SENSORY APPARATUS PART IV

I was asked last spring by another early childhood professional why do I build apparatus for the sensory table. That questions was a lot more thought-provoking than I had anticipated.  I have been mulling over my answer here and here and here.  In the first post, I said that early in my career children demonstrated their need to transport any medium out of the sensory table.  I began to build apparatus so children could continue to find ways to constructively transport.  An added benefit was that the children, given the chance to work constructively, demonstrated an ability to regulate their own behavior.  In the second post, I said that children recreated operations such as digging and collecting that harken back to a time when our survival depended on such operations. Those fundamental/primal operations are in our DNA and need to be expressed.  I build apparatus so children can recreate the ancient operations both in old and new ways and even create new variations of those operations.  In the third post, I stated that children create a dialogue with spaces.   It follows that if I can offer the children intriguing spaces by way of building new apparatus, they will create intriguing dialogues with those spaces.

This summer I read---and reread---a monograph entitled: Children's right to play.  It was written by Stuart Lester and Wendy Russell for the Bernard van Leer Foundation in December 2010.  Their starting point is Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child.  In that article, they specifically cite the right of the child to engage in play. For them it is a necessity of life for children.  It is not a vehicle adults use to teach children about the world, nor is it a way to make academics palatable to children.  It is an activity undertaken for its own sake that is wholly owned by the children.

They go so far as to cite research that children need to engage in play for their very survival and well-being.  They say: "Children's play can be seen as a self-protecting process that offers the possibilities to enhance adaptive capabilities and resilience. ... Play acts across several adaptive systems to contribute to health, well-being and resilience.  These include: pleasure and enjoyment; emotion regulation; stress response systems; attachments; and learning and creativity."

At one point in the paper, they reference a comment by Brian Sutton-Smith.  The comment states: "Play prepares you for more play, and more play offers a greater satisfaction in being alive."

Take a look at the following pictures from the sensory table to see if the children exude that "greater satisfaction in being alive."

According to the authors, the role of an adult is to provide for the space and time for children to play---not to direct it or manage it.  Building apparatus for the sensory table is a way to create that space and time in my classroom for the children to play.  Watch the video below.  It is poor in quality, but rich in what it communicates.  What they are doing is not nearly as important as how they are doing it.  

 WHAT ARE THEY DOING? from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Here were seven children ages 2 to 5 creating an activity of their own choosing that has an immediate meaning for them. There are no adults directing or managing this activity; they are simply not around.  The adult role in the activity was to set up the space and time for them to pursue their own exploration or to create their own wholly owned activity.  Notice, even though there are no adults around, they are still working feverishly to complete a task that takes a whole lot of agreement and a whole lot of accommodation and a whole lot of negotiation and a whole lot of cooperation.   In other words, they are playing---which they have a right to do.

(p.s. I am done mulling over the question for the time being and will go back to playing next week. Thank you for your indulgence.)

SENSORY APPARATUS PART III

I was asked last spring by another early childhood professional why do I build apparatus for the sensory table.  That question was a lot more thought provoking than I had anticipated.  I have been mulling over the answer here and here.  In the the first post, I said that early in my career children demonstrated their need to transport any medium out of the sensory table.  I began to build apparatus so children could continue to find ways to constructively transport.  An added benefit was that the children, given the chance to work constructively, demonstrated an ability to regulate their own behavior.  In the second post, I said that children created and recreated operations such as digging and collecting that harken back to a time when our survival depended on such operations. Those fundamental/primal operations are in our DNA and need to be expressed.

This summer, I started to participate in a book study through the  Reggio-Inspired Network of Minnesota.  The book study used the Reggio publication entitled: dialogues with places.  The book examines how the children use all their senses and their whole bodies to investigate space and reflects on how children subsequently make meaning of a place through those investigations. Because their investigations were always new and fresh, it was not unusual for them to pick up on features such as holes in the ceiling or cracks in the floor that adults simply ignore. For the children, though, those were important features to animate.  Those were important features that were "invitations" for the children to enter into a dialogue with the place and to ultimately create meaning.

For me, the sensory table is such a place.  It is a place in which children enter into a dialogue with the apparatus.  It is a place in which children find those "cracks" and "holes" for which they create meaning.  It is a place in which they use all their senses and their whole body to investigate.

They investigate spaces with their eyes.

  

 With their hands

With their arms

Even if the child cannot see the space to be explored

And even through barriers

They investigate spaces with their heads

With their heads and torsos

With their whole body by climbing on

Or into

Or even lying next to

And they will always find the space that an adult would never notice

In the Reggio book, places have "form, energy, and rhythm."  At the sensory table, each apparatus has the same.  The form, energy, and rhythm that emerge will look different as each child---alone and with others---creates a dialogue with the apparatus.  That is exciting and creates multiple opportunities to make meaning out of space. Since children are master explorers, there is no end to the process.  So I continue to build apparatus for the children to investigate and make meaning out of new and intriguing spaces.

APPARATUS FOR THE SENSORY TABLES PART II

Last week I started to answer the following question another early childhood professional posed to me:  Why do I build apparatus for the sand and water table?  I gave two reasons in that post.  One was, when a bucket was serendipitously placed next to the table, children demonstrated their need to transport and to do it constructively by appropriating the bucket for their own purposes. The second reason was, by appropriating the bucket for their own purposes, they demonstrated their ability to manage their own behavior with minimal guidance or participation on my part.

The picture below illustrates both points well.  First, the children are transporting the water into the bucket.  Second, they are filling the bucket as full as they can and still being careful not to spill.

  Flood or no flood?

Those are important reasons why I build.  Another important reason surfaced from reflections on a book I read this summer: a child's work; the IMPORTANCE of FANTASY PLAY by Vivian Gussin Paley.   In the book, Paley talks about fantasy play as the children's agenda that spontaneously emerges between all the teacher-planned activities and projects.  Her first teacher told the undergraduates that children in the nursery school where they were observing were the only age group that was constantly busy making their own work assignments.  Because Paley provides the time and space and respect for children's fantasy play, she sees the children creating and recreating dramatic themes that span human history and that are reflected in the great works of literature and drama.  She says: "Words, words, words, where do they all come from?  It sounds like the poetry of a child's soul, nothing less, but the children are imagining vivid drama that must be acted out." (p. 32)

After reading the book, I began to construct a parallel between fantasy play and sand and water play. All the operations the children recreate in and around the sensory table span human history. I have often wondered why children dig, pour, fill, and transport as soon as they see the sand or water. Maybe the children are recreating those operations from a time when they were important to our very survival.    Not only are they recreating those primary operations, but they are using contemporary implements to create new and novel operations.  Those elemental operations must come out.  (Additionally, those operations around the sensory table often lead to a good deal of fantasy play, especially with the older children.)

Below is just a sampling of those operations.  Some operations involve just the hands and arms, and others use various implements.  Some are straight forward and simple, and some are more complex.

After reading Paley's book, I now see that I build apparatus at the sensory table to create time and space and respect for those fundamental operations that must come out.

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 about that question a lot ever since.

My answer at this point harkens back to the second post in 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 next to the 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 operations of transporting around 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 communication around the table.

Something else happened in relation to the pail that transformed my practice.  I no longer felt like I had to manage the children around the table.  Rather, I began to see the children as capable of managing their own actions in the environment.  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 wonderful, 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.

BIG BOX ON TOP - A HOST OF OPERATIONS

Last week's post introduced the apparatus Big Box on Top.  

In that post, I noted that the space inside the box was so inviting that children actually crawled into the box and sat in the table.

I kept this apparatus up for a second week with one modification: I added a cardboard tube that transversed the box horizontally.

The reason I added the horizontal tube was to prevent children from climbing into the box and into the table.  Did it work?

Are you kidding me?  How many tubes will it take to stop them from crawling in?  I really do not have a problem with the children crawling in.  Still, I wanted to see if I could stop them from climbing into the box.  As you see, my experiment did not work.  Silly me!

Putting aside the crawling in and out, the apparatus spawned a multitude of operations as the children played and explored the apparatus.  One of the simplest operations---it is actually a set of operations---is to fill a container and then pour it down the tube.  Watch how that works with these two-year-olds.

If you take the time to analyze the video, this simple operation turns out to be quite complex. These two are filling their measuring cups with other containers before emptying their cups down the tube.  That in itself is not so simple.  Each child has a different container to fill his cup and each container has a different shape and size which makes each act of filling the cup a little different.  And why do they have to fill their cup with another container in the first place?  Why don't they just scoop corn out of the table with their cups?  As far as pouring, did you notice the amount of effort it took for them to stretch to be able to pour the corn down the highest tube.  We have not even begun to mention things like eye-to-hand coordination, muscle control, language, etc.

Pouring corn down the tube becomes a social operation when someone is on the other end. Watch.

These three boys have coordinated their play.  They are connected by the tube and they each have a role to play.  You can have the pouring and the catching as separate activities, but the boy in orange gives us a clue that it is social by checking the tube to see if the flow of corn is being obstructed by his friend on the other end.  If the video were longer, you would see clearly just how social.

Sometimes that social play involves a fair amount of negotiation, coordination, and give-and-take. You can see that in the pictures below.

The boy in the box is pouring corn through the tube to the boy with the pan outside the box.  The boy in the box is actually watching the boy catch the corn in his pan through a hole in the box. (On this day, a tube was dislodged and hole big enough to see through was left in the side of the box.)

There is more negotiation here than meets the eye because before long the roles are reversed.

The boy who was inside is now outside catching the corn while the boy who was outside is now inside pouring the corn.  How did that happen?  Through some serious coordination and give-and-take.

There are so many of these operations that arise from play with this apparatus.  Too many, in fact, to continue documenting in this post.  There is one more, though, that seemed to come out of nowhere. Watch.

The boy in the video seems to be paying a lot of attention to me, almost as if it is a performance. In a way it is, because when I saw what he was doing, I asked him to do it again.  He had no trouble recreating his operation.  But what prompted this child to dump his dustpan backwards?
Some questions arise for which there are no answers.  They are simply fodder for reflecting on the wonderment of children and their operations.

P.S.  School is out for the summer so I will be taking a break from the blog for July and August.  I will use the time to fine-tune a presentation on sensory tables for the annual conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children in Atlanta this November.

As I plan for that presentation, I would like to ask for your help.  Do you have questions about any apparatus or the process of building apparatus that have come up in the course of reading this blog? If you were to go to my presentation on sensory tables, what would you want to see or hear? Also, if you have tried to make an apparatus from the blog, which did you try and how did that work for you?  The best way to learn is to do, but are there some tips that would have helped you in the doing? Also, if you thought you were going to build something you saw in the blog but did not, what gave you pause.

Please feel free to comment on the blog or contact me directly through email: tpbedard@msn.com

Thanks in advance.

BIG BOX ON TOP

Big Box on Top sounds like it could be a Dr. Seuss book.  But no, Big Box on Top is an apparatus for the sensory table.  It is what its name implies: a big box set on top of the sensory table.

I have set up big boxes around the sensory table before.  In each case, though, they have been placed next to the table like this:

I could have created a similar set up, but I started to play with different placements for the box. I chose this time to place the box on top of the table itself.  To make it secure, I cut notches in the box so it would fit over the table.  The box could then be anchored to the table with duct tape.

I then inserted cardboard tubes.  Two tubes completely transverse the box in opposite directions. That allows the children to transport the corn from one side of the box to the other.  Another tube is placed so that corn from outside the box can be poured into the box.  And the fourth tube is placed so corn is transported from inside the box to outside the box.

What did I expect the children to do with an apparatus like this?  I expected them to pour corn into the tubes from the outside.

One of the interesting aspects of this operation is that when the corn is poured down the tube it seems to disappear.  That is unless you actually watch it fall through the tube.

I expected children on the other end to catch the corn either with buckets or their hands.  

The interesting thing about this operation is that the child cannot see when the corn his coming. Because the big box blocks his view of the children pouring, he has to rely on his sense of hearing to know that corn is coming down the tube.

I expected children to work under the "dome" of the box to pour the corn out of a the box---

and since there were cut-outs in the tubes that transverse the box, I expected children to investigate how the corn moves through the tubes in the box.

What I did not expect was that the space would be so inviting that a child would actually crawl into the box itself.  I actually thought the tubes would prevent the children from crawling in.  As it turned out, the tubes were mere obstacles to navigate going in and out of the box.

Once one child crawls in the box, it can pretty much be expected that more children will crawl in the box.  A little crowded you say?  Yes, but what better way to explore the space than with your friends.

Axiom #2 on the right-hand column of this blog states that children with explore all the spaces in an apparatus.  After play with this apparatus, there seems to be a natural extension of that axiom: If the spaces are big enough, they will use their whole body to explore those spaces.  And Axiom #5 states that children are compelled to put things in holes. After play with this apparatus, there seems to be a natural extension of that axiom: If the holes are big enough, they will actually put their bodies in the holes.

My original thought in placing the box on top of the sensory table was to create large spaces that the children would experience "in," "out," and "under" in their play and exploration of the apparatus. Leave it to the children to take those simple concepts to the max.

MOVING CLOTHESLINE

Every year I set up baby washing in my classroom.  Several years ago, I decided to incorporate a clothesline right over the table so the children could also wash and hang clothes.

The original setup is described here.

This year I added a new component to the apparatus.  I added another rope and looped it around two pulleys: a moving clothesline.  (The new rope is pictured in the middle below.)  This year I also added another small table. The moving clothesline traverses both tables so the children can send clothes from one table to the other.

To make the rope a loop, I cut a piece of rope twice as long as the distance between the two poles and duct taped the two ends together.  That way the duct tape would not impede the rope from moving around the pulley; the only time the rope would get stuck is when clothes or a clothespin would hit the pulley.

Watch how it works.

There are at three things to note from the video.  First, as soon as the boy has finished hanging the pants, the pants spring back to the pulley end.  That is because the boy at the blue table---who has taken a keen interest in the moving clothesline---is pulling on the rope so the pants spring back as soon as the boy hanging the pants lets go.  Second, when the boy who hung the pants tries to move the pants, he  pulls the rope the wrong way so the pants do not move.  Almost immediately her realizes the situation and adjusts his actions to send the pants over to the other table.  Third, the girl on the right is a avid observer of the whole operation.  That is important because we often dismiss the role of observers both in terms of support given to those performing any given operation and in terms of the their own learning by active observation.  

One group this year engaged in a entirely new pursuit: they brought the animals over from the block area to join the washing fun and then decided to hang them on the new clothesline.

As you can see, most are just balanced by their ankles on the rope, but one is actually attached with a clothespin.  

The moving clothesline added a new element to washing babies and clothes.  And it never fails, the children take that new element and make it their own and give it their own twist.