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.