This summer, I started to participate in a book study through the Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota. The book study used the Reggio publication entitled: dialogues with places. The book examines how the children use all their senses and their whole bodies to investigate space and reflects on how children subsequently make meaning of a place through those investigations. Because their investigations were always new and fresh, it was not unusual for them to pick up on features such as holes in the ceiling or cracks in the floor that adults simply ignore. For the children, though, those were important features to animate. Those were important features that were "invitations" for the children to enter into a dialogue with the place and to ultimately create meaning.
For me, the sensory table is such a place. It is a place in which children enter into a dialogue with the apparatus. It is a place in which children find those "cracks" and "holes" for which they create meaning. It is a place in which they use all their senses and their whole body to investigate.
They investigate spaces with their eyes.
With their hands
With their arms
Even if the child cannot see the space to be explored
And even through barriers
They investigate spaces with their heads
With their heads and torsos
With their whole body by climbing on
Or into
Or even lying next to
And they will always find the space that an adult would never notice
In the Reggio book, places have "form, energy, and rhythm." At the sensory table, each apparatus has the same. The form, energy, and rhythm that emerge will look different as each child---alone and with others---creates a dialogue with the apparatus. That is exciting and creates multiple opportunities to make meaning out of space. Since children are master explorers, there is no end to the process. So I continue to build apparatus for the children to investigate and make meaning out of new and intriguing spaces.
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