Humor

One of the pleasures of working with young children is observing their humor. What a delight! What four and five-year-olds see as funny is often strange to you and I. It’s important to have laughter and humor in the classroom.

Here are some ideas:

1. Reading funny stories and singing silly songs together. We can do more in this area by reading nonsense or “just for fun” books. We can help the children make a connection between humor, imagination, language, and creativity. When they write their own stories and act them out, humor surfaces and becomes more fun and meaningful.
2. Using humor to deal with frustrating or difficult situations. Sometimes we can turn a stressful situation into a funny one.
3. We must continue to support silly make-believe play. Encouraging the children to try out different voices and roles with the help of puppets, props, dress-up clothes, etc., will bring out their humor.
4. Joining in the fun by being silly ourselves sends the message that being humorous is okay. We will always reinforce limits when necessary, but we adults need to show our fun side to the children.
5.  It is important to listen to children’s humor because it offers insight into their concerns. For example, too much joking about bad dreams may indicate a fear that needs to be dealt with, or silly rhyming could be carried over into storytime.