These Nurseries are so adept at internalizing the routine and ways of the Nursery along with the wider world of the rest of the school and play yards. Some children are already beginning to expand their social worlds to include interactions and friendships with some of the older students. They are all busy learning and growing in so many ways. They are building stamina, and are using incredible amounts of energy as they do it. One of their repeating favorite book choices these days is Harry Hungry by Steven Salerno!

They seem to be a collection of individuals with very active mirror neurons. Not every photo you’ll see catches the split second of action for everyone, but one way you can see this is by watching how often and easily they mirror Athena’s moves during our music time. I watch them with one another and see this same thing. They find it very easy to be elbow-to-elbow with one another around the table. They are truly drawn to this sort of close group work. It’s my observation that many Nursery aged individuals need to practice, experience and re-experience, say being around a table or circle or in a group, in order to comfortably play and work in close proximity. But it just seems to flow for these particular Nurseries. Possibly due to a lot of active mirror neurons?!

So it’s not just their physical growth that demands energy. Recent research shows that children, especially from the of ages three to seven, have brains that demand even more energy than what’s required for general physical maintenance and growth of the rest of the body. Energy is automatically channeled over to the brain. The brain comes first and recent research shows that the process of learning uses a lot of energy!

It’s still astonishing to me, but for children who are three to seven, the brain accounts for over 60 percent of their energy expenditures just in terms of their Basal Metabolic Rate. Their brain growth requires so much energy during these years that it can actually result in delaying growth in the rest of the body.  If you are interested in reading this and more about human metabolism, Herman Pontzer [professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University] has a very interesting and also very readable book based on current research titled, Burn, published in 2021. See pages 87-88 specifically for more on young children, their growing brains, and the enormous energy demands for learning at any age.

It’s no wonder that Nurseries look and feel tired at the end of the day, and a bit more so by the end of their week. They are busy sponging up their worlds, processing, internalizing information and wiring and rewiring their brains to store it all along with a lot of physical activity. Several families have come up with a plan of having their Nurseries take a bit of time off to shorten their week, or shortening a day here or a day there a bit. In other words they are tweaking their own child’s weekly schedule with the help of some strategic planning. Please do catch me if you think your child would get some benefit from a few weeks of easing in more slowly as they get their sea legs and we can put something in place as needed. You will know.