Boxes in boxes first edition

While I was looking over pictures I took when I first started building things for the sensory table, I found some that depict the first edition of boxes in boxes.  The pictures are over 25 years old.  I remember making this apparatus because my first yellow sand table was so small.  It measured all of 2' x 2' and stood only a few inches off the ground.   I really wanted to expand the table to increase its capacity.  To that end, I taped a box to the side of the yellow table.  This box was almost as big as the table so I was able to practically double the size of the sand table.  In addition, I set up another box so it rested on the lip of the yellow table on two sides.  On one side, it simply hung over the table.  On the other side, it was embedded in the box taped to the side of the table.  

In essence, I created an apparatus that more than doubled the working space for children at the sand table.  Not only that, I also increased the number of levels they could work on.  See #2 under Elements and Orientations and #3 under Axioms on the right hand column of this blog. 

With this construction, I also created some unique spaces in which the children could operate.  There was the space underneath the horizontal box over the yellow table.  There was the space inside the horizontal box.

There was also the space inside the box next to the table.  That space was different because it was surrounded by high cardboard walls and accessed through deep openings cut in the sides of the box.  That space was also intriguing because the horizontal box encroached into the volume of that box and the encroachment created new spaces underneath and on both sides.

This was an open design in which the children could access the spaces in multiple ways.  They could go over the top or work though the holes cut in the side and on the end.

In the picture above, a child even used the corner of the horizontal box to support his container as he worked with the sand.

I have begun to wonder if the apparatus I built for the sensory table---even from the beginning---can be considered a loose part and be informed by Simon Nicholson Theory of Loose Parts.   His theory states: 

          "In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the

            possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of

            variables in it."

Can the spaces, levels and holes I created when I built the apparatus be considered variables for the purposes of his theory?  

I come about this question from a couple of different angles.  The first is in relation to what I usually see as examples of indoor loose part constructions on the internet.   Much of what I see has a definite artsy quality to it.  I am thinking of pictures I have seen of jewels, sticks, rocks, scarves, mirrors, etc. that are usually arranged symmetrically with an eye for aesthetics.    Not only are these beautiful constructions, they also fulfill another important part of Nicholson's theory, namely, that is important for children to construct the environment so it becomes more meaningful to them.

The second angle follows from the first and it always comes up when I do workshops.  People ask me if I include the children in the building process.  I have never had a good answer for that question other than to say: "No.  That is my creative outlet.  And doesn't everyone need a creative outlet?"  

So not only are my cardboard and duct tape constructions not beautiful, children are not part of the building process.  Have I just answered my own question?   On the other hand, even though the children do not do the actual building, they do make the apparatus their own through their play and exploration.   Is there a place in the theory of loose parts for a static object such as a boxes in boxes apparatus with its affordances as the variables that are only realized through the children's explorations of those affordances?  

 

Tube through wardrobe box on an incline

In the spring of 2013, I wrote a piece about an apparatus made from a wardrobe box.  Moving companies have them for boxing up closets without having to take the clothes off hangers.  I set the box on an incline and cut a big hole on the high end of the box and big holes on both sides of the box.  I cut a slit at the bottom of the box so the corn the children poured into the box would drop out into the blue bin next to the table.

I propped the box on an incline using a planter tray in a wooden tray that spanned the width of the table.  I taped the box down at the points where the box made contact with the trays and the lip of the table.  In the picture, it might look like the child leaning into the box at the top just might bring the whole thing down, but it was taped down well enough to pass the child-pulling-down-on-it test.  You can find the original post here.

Throughout my career, I changed the apparatus in the sensory table religiously every week.  Sometimes that meant I modified an existing apparatus.  The wardrobe box on an incline was such a case.  I simply added a clear plastic tube that ran the length of the box on the bottom.

What I expected children to do was to pour the corn down the clear plastic tube.  As predicted, they did and as they did, they closely watched how the corn slid down the tube.

If someone was pouring up top, then another child at the bottom would catch the corn coming out of the tube.  Again, as predicted, a child would inevitably catch the corn coming out of the bottom of the tube.  However, since the children could not see each other, there were challenges in synchronizing the pouring and catching of the corn.  


Catching the corn from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

This  was actually a nice bit of cooperation, communication and persistence.  The child at the bottom wanted to fill his cup completely.  He only caught a few kernels from the first corn that was dropped down the tube.  The second time, the child up top poured more corn down the tube, but the child on the bottom was out of position to catch all the corn he wanted.  The child on the bottom asked the child on top for a big scoop.  When the child up top poured this time, the child at the bottom was ready.  To his delight, he was able to fill his cup.

The children quickly figured out that the metal cup fit nicely over the clear plastic tube which allowed them to plug it.  See the corollary to Axiom #6 on the right hand column of this blog:  whenever possible, the children will completely block the flow of a medium.

Once they figured out that they could block the tube, a whole new set of operations emerged.  One of them was to fill the tube with the corn and whatever else would fit down the tube.   Early in the week, someone forced something into the tube that eventually got stuck in the tube.  I found a couple of sticks and offered them to the children so they could push the the object out the bottom of the tube.  I decided to leave the sticks in the area for further play.   As the children filled the tube, they started to use the sticks to jam the corn in the tube.

Jamming corn in the tube from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Why did the children decide to try to push the corn further down the tube?  How did the children know they could use the sticks to that end?   They seemed to have had a plan and were already accomplished "jammers."  Did you see how close the boy's stick came to the girl's head when he was jamming?  Was the productive use of the sticks worth the risk?  What do you think?

When the plug was pulled and the corn emptied out of the tube, one of the children put a stick down the tube.  That created a problem: how to get the stick out.  The child tried to pull it out at the bottom but it kept hitting the bin so he could not get it out.

Since he could not get it out through the bottom, he started pushing it back up the tube.  When he did that, he asked the girl if she could reach it.  The first time he asked, he did not get a response.  He re-positioned his body in an attempt to talk around the box instead of through it.  The second time he asked, she heard and took a look down the tube to see what he wanted her to reach.


I want you to reach it from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

The girl could not reach it, so the boy found a long-handled paint brush to push the stick further up the tube.  What a nice bit of tool making to extend his reach!  When he did that, the stick actually touched the girl's fingers.  She still insisted that she could not quite reach it. 


I can't quite reach it from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Eventually, she grabbed it and pulled it out of the tube.  After looking at the video, I think she could have reached the stick sooner, but she was teasing her companion just a little bit.  Just look at her smile at the end of the video. 

I can't even begin to deconstruct the images in this post because the play and exploration is so complex.  The images are snapshots in time; I can see what is happening in those images, but my understanding of what children are thinking is only partial.  I essentially miss all that happens before and after and in between the captured images, which undoubtedly is important to understanding the action.

I am not saying we should not try to deconstruct the images because how else will we know on some level the children and their thoughts.  However, at some point, I  just want to relish the gestalt of the ebb and flow of the children actions around the box with the tube, the corn and the sticks.  For me, the whole breadth of the action is greater than the sum of its parts.

Trays in a box

I like big boxes and I like trays.  A few years ago, I decided to combine a big box with some trays.  What I got was a crazy looking contraption that fostered a lot of exploration of the spaces that were created by combining the box and the trays in a rather unique way.

I inserted two trays inside the table to form the base of the structure and hold it above the table.  I taped these trays to the table and the box to the these trays.  I embedded one tray completely through the middle of the box.  On another level. I partially embedded two trays in the box on each side.  These two trays floating out from each side offered a structure which seemed to have an odd balance.   

Here is a view from the other side.  Note the holes on the top of the apparatus.  I cut those directly above each of the trays.  I also cut holes in the bottom of the box over the support trays so the corn would not collect in the bottom of the box.

In essence, I created an apparatus with lots of intriguing spaces to explore on several levels.   Spaces that were over, under, around and through.  You can read more about how the children explored all those spaces here and here.

Since I have already written about how the children operated in the spaces created by the trays in the boxes, I want to explore how the children used the clear plastic tube that was wedged between two trays and emptied into the big blue bin next to the table.

Specifically, I want to explore the sounds the children created and experienced as they worked with the tube and the corn.   In other words, the aural nature of their experience.  In the first example, four children created a virtual cacophony.   Listen to hear how many different sounds the children produced while using the corn and the tube for their operations.


Filling the tube from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

In 15 seconds, there was the sound of the child scooping corn in his measuring cup and pouring down the tube.  There was the sound of the corn rushing out of the tube when the child unplugged the full tube.  There was the sound of the corn piling into the yellow pail as one of the children caught the corn exiting the tube.  And finally, there was the sound of the child drumming on the tube with his plastic spoon.  There was some verbal communication, but I was struck by how much of the sound and communication was nonverbal.

I want to contrast that cacophony with the sound of a child dropping individual pieces of corn down the tube so they hit a pie tin propped up in the bin at the bottom of the tube.


Pie tin from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

This child was pleased with his discovery of how the individual kernels of corn hit the pie tin and made a unique sound.  He did ask me if I was ready because he wanted to share his discovery with me.  But again, his operation and communication were essentially nonverbal. 

Sound also played a really important part in this last clip.  A child had been catching corn from the tube with his little metal pot.  The piling of the corn into his pot had a distinctive sound.  All of a sudden, he heard a solid clink in his pot when I dropped a wooden ring down the tube.  Watch his surprise and delight.


A little joke from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

I could have told him that I was going to drop the ring down the tube and to listen to the difference.  But no, for me it was kind of a joke.  You can tell by his laugh that he understood it completely.   Now even the joke was nonverbal.

There is an aural component to every apparatus and every medium.  By stepping back and listening, I get a better understanding of how children can learn to discriminate sounds.  Words are important but so are sounds without words.

Flex tube in a bucket

Here is an oldie but goodie.  I built the flex tube in a bucket over 20 years ago by taping an aluminum tube into a five-gallon bucket.

 
The aluminum tube was left over from the tubing I used to vent a new water heater I installed back then.  I originally thought I would incorporate it in a box structure but I eyed the bucket first and viola!  I propped the tube in the bucket by wedging it between the handle and the bucket.  Then I taped the whole thing together with lots of duct tape.

To make it more inviting to pour into, I added a funnel at the top.  Also, by taping the funnel to the top, I was able to cover any sharp edges at the top of the aluminum tube.

In one way, it worked just as planned: the children could pour the sand in the funnel and they could manipulate the tube by bending it.  However, before too long I realized the design flaw: when the tube was bent , the sand would get stuck in the bend which made the apparatus unstable.  Subsequently, I taped a stick to the aluminum tube to restrict how much the children could bend the tube.

If you look closely, you can see how I did the taping for this project.   I first taped the tube with horizontal strips that held it to the side of the bucket.  I tucked the horizontal strips of tape slightly behind the tube to hold the tube snug against the bucket.  Next, I used vertical strips secured over the lip of the bucket to reinforce the horizontal strips.  I taped the tube so it was six inches from the bottom of the pail otherwise sand would build up in the tube.  I taped the stick at the bottom and the top to the bucket and then wound tape around the tube and the stick to make the tube more rigid.

I never used this as a stand-alone piece.  Instead, I used it as an additional bucket into which the children could transport.  To understand why transporting is important, see axiom #1 on the right hand column of the blog.  To get even a better understanding of why transporting into pails is important, read my second-ever post from 2010 here.

Since it was a stand-alone piece, I would use in combination with other apparatus.  I could easily set it up with water apparatus either outdoors or indoors.

The flex tube in a bucket worked just as well with sand. 

People have often asked me for ideas for sand and water play without a sand and water table.  This could pass for one of those ideas.  Add a few more buckets or tubs and the children will transport to their hearts content. 

The quality of the pictures was not so good because I had to take digital pictures of prints that are over 20 years old.  The apparatus lasted for at least three years.  However, I never recreated this apparatus after I started taking digital pictures.  Why?  I am not sure because I did use the aluminum tubing again in apparatus when I was taking digital pictures, but never in the same way. 

What that tells me is that I used my documentation early on simply as a means of recording what I built with snippets of children playing at the apparatus.  I did not use the documentation to think about what I built and how children used it.  I am glad the images are still around for me to reflect on now, but some of the riches of how children thought with the apparatus are gone. 

Just an end note:  I will be one of the presenters for the Fairy Dust 2017 Virtual Summer Conference.  The conference begins in a few days on July 10th.  With the virtual conference, you will be able to access the conference any time you want and as many times as you want.  You can check out the lineup and the topics here.

Playing in the rain

We watch our grandchildren a few times each month.  Over the last month, we have watched them twice while it was raining.  The first time it rained, I got out an apparatus called Pipes embedded in planter trays that I have been storing in my garage.  I built the apparatus for school a few years ago.  For the apparatus to work, the children have to fill the trays over the top of the pipes for water to spill into the holes on the top of the pipes.  Once the water spills into the pipes, the water exits the pipes at the end of the table.

For my two granddaughters, I simply propped the apparatus on the summer swimming pool and a couple of storage tubs.  We would take turns filling the trays and catching the water coming out the ends of the pipes.

 

The older of the two granddaughters used a funnel backwards to direct the water from the pipe into the black pail on the ground.  How is that for fashioning her own tool to direct the water where she wants it to go?

 

The younger one ended up at the sand table---a snow saucer containing sand that sat on top of a little lawn table. She kept piling the sand up saying she was making a mountain.  Her sister ended up joining her. 

 

Was my toddler granddaughter using the wet sand to represent the mountains she had just experienced on a family trip to Colorado?   Are you getting the idea that my grandchildren are above average?

Two weeks later, the older granddaughter and my grandson were over and it happened to be raining again.  Instead of bringing out any apparatus, we set up funnels and cups over the sewer grate in the alley behind the house.

 

I wanted to create a little greater flow into the grate so I bought out a snow shovel and started pushing the water to the grate.  Well, shoveling water became a thing.  My two grandchildren went in the garage to get their little "water" shovels. 

I also brought out flexible plastic tubes.  I thought we might be able to direct the water coming down the alley into the grate.  That did not work.  Instead, the children inserted the tubes as far as they could into the grate.  

Once they put the tubes all the way into the grate, they started pulling them out as fast as they could.  Why?  Maybe because pulling the tubes through the grate created a ripping sound or maybe because...?

Playing in the sewer grate from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

I also brought out long PVC pipes.  I dropped them down into the grate to see how far they would go in.  They went halfway in before hitting bottom.  When I pulled them out, the two grandkids worked very hard to reinsert the pipes back into the grate.  Once they had reinserted the pipes in the grate, I decided to slide the flexible tubes over the pipes.   They immediately made up their own game of launching the tubes from the pipes.

Launching the tubes from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Because the pipes were so high, I had to keep replacing the tubes over the pipes.  I did not mind because there were too many good things going on, not the least of which were my grandchildren helping each other out and cheering each other on.

Both days we got soaking wet even though we had on our rain jackets and boots.  We did not care because we were so absorbed in our play.  The play was not built around toys to be bought.  It emerged spontaneously in our interactions with each other and the materials.   I can't forget the part rain played in our play because the rain made our entire world one big water table.

Just a end note:  I will be one of the presenters for the Fairy Dust 2017 Virtual Summer Conference.  The conference begins in a few days on July 10th.  With the virtual conference, you will be able to access the conference any time you want and as many times as you want.  You can check out the lineup and the topics here.

One final end note:  I will be presenting a version of the this presentation at the NAEYC national conference.  I recently learned that my presentation has been chosen as one of the ten featured presentations for the national conference in November.