HORIZONTAL CHANNELS REVISITED

One of my favorite sensory apparatus is the Horizontal Channels.

This apparatus is a large box that is long, flat, and narrow and has one of its large sides cut away. Cardboard dividers are inserted to make channels.  The whole apparatus rests on top of the lid of the sensory table.  This post tells you how it is made.  This post illustrates types of play that occur around this apparatus.  And this post highlights some infectious play that emerged at this particular apparatus over the past couple of years.

There are several reasons why I like this apparatus so much.  The first reason is because of the number of children who can play at this apparatus at any one time.  If you count the number of young children around the table in the video below, you will see ten.  Yes, ten!  Ten two-year-olds around the sensory table is amazing in itself, but watch their calm and focused play.



I am a little embarrassed with the sound on the video.  Did you hear the humming?  That was me. I was enjoying video taping the children so much that I must of lost all self-consciousness. Maybe I thought the play was too quiet so I had to add some background music :-)  In any case, you saw ten totally engaged two-year-olds.  If another child had arrived to play, she would have found room for herself at the table.

The second video is a mixed-age group of three- to five-year-olds.  You will notice right away a difference in tenor.  These children have bigger motions and are louder because they narrate what they are doing.  (You will not hear me humming.)   Watch.



There are only six children in this video, but again, if another child or two---or more---had come to join the play, there would have been room.  There would have been room because the children would have accommodated more players.

That is a nice lead-in to another reason I like this apparatus: when you have many children around the table at the same time, you are creating lots of opportunity for the children to negotiate space. Look at the picture below.  The two children are almost in the same space.  The boy is actually reaching across the girl's body to move his truck.

Because of the parallel channels, this occupying of similar space is possible and inevitable.

Here you see five children in pretty much the same space.

One of the boys is emptying the five gallon pail back into the apparatus.  As he does this, notice how the two girls right next to him have to physically adjust their bodies to accommodate his actions.   Once he is done, they all go right back to their original positions, shoulder-to-shoulder.

That closeness doesn't just happen in the channels.  On the other end of the apparatus---the chute---children negotiate close spaces, too.

The three children on the left side of the picture are so close that as they operate their cars, their bodies keep bumping into each other.  Bumping is too strong of a word, though.  Touching, on the other hand, is too weak of a word.  They are making constant physical contact and constantly making adjustments and accommodations so there is minimal conflict.

This apparatus demonstrates that given the opportunity, children can and will negotiate space with minimal conflict.

Yet another reason I like this apparatus so much is because it is a melding of form and function. The horizontal nature of apparatus plus the addition of the parallel channels elicit lateral and linear motions from the children.  The first video shows a child following the channels with his hand.



The boy is enjoying the texture of the soft, white sand.  As you watch his hand move in the channels, you see the apparatus directs his motions.  In other words, the linear and lateral motions are a function of how the apparatus is configured.

The second video shows a child with a car.  In this video, the sand has been replaced with pellets. Though the operation is louder and more energetic, you will see the same linear and lateral motion created by the structure of the apparatus as in the previous video.



How do children learn about space?  They learn about space with their bodies and moving their bodies through space.  The horizontal structure of this apparatus with its accompanying channels offers a spacial experience that is distinctive.  Put another way, this apparatus fosters a unique form of spacial literacy.

Accommodating multiple children, allowing the opportunity to negotiate space, and promoting a unique kind of spacial literacy: those are three good reasons to like this apparatus.

TABLE COVERING WITH HOLES: USING A NEW MEDIUM

I specifically built the Table Covering with Holes out of wood because I also wanted to use it for water play.  Since I still wanted to connect the two sensory tables fitted with the table top covering, I had to replace the cardboard tubes from the previous post with PVC pipes cut in half.  I set the half-pipes at a slight slant: one slant favored the larger table and the other favored the smaller table.

Besides the medium of water, I also introduced water beads.  (You could find water beads across the blogosphere late last year.)  They are soft, slippery, and translucent.

A word of caution about water beads.  If you read the label it says to keep out of the reach of young children.  It also says things like it will plug up plumbing.  You will have to think what that means for you.  For me it meant knowing the children in my classroom and knowing when to supervise more closely.  The week I had them out, I did not have any children try to put them in their mouths.  I did have to ask them not squish them; that was the great temptation.  Oh, and it also meant I could not pour any down the drain.

I added a new tool with the change of medium.  Two sizes of minnow nets were provided to scoop and collect water beads.

Scooping with the nets is easy.  The children were almost always surprised at how many water beads they could catch with the net.  Emptying the nets is a little trickier.  The normal operation for emptying a net does not work.  A child cannot just tip it to pour the beads out because of the gauzy, limp structure of the net.  When pouring and shaking motions don't work, it is easier just to reach into the net to take the beads out.



After experimenting a bit, some children figure out how to invert the net to empty the beads

So what kind of operations emerge with this new medium?   Watch.



The girl is using the spoon to gather water beads.   Did you notice the quiet focus?  The water is quiet as the spoon moves through it---especially in relation to the pellets in previous posts.  The beads are also quiet and have to be transported carefully so they do not slip off the spoon.  In this clip, the quiet focus to transport the beads looks meditative.

Here is a second operation that uses the half-pipe to transport the beads.



The boy is dropping water beads into the half-pipe. He does it twice, each time watching carefully the motion of the beads rolling and bouncing down the half-pipe and not starting again until he sees where the bead ends up.  The third time he goes to set the bead in the half-pipe, he notices a broken bead in the tube.  This time he does not watch where the bead goes that he places in the half-pipe.  Instead, he tries to help the broken bead down the half-pipe. It doesn't roll.  Why does one bead roll down and the other doesn't?  His actions show how he is trying to figure it out.

This post is third is a series using an apparatus I call Table Covering with Holes.  The previous two posts are this one and this one. Taken together, they demonstrate how an apparatus can be expanded and the medium changed with minimal effort using common materials. The expansion and change in medium, however, expand the possibilities for play and exploration into novel directions.  Some of those new directions are planned, but many emerge from the open-ended nature of the apparatus and the children's ingenious interface with the apparatus and the medium. What a joy to watch that whole process unfold.

COMBINING APPARATUS: TABLE COVERING WITH HOLES AND CARDBOARD TUBES

Combining apparatus creates more complex and intriguing spaces for the children to explore.  One of the reasons it is more complex and intriguing is that you are multiplying the number of dimensions and elements (in the right column of this blog) embodied in the new combination. 


A little over a year ago, I wrote about combining apparatus here.


For the current combination of apparatus, I connected two sensory tables with cardboard tubes. This was an expansion of the TABLE COVERING WITH HOLES.  Instead of one sensory table with the apparatus, I added another smaller table with the same apparatus.

Since the second table is smaller, I did not need the extra support that I needed for the bigger version of this apparatus.  If you look at the post entitled TABLE COVERING WITH HOLES, you will see that the structure needed reinforcement underneath in the form of braces and legs because of the span it traversed from one end of the table to another.  For this smaller table, all that was needed was a piece of 3/8 inch plywood with four holes.  It was cut so it is wedged 2 inches down into the table with a six-inch space created under the apparatus to the bottom of the table.

With the two coverings in place, the two tables were then connected by cardboard tubes.   It is important to note that in terms of dimensions, the tubes are oriented horizontally.  With that orientation, the pellets do not slide down the tube, but must be moved through the tubes by operations the children devise.

There was an original design flaw which you do not see in this picture.  What you see is the correction of that design flaw.  Underneath the cardboard tubes is a box.  That box is there to catch the pellets as they spill out of the tubes; without the box, the pellets spill onto the floor.  The box did not change the fundamental operation of moving the pellets between the tables through the tubes.  In fact, it offered the children another level and surface for play and exploration.

Before looking at how the children move the pellets in the tube, watch the following video to see again how a child uses the holes of the original apparatus.  This two-year-old is scooping pellets with a large measuring cup.  She has to adjust her scooping motions both to reach into a hole and to pull the cup out of the same hole.  Watch how she monitors each time how many pellets she was able to retrieve.  





That's impressive for a two-year-old.  We should all monitor our work so well!


With the tubes, I added a homemade plunger of sorts.  It is a cap from a jar that is attached with a screw onto a dowel. Since caps come in different sizes, it was not hard to find the size that fit nicely into the tubes.

The purpose of the plunger was to provide a tool the children could use to move the pellets through the tubes.  Of course, children will always find their own uses for the tools provided.  It also makes a great masher.

In the picture above, look at all the levels on which you can see pellets?  This is a good illustration of how an apparatus creates multiple levels of play.


Now watch how one child uses the plunger to move the pellets through one of the tubes.  Pay special attention to how many hindrances there are to moving the pellets through the tube and how many different solutions this child comes up with to surmount those hindrances.





This child uses the homemade plunger to push pellets through the tube.  He starts on one end and reaches in with his hand to move the plunger to the first break in the tube.  He grabs the head of the plunger to pull it through far enough so he can grab the handle.  As he pushes the plunger, it won't go through the next hole.  He slides his hand up the handle to push the head with a little more force.  That doesn't work so he pulls the plunger out of the tube and orients the head so it is at an angle before pushing it into the tube.  The repositioning of the head works so he is able to push the plunger into the hole and move the pellets up the tube.  How did he come up with the solution?  He pushes the plunger as far into the tube as he can.  He then tries to grab the head of the plunger again to pull it through far enough to grab the handle.  Notice, that is the same operation he used on the lower end of the tube.  This time is does not work because the head of the plunger fits too tightly inside the tube. He takes his spoon and pushes the plunger handle so it moves out the the tube.  He has just combined tools to complete his operation.


By combining apparatus, you can create new and interesting spaces for children to explore.  In doing so, you will exponentially increase the amount and the variety of play originating from the children.

THANK YOU

Many of the bloggers I follow are posting their top 10.  I am a bit of a rebel, so I naturally resist.  (I have been a man in EC for over 30 years, so there must be something odd about me.)  Instead of a top 10, I would like to send a year-end thank you.

First of all, I would like to thank all who follow me and encourage me with your attention and your comments.  This would be impossible to do in a void.

Second, I would like to thank the bloggers whose mere mention sends scads of people my way.   The list is not complete because I do not really understand how the referring statistics work.  With that said and in no particular order, I would like to thank:

Luisa at:  http://ahortaencantada.blogspot.com/
Maureen at:  http://strongstart.blogspot.com/
Rose at:  http://embracinglife-rose.blogspot.com/
Deborah at:  http://www.teachpreschool.org/
Amy at:   http://www.childcentralstation.com/
Michelle at:  http://kozykidslc.blogspot.com/
Sheryl at:   http://teaching2and3yearolds.blogspot.com/
Jill at:  http://amomwithalessonplan.com/about/
the west coast Teacher Tom at: http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/

That is only 9, so the last thank you is to those who did not fit in the referring statistics of blogspot.  For the most part, I think you know who you are because I follow your blogs and take encouragement and inspiration from you.

Thank you,

Tom

ACTS OF KINDNESS

I work for a public school district in Minnesota.  As part of the district, we are required to pursue some of our staff development in a "professional learning community."  Last year, I worked with four colleagues in a learning community we called: Nurturing Relationships.  Our stated goal was to increase the incidents of sensitive and responsive play between children in the classroom.

If you were to ask any of us if we thought we reached our goal, we would say yes.  But we would also add that we do not know if our efforts to increase sensitive and responsive play were the reason we reached our goal.  Maybe sensitive and responsive play was always there and we just started to pay attention and name it as such.  We did conclude that there was a big shift in our own observations and dialogue; instead of focusing on children's problem behaviors, we focused on the positive interactions between children.  In doing so, we intervened less and began to show a trust in the children to demonstrate their innate competence and kindness.  Because we were looking for those positive interactions, we also began to notice more subtle gestures of sensitive and responsive play that could be easily overlooked.  Since we were a group that consisted of infant/toddler teachers, a preschool teacher, and a parent educator, our observations and documentations applied to infants through adults.

That whole gestalt of looking for the positive has carried over into this school year.  If fact, a day does not go by without pointing out several positive interactions that happened between the children.  Let me share four with you that happened in the last month.  Please note that since this blog emphasizes sensory table play, the examples are from that area of the classroom.  Be assured that these interactions occur in all areas of the room.

In the first interaction, one boy is asking for help to get the centipede out of the swamp.  He asks for help from his friend who is busy doing his own thing in another part of the table..  His friend stops what he is doing to come over to get the centipede out of the swamp for him.  After reaching into the swamp to retrieve the centipede, he says:"here you go."  The helper then immediately returns to what he was doing.   Watch.



Why would another child stop what he is doing to fulfill another child's request for help?  We now see this as the norm rather than the exception in the classroom.

In the second interaction, one boy has been trying to get a black spoon out of the tub.  The older boy next to him says: "I'll help you."  As the older boys pulls out the spoon and hands it to the other child, he says: "Here you go."  The younger boy looks up at him and says: "Thank you." The older boy then says: "You're welcome."  Watch.



The little guy looking up into the older boy's eyes and saying "thank you" is so affable that the older boy mirrors the younger boy's manner in his "your welcome."  This is as real and sincere as it gets between a two-year-old and a three-year-old.

In the third interaction, the children were collecting water beads.  One girl, the girl in pink, found a big yellow water bead and shows it for all to see.  The second girl, the girl in red, asked if she could have it.  The girl in pink did not want to give up her yellow bead.  It was so big and so beautiful.  She did not simply say no to the other's request.  Instead, she said that she would look for another big yellow bead for the girl in red.  She did add, though, that if she could not find another big yellow bead, she would give her the bead.  Shortly, she did happen to find another big yellow bead.  The picture below shows her giving the other girl the second one she just found.

With a request like the one made by the girl in red, I can well imagine someone telling her to find one herself.  Instead, the girl in the pink generously offers to find her a bead, and if she can't, then she can have her original find.  Would she have given up her precious water bead?  Knowing the child and the tone of the exchange, I do believe so.

The fourth interaction comes from last week's post.  In that post, I used a video to highlight a particular operation of a child transfering pellets.  This week I would like to use that same video to point out one of those subtle gestures of kindness and appreciation that are so often overlooked. In the video, the little boy is working on transferring pellets to a container.  A couple of seconds into the video, his sister gives him another bowl.  He immediately switches the target of his actions to the new bowl that his sister has given him.  After getting a few pellets in the bowl, he looks over to his sister and smiles.  Watch and see if you think he is showing his appreciation to his sister for her favor.



From our learning community, we had another conclusion worth mentioning: the acts of kindness and generosity were generative.

Happy New Year,  Tom

TABLE COVERING WITH HOLES

The following apparatus takes advantage of axiom #5 on the right: Children are compelled by nature to put things in holes.  This apparatus is basically a piece of plywood with holes that creates a cover over the sensory table with space underneath.

I took a piece of 3/8 inch plywood and cut it so it would fit two inches deep into the top of the table leaving seven inches of space between the piece of plywood and the bottom of the sensory table. In my sensory table, the sides slant in slightly so the apparatus fits snuggly into the table.  For extra support, I used strips of wood as braces so it would not bow in the middle and added legs for extra stability.

As you can see, ten holes are cut in the plywood.  With holes in the plywood, children have to reach down into the holes to gather the pellets.  The idea is to create a second level of play at the table and to present a spacial challenge for the children and their operations.  Their normal scooping motion doesn't work so well because they have to reach down into the holes to get the pellets and then navigate their way out without spilling.

Another nice feature of this apparatus is that the cover and holes serve an additional function. The cover is also a place on which to set containers so the children can fill them without having to hold them.

And the holes are also places to hold containers.  Some of the pots and pans fit nicely into the holes and others are propped by their handles.

Here is a video of a child using the apparatus.  There are lots of good things happening in the video, but watch near the end how he changes the tempo of his actions so he more carefully pulls the pellets out of the hole so he is able to keep the pellets on his spoon before depositing them in a bowl.

What determines from which hole a child takes pellets or into which hole he pours?  Watch.

Is there a rhyme or reason why a child chooses one hole over another?  This video shows that some of it is trial and error.  The measuring cup did not fit into the smallest hole so the child had to scoop from a hole into which the measuring cup fit.  Other than that, does a child just use the holes that are close?  No, because many times children will stretch across the table to scoop from another hole. 

Even though I ask the question, it is less important to me than observing and recording the myriad of operations the children concoct.  When you watch the next video, see how many different operations you can see from this one child in less than a minute.

He begins by pulling his pot of pellets out of a hole.  He does a swirling motion and watches and listens as the pellets tumble in his pot.  With a little shake and then a bigger shake he empties his pot.  Did you catch his little smile at the end of this first set of operations?  He then reaches in a hole to get pellets with his scoop.  As he does that, the hand with the pot swings in behind him and down for balance.  As he carefully pulls out the pellets, he swings his scooping hand over to the pot hand in a fluid motion and pours the pellets into the pot.  He got them all in the pot and the pot wasn't even over the table in case some missed.  As soon as he completes the transfer of pellets, he immediately empties the pot over the table.  Did you catch his little smile again?  Now he takes his pot and puts it in a hole to collect some pellets with the pot.  As soon as he pulls out the pot, he dumps them right back into the same hole.  He then leans in and gathers pellets with his scoop again.  As he does that, he lays the pot on the cover apparatus and holds his left hand up for balance.  Even his fingers in his left hand seem to be helping him balance.  He very carefully pulls out the pellets making sure not to drop any. He pours them all in the pot.  He grabs the pot by the handle again and uses a back-handed flip motion to empty the pot in the table yet again.  All that in 40 seconds, a very fluid 40 seconds.

One just has to marvel at a child's ability to effortlessly experiment with fine and large motor operations in space and time with any given material and apparatus. 

SWAMP II

Every year I like to set up a "Swamp" in the sensory table.  The swamp from last year is here.  It featured a tray with the leaves, sticks, stones, and water.  This year instead of a tray, I opted to use larger branches and a stump because I wanted natural elements to provide the additional level of play that the tray offered last year.

I also added plenty of bugs, frogs and snakes.

Near the sensory table, I set up two other small tables with items to be used in the swamp.  One table had more bugs, rocks, and sticks for the children to expand and add variety to the swamp. The other table had pots, pans, bowls, spoons, and tongs in case there was an interest in making a swamp brew.

I did keep this apparatus up for two weeks.  For the second week, though, I expanded the swamp to include another small sensory table, a large log that formed a bridge between the two tables, and more, longer sticks.

What do children do when presented with such a set up?  With a little provocation and a little encouragement, one child decided to make a little house for a bug.  He gathered extra sticks to make a roof over a bug and then added wet leaves and grass from the swamp to make a covering for the roof.

Can you see the bug's legs under the covering?

One group decided to collect the bugs in the pail next to the table.  That sounds simple enough, but watch as one of the boys picks up a lady bug with his tongs.



At first he is able to pick it up, but another boy wants to get the lady bug, too, without realizing the first boy has it in his tongs.  The second boy accidentally knocks it off the first boy's tongs.  That does not deter the first boy and he grabs the lady bug again.  At this point the second boy realizes that the first boy has the lady bug, so he defers to him and begins he search anew for another bug.  As the first boy transfers the lady bug, he almost looses it but makes a last second adjustment so he can drop it in the bucket.  The enthusiasm is palpable.  It may as well be boys collecting real bugs in a real swamp.

One of the children decided to make "swamp salad."  Watch as she works with the tongs.



At the beginning of the clip, she dropped the leaves as she was transferring them from the table to the pot.  That does not seem to bother her one bit; it is part of learning how to use tongs.  It is similar to trying to balance the gourds in the pot while trying to make your next move.  In both cases, the learning happens by trial-and-error.    The children take it for granted and do not get upset.  We can learn a lot from watching children play.

Here is a provocation I set up for one of the classes.

Where did this provocation lead?  Take a look.



It led to "building bridges".

Where did the "building bridges" lead?  It led to a falling bug game, a game these two created on their own.  Watch to see how it is played.  (If the video looks a bit staged, I came in when the game was well underway so I asked them to explain it to me.)



When you engage all the senses, creativity flourishes like bugs in a swamp.  Sorry, I could not resist.