DINOSAUR TOWERS-LEDGES

The last two posts were Building a Strong Box Tower and The Box Tower as an Invitation to Play. This past November, I built another box tower and outfitted it with dinosaurs and Jurassic Sand. It was actually two box towers connected by a "bridging box."

Box tower 1 is in the blue table.  It is made of three boxes, one on top of the other.  Building of this tower is the same as that of a previous tower that was built in 2011 called Dinosaur Mountain. The second tower is a tall box embedded in a shorter box much like the Strong Box Tower. The bridging box is a long rectangular box set horizontally and forms a tunnel between the two towers. The bridge has holes on top and on each side.  One end rests on the tower in the blue table; the other end is embedded in tower 2.

Here is a view from the other side of the apparatus.  As you can see, there are plenty of holes on all different levels.

This apparatus is called Dinosaur Towers because, besides loose parts like rocks and sticks, dinosaurs were provided as part of the provisions.

Like any good apparatus with holes, everything gets put in the top hole and falls into a pile on the bottom.

Instead of highlighting the play with the dinosaurs or the holes or even the bridge, I would like to highlight a feature of the apparatus that can be easily overlooked: the ledges created by the boxes stacked on top of one another.

Here is a picture that shows the multiple ledges created by this apparatus.  The tops of each of the towers and the bridge can also be considered top ledges.

Children find these ledges and take advantage of them to form their many and varied operations. Let me highlight just a few.

In the case of the dinosaur towers, the ledges create narrow platforms on which the dinosaurs tangle.







A ledge can also be a place on which a child can set his cup as he attempts to step onto the lip of the table so he can pour sand through the top hole of the dinosaur tower.

In fact, I am curious how this child would have managed this operation without the ledge.

The ledge also turns out to be an inviting place to put the sand.  A child does not always need to transport into a container; sometimes a ledge works just fine.

Do you notice the trail of fingers on the lower ledge where a child or two have brushed the sand from that ledge.

That is a nice segue to the next picture.  Below you see a child brushing the sand off a ledge with her hand.

Notice that the child is reaching through two holes to brush the sand off the edge.  That is noteworthy because for her to complete this operation she has to know where her arm is even though she can't see all of it.  It sounds simple to us, but she is working on her proprioception. Doesn't that sound impressive?

There is one more ledge operation to highlight and it is similar to the one above except this one uses a tool: a little broom.

Sand cascade from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

There are two aspects of this operation that are significant.  The first is that the child is able to create a cascade of sand  as he brushes the sand from one level to the next.  Second, he shows an amazing amount of broom control so not much sand---if any---falls on the floor.

I have long contended that children will find all available spaces in and around an apparatus.  I have overlooked ledges far too long.  Not any more.  I can now see they are important spaces for the children and their operations and will dismiss them no more.

THE BOX TOWER AS AN INVITATION TO PLAY

Last week's post was about how to build a Strong Box Tower.   This is a very simple apparatus that serves as an invitation for the children to play.

The invitation is not complete until other objects, tools and loose parts are provided through which the children can interface with the apparatus.  Farm animals with animal bedding inhabit this particular Box Tower.

In addition, there is the ever present pail; a wooden tray that serves as a bridge between the blue table and the smaller clear table; and the tub underneath the wooden tray for catching the falling animal bedding so not all of it ends up on the floor when the children are using the bridge for their play.

This a a very simple apparatus: a box inside a box with holes.  How do children make any meaning out of this invitation?  This is a question that spawns many others.

One of the ways to make meaning is to animate the holes.  The holes are places into which stuff is put to make things disappear and sometimes to see where they go.  Below is a video of two children putting something in the top hole.  The first child has a horse and she pretends the horse is galloping and then falls in the hole.  Watch her expression as she completes her actions.  Why is she so pleased with making the horse disappear?  Is this a good magic trick?  The second child steps up on the stool as the first child steps down.  He drops some animal bedding down the top hole.  He then checks the hole on the side to see where it went.  What makes him curious about the trajectory of the animal bedding?  One child is happy with a disappearance and another wants to know where something goes.  Why the difference?

Dropping things down the hole from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

Another way the children make meaning out of this invitation is simply to explore and operate in all the spaces provided by the apparatus with the provisions.

When you look at the picture, you can see six different children on multiple levels in various spaces.  This is just a snapshot in time, so you have to imagine the children moving through time and space.  For instance, the child sweeping the floor will move around the child in the yellow dress to empty her dustpan.  The boy standing on a stool will soon drop the horse in the top hole while reaching over the other boy who bends down to gather some animal bedding from the bottom of the blue table.  Do they understand that they are working through time and space on the various levels in conjunction with others?  How do they think about that?

Some of the meaning is easier to surmise.  When a child sets up a feeding station for the horses, that is pretty evident.

Although feeding your horse can also be an experiment in how high can one stack the light and fluffy medium that is the feed for the horse. 

At what point did this change from feeding-the-horse to a pile-as-high-as-I-can activity?  What prompted the change in the direction of the activity?

When a child balances the animal bedding on a round rock, what is the purpose?  Is it enough to say he is experimenting with the properties of the materials and how they conform to each other?

How do children think to use the rocks to form a frame to hold the animal bedding to create a bed for the cow?  Whose idea was it and how did the others join the project?

Do I ask the children?  Or do I relish the elemental beauty and care the children take in their work?

An invitation is just an invitation until the children actually accept it.  Once they accept it, though, it takes on a life of its own depending on what each child individually and in concert with others brings to the play.  We can make some guesses as to the direction the play will take.  For instance, if there are  animals and animal bedding, the children will pretend to feed the animals.  

However, if apparatus and materials are open-ended and non-scripted, there will inevitably be questions of "What were they thinking?" 

Do we ask?  Or do we savor---and smile?

BUILDING A STRONG BOX TOWER

I usually do not post detailed instructions about how to build an apparatus.  However, I have had a couple of inquiries lately asking how to make a construction that is not easily destroyed. Because of those inquiries, I decided to recreate one of my first apparatus so I could document how I built it strong enough to withstand the onslaught of the ultimate testers, the children. The apparatus is a Box Tower and you can see the original post here.

Let's start with a picture of this year's finished Box Tower.  There are two boxes.  One is tall and the other is a rectangular box which serves as a base.  The tall box is embedded in the base box.

First, I place the tall box on top of the base box so I can trace its bottom dimensions onto the base box. The tracings mark the square I will cut so the tall box will fit into the base box.






I cut out the square on the base box.  As you can see below, there are inside flaps that the utility knife does not cut.  Those inside flaps are important for the strength of the box, so I do not remove them.

Rather, I notch the inside flap so it matches the opening and then I tape it to the top piece of cardboard thus increasing the structure strength at this level.

Since I have the opening in the base box, I tape down the flaps on the bottom of this box.  They are easy to reach at this point in the construction.  One reason to tape the flaps on the bottom down is to give the box strength.  In addition, by taping those flaps down, the medium---sand or whatever---will not get caught under those bottom flaps.

The next step is to cut holes on two sides of the tall box at the bottom.  Since the children will be putting stuff down the holes of the box tower, these holes will serve as outlets.

This hole is cut before dropping the tall box into the base box.  Notice that only three sides are cut out and that there is a flap that hangs over the box.

I trim the flap so it does not hang over the edge because when I drop the tall box into the base box, the flap will fit inside the structure.  I then tape the edge of the flap to give it strength and tape the bottom flaps of the of the tall box.






Before dropping the tall box into the base box, I cut holes in the bottom sides of the base box to correspond to the holes of the tall box.  Again, the hole is only cut on three sides so there is a flap the comes out.  These flaps that fold down and out from the holes are important because they are used to tape the box down firmly.

When the tall box is dropped into the base, an inner chamber is formed.  At this point, the flap of the tall box is taped to the bottom of the base box making it firmly attached to the base box.

With the tall box inside the base, I cut a hole in the tall box where it meets the base box.  The hole is only cut on the top and two sides.  At this point I have not taped the top of the tall box so I can reach in and push out the cut hole out from inside so there is a flap again.



I tape the new flap to the top of the base.  By doing that, the embedded box is secured for a second time onto the base box.

As you can see, it is possible to tape the top of the tall box shut at this point.

I make one more cut on top of the tall box.  Since children will always find the highest level of any apparatus, it is important to have a hole on top for them to drop things into the Box Tower.







The box tower is now ready to be taped to the table.  I use the flap from the bottom hole to offer more surface for taping the structure securely to the table .  Tape is also used all around the bottom of the apparatus.

Here is another view of how the sides of the base box are taped to the table.

This makes a surprising stable apparatus even though it is oriented on a vertical plane.  Children can put a lot of force by pushing the top of the box, but this thorough taping keeps it in place.

Now for the provisions.  This year I used wood shavings that a parent donated.  I also added farm animals. The invitation to play is complete---and strong and secure.

If you want to see another version of the Box Tower, check out Box Tower 2.  This version is also strong, but built differently.

My hope is not that you build the exact same Box Tower.  Rather, take the ideas for connecting and taping the boxes together to make your own apparatus strong and secure.  When you start to build, you will see there is no one way to put the elements together.  The fun begins when you connect the properties of the materials with your imagination.

ICE TOYS

For the past three weeks, I have had the same apparatus in the sensory table.  It is a combination of a wooden tray and clear plastic tubes and plastic channels set on an incline.

That is unusual because I usually change the apparatus weekly. Sometimes I will leave an apparatus up for two weeks, but then something would be added the second week to change the configuration.  Instead of changing the apparatus these past three weeks, I changed what was in the table and the accompanying provisions.

The first week was snow with scoops, containers and people for a Snow Park.  The second week was snow with paint and paint brushes for Painting Snow.  This past week, objects frozen in ice were added to the table.  In addition, wooden hammers, tongs, goggles and table knives were available on the shelves next to the table for the children to use.

One can make an interesting comparison between the different operations fostered by the different provisions on the same apparatus.  With just the snow, there was a lot of transporting of the snow with scoops and containers from one table to the other actually using the apparatus.  With the paint, the children did much less transporting and much more mixing of the snow and paint.  The wooden tray was used a lot, but the inclines were used as a painting surface.  With the ice, the apparatus seemed to take on even less significance.  What came to the fore were the physical operations to free objects from the ice.  Maybe the sheer physicality of the invitation trumps all other operations.

Watch as this child tries to free the dinosaur from a piece of ice.  Notice how much zest he puts into his swings with the hammer.

Hammering things frozen in ice from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

There must be a feeling of satisfaction to be able to break pieces of ice off a larger piece with force.  That is true for both boys and girls.  Maybe the guy in me appreciates an outlet for some constructive brute force.

I have done this activity every year for 20 years.  You can read some earlier posts here, here and here.  I remember as a child growing up in Minnesota finding things frozen in ice.  My friends and I would take to smashing the ice with sticks and rocks to free the objects. In a way, I am trying to recreate that same experience for the children in the classroom.  With little or no direction, the children understand the invitation.

A mother reported this year that her child asked to make "ice toys" at home.  He told her they needed goggles, knives, hammers and toys to freeze in ice.  The mom asked how do we do that. The boy told her to just look at teacher Tom's blog to find the instructions.  When there is transfer like this to home, I know the venture is worthwhile.   So go ahead, make some "ice toys" and let the children pound and chop away. 

LAUNCHING SNOW

The same apparatus was up for two weeks. 

The first week it served as a reservoir for snow and snow play without mittens

The second week, there was snow again, but this time the children painted it.

Even though the apparatus remained the same, the children formulated different operations in the snow each week because some of the provisions changed; different tools necessarily generated different operations. 

One child's operation, however, was the same over the two weeks.  The first week, he figured out how to launch snow using a clear plastic tube on the incline.  Watch.

Launching the snow from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

That first week I entered the scene after the child had already filled his clear plastic tube with snow and placed it on the incline.  He experimented with the snow sliding in and out of the tube. As he did that, the snow melted ever so slightly against the inside sides of the tube creating less and less friction.  As he experimented, his pushes became stronger until finally he gave enough of a push to send the snow shooting right out the tube. 

I cannot be at the sensory table all the time so I do not always know how a child creates such an operation.  Because I was there in time to video tape it, though, I was able to show the child the following week his previous week's operation.  Immediately after seeing it, he said he wanted to do it again so he went to work.  Watch.

Launching the snow part 2 from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

This second week, his experiments with the snow in the tube expanded in scope.  He moved the clear tube up the incline so part of it was not supported by incline.  Did he think he could shoot the snow further if the tube was higher on the incline? What he found out was that as the snow moved in the tube and the weight suddenly shifted, he almost lost control of the tube---and no snow was launched.  He tried it a second time with the same result.  Finally he dropped the tube down so the entire tube was supported by the incline.  When he pushed this time, the snow launched with plenty of force and he did not loose control of the tube.  Did you hear me register my amazement at the end of the clip?

Even though the table was set up for different activities, the snow, the clear plastic tube and the incline were constants over the two weeks.  That made it possible for this child to experiment with the physics of snow and apparatus in a truly fantastic way.  Would he have done it the second week if I had not shown him the video from the week before?  Maybe he would have eventually got around to it, but the video was an immediate reference back to what he had done the week before which triggered the desire to do it again.  And the second time around, there was even more experimenting, especially with placement of the tube.

Do you know where the snow ended up?  It ended up on the floor, of course.  That was certainly a small price to pay for such a astonishing experiment.  Besides, the snow was easily scooped up with the small dust pan next to the table that could be used like a shovel.  

It is intriguing to think about how a setup helps determine the set of possibilities for the children to create their own operations.  If you compare the current post to lasts year's post on Snow Tubes, you get an idea of how operations can be influenced by the structure and the provisions. Last year there was snow and clear plastic tubes like this year.  However, this year there was an incline. The incline part of the apparatus made it possible for this child to "launch" the snow.

That makes me wonder what other variables might determine a set of possible operations for the children to author.  That's a big TBD.

PAINTING SNOW - 2014

Last year I wrote a post about Painting Snow  If you look at that post, you will see that the only apparatus was a wooden tray for the children to use as a platform above the table.  This year, the tray is still there and I left the incline tube and slide from the previous week's Snow Park.

Snow is a wonderful medium on which to paint.  It is such an intense white, that even the watered-down tempera paints show up nicely.

Look at this series of pictures showing a child painting with the magenta paint.  Notice how the color expands.

How much of this painting is a conscious effort to explore color and how much is it an act of affecting his environment---the snow---to change it?  In any case, it looks like he is about to add some red to the magenta.

The reason for long handle paint brushes to slow down the process of adding color to the snow.  If the children were simply to pour the paint on the snow, the activity would be done in no time.  With the brushes, the children apply smaller amounts of paint.  Watch how this works.  The child has lined up his paint pots so he can add the paints with the brushes to the bowl of snow.

Mixing snow and paint from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

What does he get?  He gets some vibrant snow, for sure.  Is it a color investigation or is it a mixing exploration?

At some point, though, the addition of paint to snow becomes just a mixing exercise.  Watch the short video below to see the child stirring snow, melted snow and all the colors together.

Mixing melted snow and paint from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

What does he get?  A cold brown concoction.

With a set up like this, there are other things to paint besides the snow.  There is the incline apparatus.

There is the table itself.

Or maybe even yourself.

I am still left with questions.  Does painting snow give children a sense of agency to affect a change in the snow?  Is painting snow a color investigation or a mixing exploration?  Does it switch between the two?  If so, what precludes the switch?  How much do the properties of the snow define either that investigation or that exploration?  Do the children have a better understanding of the properties of the snow by painting it?  Why do children paint other things in addition to the snow?

SNOW PARK

We have had our share of snow and cold this winter.  School was closed 5 times in January because it was so cold---in the range of -40 degrees windchill.  (At -40 the C and F temperature scales converge).  Because snow is such a big part of our experience with nature in Minnesota, I like to bring snow into the classroom once or twice during the winter.  That way the children do not need to get all dressed up to learn about the properties of snow.  Imagine playing with snow without coats or mittens.  The hands get cold for sure, but they can scoop and dig in the white stuff in the comfort of indoor temperatures.

Last year I wrote about bringing the snow into the sensory table in a post entitled Snow Tubes.  In that post the children were able to explore the snow using various kinds of tubes.

This year, besides the loose, clear plastic tubes, I set a couple of tubes---one clear and one not clear---on an incline.  Two pieces of plastic channels were taped to the tubes to create open snow slides.

I call it a Snow Park because I added people and figures to the provisions for the table.

OK, calling it a snow park may be a stretch, but there was no shortage of people and figures going down the tubes and the slides with the snow.  

The people and the figures often get stuck, but that created a challenge for the children to see if they could somehow make the figures drop down the tube.  How do children know to pound the tube to make the figures go down?

It took me a couple of tries to get the incline stable enough so the children could use it without it toppling over.  After all, children are the best testers of the integrity of an apparatus.  To get a steep enough incline, I taped two planter trays together at the ends.  A nice feature of this arrangement is that the top planter tray is open, so it creates another space to work in for the children.  

A white, wooden tray that spans the table is added which creates a platform on which the children can work above the bottom of the table.  The white tray has a dual purpose in this arrangement: it also serves as an anchor onto which the planter tray structure is taped.  With enough duct tape, there is no toppling of this structure.

If you look at the apparatus as a whole, you can see that it divides the table into several spaces with different levels.  That makes the space more complex and intriguing for the children.  In addition, the children bring their own complexity of operations to bear on the apparatus.  What does the intersection of those two complexities yield?  One of the things it yields is focused engagement in the different spaces on the different levels.

This picture is a good illustration of the many levels and spaces the children can work on and in for this particular apparatus.

Part of the complexity of the sensory table is that it is also a science table.  Children are always investigating how the physical world works.  Here is a nice example of one of those experiments with the snow in one of the loose tubes.

Ooopsie from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

How great is that!  This video also highlights the difference between experimenting with snow outside and inside.  Outside it would be hard to use the tubes without mittens and if the snow fell out of the tube on the ground it would be no big deal.  Inside, the child is able to feel the cold with his hands and comfortably watch the snow slide from one end of the tube to the other.  And if the snow falls out on the floor, there is a surprise incongruity. Thus a child's scientific term for a surprise incongruity: ooopsie.