WHY BUILD?

In the next month, I will be doing two conference presentations.   Because it takes me a long time to finish an original post, I will repost a few posts over the next few weeks that I wrote more than two years ago after another early childhood professional asked me the question: Why do I build?  I revisit them because they will also help me prepare for the second conference, which is a keynote presentation for the 15th Annual Launching into Literacy and Math Conference in Madison, Wisconsin at Madison College(MATC Truax) on February 7th.  This first repost recounts a transformation in my practice all because of a recycled five-gallon bucket.  

Saturday, September 8, 2012

WHY APPARATUS FOR THE SENSORY TABLE?

This past June, another early childhood professional asked me: "Why do you build apparatus for the sensory table?"  Even though I have been doing it for over 23 years, I did not have good answer. I have been thinking a lot about that question ever since.

At this point, my answer harkens back to the second post of this blog from July, 2010.  The post was about the lowly 5-gallon pail that you see below.

A mother, who worked at a fast food restaurant, brought in this dill pickle pail and asked me if I could use it.  Maybe she thought since I had such a small room I could use it for storage. Instead---and because I had no place to store it---I put it near the sand table.  What happened next was transformative for my practice as an early childhood teacher.

You can read the first transformation in the post about the 5-gallon pail referenced above.  The gist of the post is that the children use the pail to transport in a constructive way (Axiom #1 in the right hand column).  As a consequence, my communication with the children becomes much more positive about their operations of transporting the medium out of the sand and water table.  In other words, instead of always saying: "No,! No dumping on the floor", I can now say: "Put it in the bucket."  That positive communication completely changes the tenor of my communication with the children at the table.

Something else happened in relation to the pail that transformed my practice.  I no longer felt like I had to micromanage the children around the table.  Rather, I began to see the children as capable of managing their own actions at the table.  Instead of managing, I was able to observe.  By taking the time to observe, I started to notice how the children were able to manage even more of their own actions.  This whole process is now a virtuous circle that carries the day throughout the classroom.  

That may seem like a lowly bucket, but it started it all.  The bucket afforded a chance for the children to figure out a constructive way to do what they needed to do: transport.  Since then, almost every apparatus incorporates opportunities for children to discover new and constructive ways to transport.  

Though I have not answered the question to my full satisfaction, it will do for now.  And I will keep building.