Amalgamated big box incline

I have made several big box inclines and I have written about them here, here, and here.  Back in 2009, I made an amalgamated big box incline.  I took two large boxes and combined them to make one big box incline apparatus.

One box was an empty electric piano box and the other had held a computer desk.  They were both the same length, but different heights and different widths.

I cut a hole between the two so there would be a window of sorts connecting the two boxes.  This also allowed me to tape the boxes together on the inside which made the connection between the two boxes stronger.

The apparatus was set on an incline using an upside down planter tray the spanned the width of the table and was taped to the lip of the table.  To give the apparatus stability, I taped the box to the tray and to the lip of the table.  When the children poured fuel pellets down either section of the apparatus, the pellets exited into a tub at the end of the table.

With this apparatus, the children naturally engaged in some common operations at the sensory table such scooping, filling, pouring and spilling.  Some operations, however were contingent on the the provisions for play and what the children made of those provisions.

For this apparatus, the children were able to choose a variety of scoops, pails and other containers.  In addition, though, I set out a container of small plastic cars and trucks.  My thinking was that they would roll the cars and trucks down the incline in each section of the apparatus.

Indeed, the children used the cars and trucks for launching them down the incline.  However, depending on the child, that launching took on a very different vitality.  Below are three examples.

In the first video, the child used the high, narrow section of the apparatus to send his cars down the incline.  As he watched his first car speed down the incline, he set up a second car at the top.  He held it there for just a second and then started counting: "One, two, three---go."  On "go," he sent the car racing down the incline.


Big box incline: car play 1 from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

The adults who were watching all this transpire, gave him a big wahoo.  His reaction was one of proud embarrassment. 

In the second video, the child used the incline on top of the piano box.  She first slid her two little trucks halfway up the incline.  At this point, the two cars were situated sideways on the incline.  She took her hands off the two trucks and they started to slide sideways down the top of the box.  The two trucks dropped off and down into the tub next to the table to her great amusement.


Big box incline: car play 2 from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

In the third video, another child also used the incline on the top of the piano box.  However, for this child, the incline offered an opportunity to engage in a sophisticated experiment on trajectory in which he actually changed variables on three different trials.   To begin with, he figured out that when he launched a truck down the incline it overshot the tub at the end of the table.  With that knowledge, he found a red crate and placed it next to the far edge of the tub.   When he tried to get it in the red crate, the truck hit the far edge of the crate and sailed out onto the floor.  On his second try, he put the truck in the back of a small dump truck.  When he let go of combined trucks, they both landed in the target.  He quickly repeated the experiment, this time with a little green car.  Like the first time, the car overshot the crate.


Big box incline: car play 3 from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Operating with the cars and trucks on different sections of the apparatus, the children created their own play possibilities.  The first episode with the child rolling his car down the incline of the narrow computer desk box, I might have expected.  However, the child's counting and emotional reaction to the episode was not something I would have predicted.   The children totally originated their play experience in the second and third episodes. 

In each episode, there was something about the existence that day of an intersection between the structure(apparatus), the provisions(cars and trucks) and the children that actualized these play possibilities.  What that something was, I do not know. (I wish I did.)  What I know is that on any given day, there would have been a myriad of other play possibilities that could have been realized with the same apparatus, with the same provisions and with the same children.  

Maybe that something has to do with young children's innately rich imagination and creativity. 

Big incline box: inhabiting the space

In 2011 I wrote a post on big box inclines.  I revisited that post recently with an eye on how the children inhabited the space created by the apparatus.  The apparatus is pictured below.  I took a long, narrow box and set it on an incline.  I cut multiple holes in the box: one on the top end, one on top, and two on each side of the box.  The corn poured into any of the holes in the box exited through a slit on the bottom.

To set the box on an incline, I taped a planter tray across the width of the table.  I taped the red crate to the planter tray and the box to the crate.  To make sure it was stable, I taped the box just behind the slit to the lip of the table (see picture above).

One of the ways the children inhabited this space was to make full use of the apparatus itself.  In the clip below, an adult held a white pot to catch the corn the children sent down the big box incline through the various holes.  The children used different holes and used different containers to pour the corn into the box.  Once the adult had filled his white pot, he moved to the top of the box incline to slowly pour the corn down the box through the top hole.  This in turn caught the attention of one of the children who stopped scooping corn to watch the corn drop out of the end of the box into the tub next to the sensory table.


I'm full from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

The children were certainly into filling their containers and pouring the corn down the box.  Was it simply to fill the adult's container?  Was it because of the sound the corn made traveling down through the box?  Was it a combination of the two?  Why did the steady flow of corn down the box capture the one child's attention essentially stopping him from pouring so he could observe the flow of corn?

Another way the children inhabited the space was to explore the spaces created by the apparatus.  On the left, the child used the end of the table not covered by the apparatus for her operation.   On the right, the child explored the space underneath the apparatus.



The tub next to the sensory table was also a space that was integral to apparatus because it was the catchment for all the corn exiting the box.  As one child inhabited this space, he found a small hole in the handle of the tub.  That became a salient feature for the child as he forced kernels of corn through the small hole.

Besides the sensory table with the big box incline setup, there was also an auxiliary space, a table that was a place for the extra containers.  In the video below, one child has taken over that space for his operations.  He has arranged all the containers he wants to fill on that table.  He methodically began to fill each container with corn from the sensory table.



The multiplicity of ways the children inhabited the space was incredible.  Does that multiplicity nurture different internal modes of representation that are foundational for children's thinking and creativity?

What are we going to do today?

I am a grandfather.  Over a span of 38 years in early childhood education, I worked with thousands of children of various backgrounds and abilities.   During that time, I came to know and expect that every child was different.  In addition, each child had something new to teach me.  As it turns out, the same holds true for my grandchildren.  Each is different and each has something to teach me individually and collectively.  One salient tangent of that learning has to do with how adults interact with my grandchildren and, by extension, how adults interact with all children.  What I have learned is that adults---for the most part---are always telling children what to do, how to do it and when to do it.  And if they are not telling them directly, they employ all forms of manipulation to get the children to do what the adult wants.  "If you want a treat,  you will have to..."

What happens if we do not feel like we always have to tell a child what to do?  Let me tell you a little story about just such a case with my grandson.  My grandson was three when the following happened.  I went over to his house to watch him for the day because his mother had to work and there was no daycare that day.  I thought we might go to the zoo or a park.  When I arrived at the house, my grandson was just in a t-shirt and nothing else.  His mother had to leave so we said goodbye.  The time was 9:00 AM

I asked my grandson: "What do you want to do today?"  I suggested the zoo or a playground thinking he would likely choose one or the other.  Once he had made a choice, then we could get on with the business of dressing up and going out.   He did not bite on one of my choices.  Instead, he took a balloon from a fabric tunnel that was on the couch.  He proceeded to bounce it in the air.  At this point, I decided that instead of trying to get him dressed and out the door, I would just watch to see what he was going to do.

After bouncing the balloon in the air, he climbed onto a chair and jumped and rolled onto the floor.  He repeated the climb, jump and roll routine, but this time he also kicked the balloon.  Then he stopped briefly and just lay on the floor.  He got up and repeated the climb, jump and roll routine.  This time he stood up and kicked the balloon in the air.  He took another balloon from the tunnel and tried to keep the two balloons in the air at the same time.

At this point, he put a mesh laundry basket over his head.  He then put the basket on the floor and crawled in.

Once in the basket, he rolled around the floor.  He got up and out of the basket only to crawl back in and roll around some more on the rug.   He repeated his actions four times.

On the fifth iteration of putting the mesh basket over his head and laying on the floor, he was content to just lay in the basket on the floor.  As it happened, his left hand was outside the basket.  He spent a minute or two examining his hand through the mesh.

At 9:16, he climbed out of the basket and onto the couch.  There was a little Fischer-Price house on the couch and he started to play with that quietly.  He played with that house quietly for the next 15 minutes.

At 9:32, he looked up at me.  Without skipping a beat, he asked me: "What are we going to do today?" I was literally dumbstruck, but I took that as my cue that he was ready to dress up and be on our way.

I do not remember where we went or what we did that day.  I do remember that by giving my grandson some time and agency around our morning schedule, I did not need to cajole or coerce him into dressing up so we could get out the door.   In fact, if I had resorted to cajoling and coercion, the whole process of dressing and getting out the door would have taken just as long.  The difference, and it was a huge difference, was how we both felt about getting dressed and out the door that morning. 

Dryer vent hoses embedded in a box

I dove back into my archives of pictures I took before I started using a digital camera.  I found a couple of pictures of an apparatus I built using venting hoses for dryers.  The venting hoses were made of aluminum and very flexible.  I bought them at the hardware store.  Below is a picture of one.

I embedded the venting hoses into a box that I set up vertically in the sand table.  This is a view from one side of the apparatus.

 Here is the view from the other side of the apparatus.

I embedded four different hoses in the box.  Because the aluminum tubing was flexible, I was able to weave the tubes through the box so the children had to figure out where the sand exited when they poured it into one of the tubes.

On one side, A, B and C are the holes the children poured the sand into and E and H was where the sand exited.  In the picture below A and E were connected so when a child poured sand in A the sand exited from E.

As seen from the other side, A and B were the same.  D was the fourth hole into which the children poured the sand.  B and F were connected so when a child poured sand in B it exited from F.  C from the other side was connected to G on this side.  And D from this side was connected to H on the other side.

If you understood that explanation of how the four tubes are woven inside the box, your spatial acuity is off the charts.  If you were to imagine looking through the bottom of the box, you would see a tangle of hoses filling the inside of the box.

The children, of course, had other ways to figure out the apparatus as they creatively problem solved in their own quest for spatial literacy.

P. S.  If you are attending the NAEYC annual conference and would like to join a discussion about the need for children to move to learn in the classroom and outdoors, three of my colleagues and I will be holding a three-hour session on Wednesday morning at the conference.  It is entitled Teaching with the Body in Mind.  If you come, please come up and introduce yourself. 

And that same weekend, November 17th, I will be talking about children's play at sand and water tables at the Play squared conference in southwest UK in the county of Devon.  Since I cannot be in two places at once, the play conference presentation is a recorded talk.  Check out the program to see the other conference offerings and join us if you can.