in Bodycote, 2020, p. 115)

This meant play, dreams, fears, and even tantrums were not random. They were meaning-making processes. Children trying to make sense of their world.

🌼 Why Susan Isaacs Still Matters

In a time of outcomes and over-scheduling, Isaacs invites us to pause, to watch, listen, and reflect.
She reminds us that:

  • Children’s questions are not distractions. They are part of the curriculum, your program, your planning.
  • Educators are not performers. They are co-investigators.
  • Play is not a break from learning. It is the learning.

✏️ Reflection

How might your practice change if you treated every child as a natural researcher, even during conflict, tears, or silence?

References

Murray, J. (2021). How do children build knowledge in early childhood education? Susan Isaacs, Young Children Are Researchers and what happens next. Early Child Development and Care, 191(7–8), 1230–1246. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2020.1854242

Bodycote, L. (2020). Review of the book Wise Words: How Susan Isaacs changed parenting, by C. Vollans. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 46(1), 112–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/0075417X.2020.1739736

What Pedagogical Documentation Really Looks Like in Everyday Practice (And Why It’s Worth the Effort)

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

Ever felt like documentation takes you away from “real teaching”? You’re not alone. I talked to a lot of early years professionals over the years. Many early childhood educators feel the same. We want to be with the children, not stuck behind a screen or scrambling to print photos. But here’s the thing—done well, documentation isn’t just paperwork. It’s a powerful tool for making children’s learning visible, deepening our teaching, and building stronger relationships with families.

Let’s talk about what the research says about documentation in practice—and what that means for your everyday work.

What is Pedagogical Documentation anyway(PD)?

At its heart, pedagogical documentation is about observing, recording, and reflecting on children’s learning—not just what they do, but how they think, wonder, problem-solve, and grow. It shuold be meaningful and it should be about LEARNING.

It’s more than checklists. Think photos, quotes, drawings, learning stories, conversations, questions, messy play, co-constructed meaning. Documentation, when used well, brings the learning to life and helps us make thoughtful decisions about what comes next (Carr & Lee, 2012; Dahlberg et al., 2007).

Why It Matters: Documentation That Actually Impacts Practice

A major Finnish study involving nearly 3,000 children (Rintakorpi & Reunamo, 2016) found a strong link between pedagogical documentation and quality learning environments. Here’s what they discovered:

🧠 When documentation was used often:

  • Children were more involved, creative, and emotionally positive 😃
  • Educators planned more intentionally and included children in that process.
  • Learning was more play-based, inquiry-rich, and child-led. I love this kind of learning!
  • Educators reflected more and reported higher satisfaction with their teaching.

🧩 It wasn’t just about having more forms—it was about making documentation part of the learning process, not an add-on.

In centres with less documentation? There were signs of more teacher-directed routines, less creativity, and lower engagement.

Are you surprised?

Real-Life Strategies Educators Use to Make It Work

So, how do you fit documentation into a packed day? A comparative study across Germany and New Zealand (Knauf, 2019) identified eight real-world strategies educators are already using.

Let me walk you through them, with a few extra notes from my own experience.

1. Staff Discussions

Instead of documenting alone, educators regularly talk through their observations. “Did you hear what Maya said about the worm farm?” These conversations spark deeper insights and shared understanding, and often highlight those awesome moments worth documenting.

📌 Try this: Talk to your colleague for 10 minutes once a week about children’s learning

2. Re-Using Documentation

Learning stories, learning notes, and observations can be adapted across portfolios (when the learning applies to more than one child). That same photo display can be printed and pasted into individual books later.

📌 Try this: Print once, use twice. First on the wall, then in the folder.

3. Sharing Children Across Staff

In Germany, key educators are assigned to certain children. In New Zealand, the whole team shares responsibility. Either way, the goal is to make sure someone is tuned into each child’s journey.

📌 My tip: It’s okay to talk, swap, and co-document. Approach it as a collaborative process.

4. Using Forms and Templates

Some educators developed checklist templates or digital logs (even simple Excel sheets!) to quickly track interests or inquiries across weeks.

📌 Try this: Keep a clipboard with observation prompts nearby, easy grab when inspiration strikes. I use Notepad on the iPad too.

5. Defining ‘Documentation Weeks’

Some centres batch-document during certain times, for example, before parent-teacher meetings or at the end of the term.

📌 Try this: Plan a reflection and documentation week once per term, and treat it like a planning sprint.

6. Swapping Coverage with Colleagues

Want to finish a learning story? Step out for 20 minutes while your colleague watches the room. And return the favour.

📌 Try this: Schedule “doc time” on the roster like lunch breaks—everyone deserves a turn.

7. Parallel Supervision

Some teachers document while the children play. Others write alongside children (“Can you help me remember what we built with those boxes?”). It becomes part of the learning, not separate from it.

📌 Try this: Set up a “documentation table” with children and co-create together.

8. Keep it Simple

Some educators dropped the glitter and focused on clarity, less “prettifying,” more purposeful stories.

📌 Try this: Write as you speak. Use clean layouts. Focus on the learning, not the font.

Digital Tools Help, Too

In New Zealand, many centres use online platforms to share documentation with families instantly. Laptops or tablets in rooms make writing quicker and sharing easier. Now Storypart, See-saw and other platforms are more popular than ever.

📌 No fancy system? Start with shared Google Docs, or upload PDFs to a private parent group.

Digital tools don’t replace relationships, but they can make documentation feel less like a mountain.

So… Does Documentation Make a Difference?

Yes—when it’s meaningful.

🟢 According to the Finnish study, documentation is positively linked to:

  • Children’s emotional wellbeing
  • Creativity and pretend play
  • Autonomy and peer relationships
  • Educators’ own sense of satisfaction and growth

But here’s the flip side:

🔴 In settings where documentation was scarce, educators were more likely to say their work needed improvement, and children showed fewer signs of engaged, playful, or creative learning (Rintakorpi & Reunamo, 2016).

Final Thoughts: Let’s Rethink the Why

Documentation isn’t a chore—it’s a lens. It helps us tune in, slow down, and co-create the learning journey with children. It’s also how we communicate that learning with families, reflecting as professionals, and advocating for the power of play.

You don’t need to document everything. You don’t need hours of child-free time. But you do need intention.

Let’s move beyond tick-boxes and start seeing documentation as a professional practice that strengthens our relationships, our pedagogy, and our joy in the work.

Let me know what you think!

References

Alasuutari, M., Markström, A.-M., & Vallberg-Roth, A.-C. (2014). Assessment and documentation in early childhood education. Routledge.

Carr, M., & Lee, W. (2012). Learning stories: Constructing learner identities in early education. SAGE.

Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A. (2007). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation. Routledge.

Knauf, H. (2019). Strategies of pedagogical documentation in ECEC: A comparison of New Zealand and Germany. Early Child Development and Care, 189(8), 1311–1330. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1354850

Rintakorpi, K., & Reunamo, J. (2016). Pedagogical documentation and its relation to everyday activities in early years. Early Child Development and Care, 186(10), 1611–1622. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1178637

Everyday objects as play resources

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

Pasta and rubber bands, shaving foam and foil… there are hundreds of affordable, multi-purpose play and learning materials hiding in plain sight—right there in your local supermarket.

We believe toys aren’t a luxury item. In fact, some of the best “toys” aren’t toys at all. Explore the possibilities of using loose parts to enhance creativity.

Sticks, string, mud, puddles and stones—these have always been childhood favourites across cultures and generations. Take away the tablets and devices, and give children the freedom to play outdoors. Chances are, they’ll run to the nearest puddle, pick up a stick, and start stirring mud or flinging pebbles. With loose parts, the potential for imaginative play is endless.

Unlike nature’s freebies, store-bought toys and art materials can be expensive. But you don’t need to break the bank. Pop into your local discount store (in Australia, they’re often called “Two Dollar Shops”) and you’ll find a goldmine of creative tools for early learning. Look for loose parts that can be creatively used in various activities.

Here’s a go-to list of budget-friendly items for hands-on, sensory-rich activities with children aged 0–6:

🛒 Supermarket Supplies for Play and Learning

1. Flour

Soft, tactile and versatile—flour is the base for salt dough and sensory play.
Classic salt dough recipe: 1 cup flour, ½ cup coloured water, ½ cup salt, 1 tbsp oil.
Want puffy paint? Mix flour, salt, and water, pour into sauce bottles, add food colouring.
Want cloud dough? Mix flour with baby oil. Simple magic made possible with loose parts.

2. Vegetable Oil

Key for dough-making. Mix with water for science fun—oil and water never mix!

3. Salt

A sensory tub staple. Use it for magic bottles, art experiments, or “drawing trays” with brushes.
Try: coloured salt (crushed chalk + salt), icy salt play, or painting with salt on watercolours. All these activities can be enriched with loose parts.

4. Baking Soda & Vinegar

Perfect for fizzy fun. Add baking soda to a balloon, vinegar to a bottle—watch the balloon inflate! Incorporate other loose parts to make the activity more interactive.

5. Rice

Great for sensory bottles, art, or filling beanbags. Dye it for sorting or scooping.

6. Food Colouring

For colourful dough, paints, foam, ice, and sensory tubs. Add pipettes and explore colour mixing.

7. Pasta

For art, noise makers, and fine motor play (bracelets, necklaces, sorting).
Cook spaghetti halfway, dip in paint, and make spaghetti art! Use loose parts like pasta to expand creative possibilities.

8. Jelly

Tactile, edible fun. Freeze small animal figurines in jelly for sensory discovery.
Use jelly powder for messy finger painting.

9. Cornstarch

The base for a non-Newtonian fluid. Add water and watch it act like a solid and a liquid.
Cook with water and soda to make silky finger paints—safe for the youngest learners.

10. Tea

Steeped tea makes beautiful paint. Dried tea is a calming sensory material. Herbal teas are great for discovery and sensory exploration, plus just for afternoon tea. Loose parts like dried tea leaves can provide additional layers of sensory experience.

11. Spices

Spices offer rich scents for sensory play and real-life kitchen roleplay.
Add ginger or pepper to your dough for extra sensory exploration.

👩‍🏫 As educators, we know that meaningful learning doesn’t come from expensive toys—it grows out of exploration, sensory wonder, and open-ended materials. Loose parts play a crucial role in this process.

Next time you’re in the grocery store, think like a child and shop like a teacher.

Nature based teaching strategies

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

🌿 What If the Forest Was Your Classroom? 🌿

Imagine if the best teaching strategy wasn’t in a book… but beneath your feet, rustling in the leaves, buzzing in the air, and whispered by a curious child asking “Why do worms wiggle?”

At Storykate, I believe learning comes alive when we slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with the world around us.

That’s why O love these powerful teaching and learning strategies inspired by nature pedagogy and thought leaders like Carson, Moss, Rautio, and Pelo. From walking with children (Malone, 2019) to attuning with animal kin (Young & Bone, 2020), these approaches invite us to teach with the land—not just on it.

✨ Some of our favourites:

  • Observation of Nature – Rachel Carson taught us to see wonder in the smallest things.
  • Slow Play – Honour the rhythm of childhood.
  • Sensing Ecologically – What if we taught through sound, smell, and soil?
  • Collective Inquiry – Learning is more powerful when it’s shared.
  • Oral Storytelling – Our first teaching method, and still one of the most powerful.

These aren’t just strategies. They’re invitations to be more present, more playful, and more purposeful in how we teach.

💬 Which one speaks to you today? Tell me in the comments.

Let’s debate the virtue of patience…

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

When friends and acquaintances learn I work as a preschool teacher, they often smile. They say, “You must have so much patience.” I usually just shrug. I don’t think patience is the most essential quality when working with young children. In fact, I’m not a fan of patience. I’m all for understanding.

Take four-year-old James. He is a sturdy redheaded boy. He just decided who gets to ride the scooter by pushing a three-year-old girl off it. Does James’s behaviour require patience? Is patience what I need, as his teacher, to handle the situation thoughtfully and effectively? What does being “patient” even mean?

According to most English dictionaries, patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” The underlying assumption? You’re enduring something unpleasant.

Patience is often seen as a hallmark of good educators. “Kate, I could never do what you do—I don’t have the patience.” “You must be incredibly patient to work with kids every day.” Compliments like that used to make me smile, but lately they’ve started to rub me the wrong way. Probably because I’ve never considered myself particularly patient. Sure, I can sit through a dental appointment in silence, give blood without flinching—but to put up with work that drains me or feels meaningless? No, thank you.

Patience is usually framed as a virtue. It conjures images of someone calm, humble, quietly enduring something difficult. You grit your teeth, take a deep breath, and get through it. Why? Because “patience is a virtue.” Because “good things come to those who wait.” Because “hard work and patience conquer all.” These sayings run deep in our cultural wiring.

But I don’t think early childhood educators, nannies, or parents of young children should rely too heavily on patience. Why? Because if you’re constantly “putting up with” children, it probably means you’re not enjoying the work. It suggests you’re not in a state of flow, as described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. And that’s a problem. Because it means you’re disconnected.

An educator who truly understands a child’s developmental stage—their strengths, their challenges—won’t suffer silently. Take James again. His behaviour might look aggressive, but developmentally, it’s not out of the ordinary. I’m not about to label him a “troublemaker” or say he’s violent. He’s a great kid—he just doesn’t yet know how to behave differently. Maybe he struggles with self-regulation. Maybe he needs support from a psychologist. Either way, the incident (yes, James pushed someone again) becomes an opportunity to teach, not punish.

At this stage of development, James only knows how to express himself through force. My job is to help him find another way. That doesn’t require me to clench my fists or count to ten—it simply means I remind him, gently and clearly, that we don’t hit people. We use our words. James isn’t distracting me from my work—he is my work. He gives me a reason to model better ways of interacting.

And it’s not just James. There’s Zoya, who loves pulling hair and biting. There’s Ruben. He is autistic and sometimes throws sticks from the top of the slide. This behavior is not out of malice. He doesn’t yet grasp the consequences of his actions.

If I relied solely on patience, I’d burn out by the end of the first week. By the end of the month, I’d be yelling and reacting poorly. What I need far more than patience is understanding. And that understanding comes from developmental theory, from knowing children’s capabilities and limits—and from genuinely wanting to be around them.

Patience has a limit. There’s a reason we say, “Beware the wrath of the patient person.” But understanding, compassion, and connection? They’re renewable.

Teachers and parents who expect three- to five-year-olds to sit quietly on a mat or at a desk? They do need patience—because they lack understanding. It’s almost comical to watch an educator sternly tell a child “for the last time” to take a pencil out of their mouth. They clearly forget what it’s like to be teething and want to chew everything.

Expectations that aren’t age-appropriate only create tension between adults and children. If I know a child’s gums are itchy, I’ll offer a teething toy or some crunchy toast. My voice and body language stay calm—not because I’m forcing patience, but because I get it. When you understand, there’s nothing to endure.

Treating young children’s behaviour as something to be endured—like a headache or a traffic jam—turns it into something threatening. “You’re doing this just to upset your mum!” “Johnny, did you pee your pants on purpose?” Many of us still remember those hurtful lines from our own childhoods. We recall how wrong they were. We also remember how much they shamed us.

But harshness and rejection often come from a simple lack of understanding. When adults take time to really listen—not just to what children say, but to what they mean—they create space for growth. When I understand a child, I respond to them as they are—not as I wish they were. I don’t waste energy fighting the fact that children are, well, children. I use my energy to guide them.

And that, to me, is far more powerful than patience.

Let me know what you think!

Kate