Charter of Children’s Rights
by the children of Little Ark Preschool

Everyone shares.

You always get to say “2 minutes or five minutes for a turn” to your friend so they can choose how long they’re going to be. And you always get your turn after they’re done. The teachers make sure.

You can drive cars all around, even on the shelf!

You can do that but you shouldn’t really slide them too fast or too high off of the shelf. It has to be all clear of people’s bodies or things that might break.

We all have the job to keep our own body safe, and our friends safe also.

The teachers make sure we’re all safe too.

You can have fun on bikes, do climbing or running and even jumping.

We get to jump lots and slide down the slide. You can even go up too, but only if there’s no people coming down.

We always get to go outside or in the gym. Sometimes we go on a walk to find things, like a field trip. I like doing obstacle courses best.

You can play with rice instead of sand. If you spill it all over the place you can just sweep it up.

You can play dress up, tag, or be an actor or actress if you want to.

You don’t have to walk always. You can run in the gym or outside or in a space where it’s safe and not too busy. Sometimes I’m just so excited and I have to run, but that’s okay.

You can be so tricky! The teachers are even trickier… They say “NO LAUGHING AT PRESCHOOL!” in a pretend grumpy voice, but we always laugh more and more ‘coz we’re having too much fun!

You don’t always have to use a paint brush. You can use your fingers, your nose, and other stuff…like a shape or even flowers to paint with.

You can just play. Playing is good. Spilling juice isn’t though, but I can always just clean it up with some paper towels.

If you need to reach something or reach the top of your tower you can ask a friend who is taller, or jump or get a stool –or maybe a chair. Just be safe. Make sure that people aren’t too close to the tower if it falls down.

You can try to switch rooms if you want to see other stuff or people. Also, it can be more quiet in the other room if someone is playing the drum in here.

If there’s no banana or something in the pretend place you can just draw it and cut it out, or use something like a Popsicle stick and just imagine it’s a banana.

You can take stuff apart and use lots of tools. Or maybe you can put things together if you want.

You’re allowed to eat your snack now, later, or after, but usually someone like a teacher will say “last chance for snack”. Or Charlie might say it.

You might get to water the plants. Sometimes it looks like the teachers forget, so then we have to do it.

At circle time the teachers do the songs, but we get to sing too if we have a song we want to share with everyone. Sometimes the teachers even take a movie of it with the camera.

Some kids even read the books at circle time too. Or they can do the CD story if the words are too tricky, that way they can turn the pages and the CD tells the words.

You can turn the light table on but if you do it so many times, so fast, it might break or make your eyes go crazy. Same as the projector switch. And you have to be careful of the mirror on it. The glass can get warm, too.

Phyllis comes to help us use clay and make things. She showed me how to make the long snake-shapes and even balls that you could use for wheels or anything!

You can paint your clay after it’s been cooked in the kiln that Phyllis has. Then the thing that you made can have colour. But she has to cook it one more time with the paint on it so it melts and goes all shiny like glass.

You get to hug your friends and love them lots. I play with them all day all the time. Sometimes we play at the dress-up, in the water table, maybe at the other tables. We can just play everywhere if we wanted to!

For the link to the original A Charter of Rights, written by Loris Malaguzzi, please visit our Network for the appropriate link.