MODIFICATIONS

I made some modifications to the the Triangle Dividers.

I made three to be exact: a partial roof over the middle area; a cardboard tube embedded in the roof; and a false bottom for the middle area.

Let's start with the false bottom.  

I cut the bottom of a box, the dimension of which I knew would fit into the middle area. Using two cardboard sheets, I added a cross section to the inside of the box bottom to give it more load bearing strength.

I placed the box bottom in the middle area so the solid end was up. Next, I placed a piece of cardboard cut to fit snugly into the middle area onto the box bottom.  Finally, I duct taped the piece of cardboard around the edges to hold it in place and to prevent leakage into the bottom of the table.

You can easily see the difference in in the children's operations with the false bottom in place.  On the left, where there is no false bottom, the child has to stretch are far as she can to even get a cup.  She gets the cup, but cannot reach the pellets. The child on the right, where there is a false bottom, stretches, but he is stretching to get the pellets.



For the cardboard tube, I had to cut an oval in the roof so the tube would be straight up and down. If I just cut a circle the circumference of the tube, the tube would enter the roof with an incline perpendicular to the roof.  If I tried to force the tube to be straight, I would rip the cardboard.

On the inside, I duct taped the tube into a corner for stability.  Notice, also, I cut a notch in the bottom of the tube so the pellets could flow out freely when poured down the tube.  I learned the hard way that the tube has to be several inches off the false bottom otherwise some of the objects the children put down the tube cannot be extracted.  (I say I learned the hard way because I had to destroy one false bottom to get a bottle out of the tube.)

Modifications in the original apparatus will necessarily change the play and exploration around the apparatus.  So, how did the modifications change the play?

The main difference was the added focus for play around the cardboard tube.  That included pouring pellets into the hole.

That is not as easy as it looks because the child has to continually gauge the position of her cup and the rate of pouring to maximize how much she is able to pour in the tube.

Seeing where the pellets go.

And even doing both at the same time.

This child poured and watched the pellets come out the bottom of the tube.  How great is that to be able to reference your own action when you can only monitor the beginning and the end and not what happens in the middle?

A favorite activity was to plug the tube.  The children learned quickly that if they put other objects in the tube, it was easy to plug.  If you plug the tube, though, you do have to figure out how to unplug it.  And the children did.  Watch as these two boys unplug the tube by removing the sticks they had originally put in the tube.  Listen for the grunting and the counting.

Unplugging the tube from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Did you notice the third child.  She was the observer taking it all in.  She started in the same space as the child at the bottom window, but moved to the next window over to get a better view. Never discount the observer; in her own way she is as active as the other two.

Play and exploration around the apparatus did not totally change with the modification.  There was still plenty of activity in the triangular spaces and through of the various windows.

As proof, look at the picture above.  There are seven children total.  Two of them are focused on the tube.  The other five are around the table doing their own operations in the those original divided spaces.

Modifications create a whole host of new possibilities for play. In this case, they added great play value as the children appropriated the novel spaces and elements.  

ARE WE TALKING SPATIAL LITERACY?

I have built two types of dividers.  One type, a Cubicle Divider, divides the sensory table into cubicle-like spaces.

The most recent type, a Triangular Divider, partitions the table into triangular spaces.

I am left with the question: How does changing the configuration of the divider change the children's play and exploration?

Some of the operations, of course, stay the same.  In both configurations, there is a lot of transporting through the holes in the cardboard walls.

Another similarity is the degree of enhanced focus for the play within a divided space whether it is rectangular or triangular.  Is that the result of each space being enclosed by walls of cardboard, thus keeping out distractions?

The biggest difference in play, though, does not seem to come from the shape of the spaces. Rather, it comes from one feature particular to the Triangle Divider.  In dividing up the table into triangular spaces, a kind of reservoir, or totally enclosed space, is created.  You can see it in the square space labeled 4 in the picture below.

That square is accessed through spaces 2, 3, 5 and 6.  In all practicality, it is a common space. Children can pour the pellets into the space or scoop the pellets out of the space, but because it is enclosed on four sides, children cannot occupy it like they can the triangular spaces.

So how does that change the play?  It changes the play by creating more physical challenges. That is not so true for pouring into the reservoir, but it is true for scooping out of the reservoir.  I ended up with a lot of pictures of arms reaching through the windows to get at the pellets.  

You can see that it is a physical challenge by this boy's body position.   He has to bend down; reach through the hole; look through the hole to gauge his operation; and keep his balance by holding the divider with his left hand.  

In the picture above, the children have already spent a fair amount of time filling the reservoir. When the reservoir is low, this whole operation becomes that much more challenging.

Oh my, that is a good stretch.

There is an additional physical challenged fostered by the feature.  A child does not necessary have to go through one of the holes to get at the pellets.

As you can see, this child goes over the top.  That is possible for two reasons: 1) the apparatus is made from two-ply cardboard which is more rigid and 2) the triangular configuration makes the structure stronger.  Whether you think that this child's attempts to reach the pellets is good or not, he would have never had the chance for this physical challenge without this reservoir feature.

There is one more difference of note in the children's play between the two types of dividers.  With the original Cubicle Divider, there is more cross-barrier social interaction.  There is much more peeking through the windows and openings to see who is on the other side; there are more attempts to engage the other with games like peek-a-boo.

There is definitely social interaction with the Triangle Divider, too, but it seems to be different.  It tends to be more utilitarian in nature.  For instance, a group of children will enthusiastically fill the reservoir in a joint effort.

Why is there so little social interaction between the cardboard walls in the Triangle Divider?  Is the space too cramped to foster a boisterous game of peek-a-boo?  Does the greater number of windows and openings in the cardboard walls of the Cubicle Divider give license for children to engage each other more through the holes?  I do not know, but it is clear that the configurations promote some operations that are similar for each and some other operations that are unique to each.  Are the possibilities limitless?  Probably not, but the children in their interactions with the spaces will test the boundaries---or in this case, the cardboard walls---and create a multitude of responses that give multiple meaning to the spaces.  Wait, are we talking spatial literacy here?

NEW TYPE OF BOX DIVIDER

A little over a year ago, I wrote a post on Cardboard Dividers.  This apparatus is basically sheets of cardboard spliced together to partition the sand table.

In the version pictured above, the sand table is partitioned into six areas.  Note that there are openings in the cardboard partitions.  Those are there to foster transporting through barriers and to offer unique opportunities for intriguing social interaction.

This past summer, I was in the UK and the Netherlands for a total of 13 talks and workshops.  In one of  the workshops in the south of England, in Bournemouth, one of the participants came up with a new version of the Cardboard Divider apparatus.

This participant took four sheets of cardboard of roughly equal measurements.  She first spliced two together to make an X.  She did the same with the other two sheets and then taped the two X's together.  The result was an apparatus that was unique and creative and worth replicating.

When I say it is worth replicating, I mean I made a note by the picture that I wanted to replicate it in my sand table.  Before I show you the resulting apparatus, I would really like to take you through the process I used to build this new type of Cardboard Divider.  WARNING: We are about to enter the world of mathematics.

The first thing I needed to do was to measure the dimensions of my table.  My table is 46" long and 21.5" wide.  I drew a diagram with the dimensions of the table.  Next, I added the X's in the table.  I saw that when I did that I had the lengths for two sides of a triangle.  All I had to do was figure out the length of the third side of the triangle so I would know the length of each sheet of cardboard I would need.

The side I needed to know is in red.  It is the longest side and is called the hypotenuse.  This looked a lot like a high school geometry problem.  I searched using the phrase: "finding the third side of a triangle." Google promptly provided the Pythagorean Theorem.  You can see the theorem in the notes above.  The "c" in the equation is the hypotenuse.  The squaring and adding of numbers was easy, but I could not remember how to find the square root.  When I Googled that, the first suggestion was to use the calculator on a smart phone.  I laughed.  The second suggestion was to estimate.  And that is what I did.  The answer I ended up with was 31.5"  You can see from the notes that it is not exact, but it looked so close I was pretty sure it would work. And besides, cardboard can be bent or modified easily; it is very forgiving.

I now knew I needed four sheets of cardboard that were 31.5" long.   The height was not critical, but I did want them to be at least 24" so they would rise above the table at least 15." (My table is 9" deep.) It just so happened my neighbor bought some big posters and was willing to share his boxes with me.

I cut out the sheets to size and then cut slits in the middle of each.  Each slit was cut halfway up the sheet.

When I got to school, I spliced the sheets together to come up with two X's.  Before doing much taping, I had to see if they really fit.  To my great delight, they did.

You should have felt like there was a lot of math in this post.  It should not have felt like high school geometry, though, because this was a real life problem.  Though the children were not part of the building, they are still part of the math.  How often do you think children get to work in triangular spaces?

I do not know who the early years practitioner was at Tops Nursery in Bournemouth, but if you are reading this blog, I would like to thank you for the inspiration.

I am so glad inspiration is a two-way street with some worthwhile twists and turns---and even some nice angles.

CHANNEL BOARD WITH A FUNHOUSE MIRROR

Last week's post was about a Channel Board, which is an incline installation that is divided into three channels with each channel having its own surface.  When water is poured down the channels, the children see how water flows over the different surfaces.

For this week's apparatus, I repurposed the Channel Board.  I removed the rubber mat from one of the channels, but left the DRICORE squares in the other.  The Channel Board then became the base for a wavy mirror that I had made for the classroom over 25 years ago.  The result was a Channel Board with a Funhouse Mirror.

Here is the frame for the funhouse mirror.  The frame is 12" wide and 32" long.  There are cross braces to give the frame stability and strength. The braces are flush with the top of the frame to also give the mirror more strength and stability

I painted the frame red with a high gloss paint.  I then attached the frame to the Channel Board by screwing the cross pieces into the boards that form the inside channels.  When the frame was attached, I screwed the mirror onto the frame.  The mirror is a plastic mirror sheet no thicker than tagboard that is duct taped to 1/4" flexible plastic piece.  The tagboard-thin mirror sheet does not have enough body strength to be used by itself, thus the plastic backing.

The side panels were added last.  They are made from the same black plastic as the base of the Channel Board.  The sharp corners were easily rounded using a utility knife.  The seams for the panels were caulked with bathroom caulk.

This is still a Channel Board because there are channels for the water to flow down.  And the channels still have different surfaces.  Now, however, the channels have added dimensional components.  The channels can now be categorized as above, on the side, below and through. That makes pouring and catching the water more intriguing.

One of the most captivating features of this apparatus is how the reflected images change when water is poured over the funhouse mirror surface.  Watch the reaction of the child who is looking at herself in the mirror as other children pour water.

Funhouse image through the water from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Because the video is taken from a different angle than her perspective, I am not sure what she sees.  She is clearly happy and fascinated.  Part of the fascination has to come from the changing image as the rate of water flow slows and her image becomes more clear.  And part of it has to come from seeing her image through the rippling water.

I do not have a good understanding of the physics part of what she is experiencing.  I have a better understanding of some other operations that emerged from children exploring this apparatus.  One of those operations was simply rubbing the smooth, wet surface of the mirror with hands.  Watch. 

Rubbing the smooth surface of the wet funhouse mirror from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

This is a true sensory experience.  Children gather so much information about the world through their hands.  In fact, when something is attractive to a child, he has a hard time keeping his hands off the desired object.  Rubbing the mirror, feeling how smooth it is, and then having the water poured over his hands is the child's way of collecting a little bit of knowledge of the world through his hands.

Though this Channel Board is more elaborate because of the funhouse mirror, some of the simplest operations must not be overlooked.  Below is a video of a child simply catching the water with a pink cup as it flows off the mirror surface.  Pay attention to her reaction at the end.

Catching the water from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Was that a laugh of satisfaction having caught the water in a relatively fast stream of water flowing down the channel?  Or was it simply a laugh of wonderment and joy?

It took me over 25 years to figure out how to incorporate the funhouse mirror into water play at the sensory table.  It was not until I remade a lighter Channel Board that I saw a way to make it part of an apparatus.  In fact, if you were around me as I built this, you might have heard a little chuckle of satisfaction and joy.  Can you tell that the building process is play for me?  I saw a comment not long ago in reference to this blog and the building process.  The person said: build it and it will happen.  I encourage you to play and to build things.  Some joy and laughter may ensue from the children---and maybe even from you.  Again, build it and it will happen.