PlayWatch: Stories of Creative Play

The only two other people in Water Ways were a man and his son, who was approximately 3 years old and completely engrossed in throwing balls into the vortex. I began painting a flower on the slate wall and, within 30 seconds, I heard a small voice. "Can I paint with you?” The little boy had wandered over to investigate what I was doing. "Absolutely! What would you like to paint?" Without hesitating, he answered, "Let's paint a police chase! And the truck is faster than the police cars! And they have sirens and are going fast!"

I was uncertain how to paint sirens with water, but the two of us gave it a shot. We painted two police cars, a pickup truck and a very winding road on which the chase was taking place. As the water began to evaporate from the slate board, we would touch up certain spots and add details like flat tires on the police cars. Once the picture was done, the little boy admired it for a second before he ran off to find his dad. As I looked at the painting, I could see the remnants of my flower. I was grateful the boy and his imagination had come along because the picture we made together was much more exciting!

– Maggie Dawson, Experience Coordinator

A little girl, about 3, was in Play Power with her father. Dad was playing with the creature columns, and I was about to say 'hello' to the girl when I noticed she had a very determined look on her face. I watched as she slowly started taking staggered steps, like you'd see in a western movie stand off. "Red light," she said, and stopped. "Green light.” I was confused until I realized she was playing "red light, green light" with her reflection in the dome mirror!

– Megan Beauregard, Experience Coordinator

PlayWatch: Making Tracks

This story was shared by Experience Coordinator Maggie Dawson.   

We had a very dedicated visitor who was so fun to watch. He was about 3 years old and I saw him building a line of blocks. He would place one block at a time and once it was set down, he would step back, place his hands on his hips, shake his head, and run to select another piece.

His mom said that he has done this before and is constantly doing similar projects at home. I told her that it was wonderful to watch him plan this because ThinkSpace, the exhibit he was in, is dedicated to spatial thinking and he is demonstrating his own spatial skills. She told me that his goal was to make it all the way down the ramp!

It was also fun because other visitors watched him and were cheering for him. One father even stopped his toddler from destroying it because he was so impressed. As you can see, he made it pretty far before the Museum closed!

PlayWatch: Rigamajig

This story was shared by Experience Coordinator Maggie Dawson.   

I was setting up Rigamajig and began building a contraption to use as an example. I started assembling what I thought could be the sides of a car. One of our Play Guides, Josy, came in and eagerly said that she would love to add to it. I told her that I couldn't wait to see what she created.

When I came in a half-hour later to see how the activity was going, I saw Josy working hard with two boys, approximately 5 years old. My simple car had turned into an elaborate cart with a tall pulley system affixed to the top! The boys were having so much fun and were excited about making it taller and adding ropes and more wheels. Josy was wonderful and enthusiastic about their creation as well.

I loved seeing how adding more minds and creative ideas resulted in a completely different structure than what I initially imagined. Moreover, it was impressive to see how one of our Play Guides could foster imagination and encourage two young visitors to build something awesome!

PlayWatch: Scenes from the Garden

These wonderful pretend play moments were witnessed recently in The Children's Garden:

A young girl, age 5 or 6, was very busy setting up a “birthday party” in Underland. She collected lots of natural materials and enlisted mom’s help in gathering baskets of sand. She laid everything out on the table in the fairy kitchen until it was just right, excitedly chattering to herself the whole time about the impending party.

Credit: John C. Meyers

A woman was walking her “puppy” (daughter, on all fours) on a “leash” (jump ropes knotted together and tied around the girl’s waist). They circled slowly and deliberately through the garden a couple of times, eliciting giggles from the staff who were watching. I said to mom, “Good thing you have her on a leash – you don’t want her to run wild!,” and immediately the puppy took off, yanking the leash out of mom’s hand and sprinting through the cave. Only moments later, the puppy had morphed into a kitten and meowed loudly several times as she passed by.

I love that both of these parents followed their children’s cues to get involved in and support their play, and gave them the freedom to have these deep pretend play moments!

– Megan Fischer, Communications & Marketing Director

PlayWatch: Magnet Drawing

Spotted at one of our newest exhibit components – the magnetic drawing table in Play Power...

An 8-year-old girl settled in to one of the activity stations and began using the pieces of colorful metal chain to create a grid of perpendicular lines, one vertical and two horizontal.

She formed a circle around their intersection and, as she began adding other details, it became clear that she was creating a figure, carefully adjusting the lines to ensure symmetry.  Explaining that she’d learned the technique in art class, she circled green strands to create an eye on either side of her vertical line.

After completing all of the facial features, she moved her horizontal guides downward, outlined a torso, and added appendages in varying hues.  Her final step was to fill in the torso, deliberately spiraling strands in alternating colors until her masterpiece was complete.

She worked slowly but with tremendous focus and determination, and it was fascinating to see her make a connection to something she’d learned to do with paper and pencil and apply it to a different medium.  Her parents watched from across the room and checked in with her periodically but mostly gave this strategic artist the time and space she needed to carry out her plan and vision.

– Megan Fischer, Communications & Marketing Director

Cardboard Challenge, part 2

A young boy (about 6 years old) entered the space and decided that, like many other participants, he was going to build a house – however his plans quickly evolved into constructing a spacecraft. He gave me detailed instructions on how he'd like his door and window cut; there was a definite sense of ownership over the project.

He drew out plans for his steering wheel and column and asked me to cut an impossibly thick tube. When I told him we'd have to use something else he scoured the room and decided that our basket for chalk would be the perfect thing to stand in for the column. He was persistent yet flexible, and it was really interesting to watch him peruse all of the materials available and decide, in the end, that what he really needed was something that we hadn't originally intended as a building supply! Upon completion, the spaceship was fully equipped with a safety sign (that indicated only the pilot should enter), wings and steering wheel. He was ready to fly!

– Sarah, AmeriCorps Museum Educator

I observed adults who spent a long time helping and facilitating their children's play. I was happy to see that these grown-ups stepped back when it was time to show off their creations, to let the children explain what they have done and the reason/engineering behind it. For example, an aunt worked with her young niece and nephew to build an elaborate castle. When I asked them about details, the woman did not say a word and let the girl explain that she built the castle for "rainbow fairies, and these fairies were chased by bad guys." The castle included a drawbridge, a dangerous octopus and towers with cannons. When I asked how the cannons work, the boy demonstrated. He placed a ball in a large tube and stuck a smaller tube inside, which caused the ball to shoot out.

– Olga, Early Childhood Learning Programs Developer

A girl, about 7 years old, found a sheet of cardboard with pre-cut circles (obviously some packaging leftover).  She inserted a cardboard cone in each of the circular holes and decorated them with ribbon and markers.  She asked if she could take it home as the cones were houses for fairies. She said that she had "a lot of fairies at home" and had made them a village.

– Janice, Executive Director

A mom, dad and their 7 kids all busied themselves with their own projects, individually or in teams.  Parents and 11-year-old Alvin got to work building a drive-up coffee shop – a tall structure that required dad’s help to attach the roof and stabilize the building. They added a box to serve as the drive through window, and mom got to work illustrating the storefront.

Alvin himself labored over the food preparation, creating delicious donuts and M & M cookies from colorful foam shapes, which he served with coffee in small cardboard cylinders. And “Alvin's Coffee Shop” was born!

After offering free samples to rave reviews, Alvin created a menu to post by the window. When everything was ready, he took his station and provided stellar service in a structure that mom was amazed to find that they'd spent over an hour and a half building. Upon watching this wonderful moment unfold, I was struck that Alvin’s Coffee Shop might just be our own version of Caine’s Arcade!

– Megan, Communications Director

Cardboard Challenge, part 1

Last weekend, we invited kids and families to design and construct original creations using cardboard, recycled materials and their imaginations.  The event was part of Global Cardboard Challenge, the second annual worldwide celebration of child creativity and the role of communities in fostering imaginative play, inspired by the video Caine's Arcade. They created castles, bridges, spaceships and much more!

We saw a lot of intriguing inventions, focused building and some wonderful collaboration.

An 8-year-old boy spent almost 45 minutes building a cannon from a large cylinder – first figuring out how to support it, then adding components like a battery and fuse. He got help from Museum staff and his caregiver when he needed it, with tape and a box cutter, but mostly worked independently and was incredibly focused.

A family of four worked diligently on three different houses! An older brother and sister worked together to create an elaborate structure that included a chimney, a porch with a bed and some pretty fancy hand-drawn wallpaper, while mom built her own red-roofed home.

Meanwhile, across the room, their young cousin claimed a large abandoned house and made it his own by adding a basket of balls to the interior and used lots of tape to form traffic barriers to secure the exterior.

A team of four kids repurposed another house, adding charming details over a period of many hours. When complete, it included tied back velvet curtains, a window box with flowers, a stained glass window, vines crawling over an outside grate, French doors, a comfy bed, a shelf stocked with toys, books and vases, and a security alarm.

A girl, about 8, created an incredible playground diorama, including a basketball hoop, seesaw, slide and trashcan. "I'm going to make the swings at home," she said proudly.

A determined boy spent quite some time constructing the "Providence bridge," thoughtfully finding just the right parts before carefully adding them on.

One of many fabulous castles that emerged throughout the weekend.

We saw lot of great grown-up play – adults playing on their own, supporting their kids’ play without taking over, being helpers and taking directions from their children, and more.

Parents built an impressive sailboat together while their 4-year-old daughter busied herself playing elsewhere.

A dad with two small children stayed for nearly the entire activity on Saturday. First they created the wall of a house, which they colored with chalk and dad embellished with colorful foam shapes. Then they each made their own smaller creations, including train tracks and a house. They had so much fun they came back on Sunday, too!

A mom and dad and their 10-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son, who create a lot of "inventions" at home, split into parent/child teams. The daughter created a cradle for her pet bunny, using loose parts to construct a dangling mobile, while mom decorated the headboard.

A family – mom, grandmom and two boys – created an interesting "factory on a ship that makes electricity."

And that's not nearly all – more stories of creative cardboard constructions will follow!

A PlayFULL Summer at the Parks

This spring and summer, the Museum brought unstructured play to Providence parks for a second year, taking Imagination Playground blocks, fort building and other open-ended fun with loose parts to neighborhoods across the city.  Even though the weather wasn’t as cooperative as we’d have liked, we provided creative play experiences for 930 kids and family members, thanks to the support of the Providence Department of Parks and Recreation and the Partnership for Providence Parks.

We saw kids do some pretty incredible things and captured some of our favorite playful moments.

Imagination Playground blocks were a big hit, as always.

This giant structure was a tremendous collaborative effort.

 Adding loose parts created even more opportunities for play.

This grandma and grandson build a steep ramp and took turns rolling and catching balls. Much chasing and giggling ensued!

We also provided wood working with real tools, stick structures with dowels and rubber bands, and Rigamajig – a set of boards, pulleys, wheels, nuts and bolts that inspire creative construction.

This girl spent over two hours thoughtfully building an elaborate house. She draped it with fabric and added a doghouse. Though she welcomed construction help from other kids, when it was time to take it apart, she insisted on doing it ALL by herself.

This family with older kids approached reluctantly, skeptical about playing. But hours later, they were still busy building and rebuilding their house – here dad prepares the curtains!

This tiny teepee was barely built for two!

Cardboard was a hugely popular play material.

This cardboard dwelling – colored inside and out with chalk – had a fabric “carpet” and constantly changing occupants.

This box was occupied by one of its territorial “owners” for well over two hours!

We saw A LOT of inspired fort building with cardboard, dowels, fabric and more.

Forts...

...forts...

and MORE forts!

Thanks to our caped play crusaders and to everyone who played with us this summer!

PlayWatch: Painting the Rabbit

This story was shared by Exhibits Director Robin Meisner. 

Walking out into The Children’s Garden, I noticed a girl – about 4 years old – instructing two other young children in how to “paint” the rabbit. They had lined up their materials on the ground next to the rabbit – small wooden pots from Underland filled with water and a larger bowl with sand. With a paintbrush from the sand pit in hand, the girl instructed the others, “first, you dip the brush in the water, then in the sand, then you paint the bunny.” She demonstrated dipping, then painting in long slow strokes following the direction of the rabbit’s fur. The others joined in, each getting bits of advice on proper painting techniques.

A short while later, I watched as the same girl and a young boy approached the fountain with their empty water containers and paintbrushes. They climbed onto the rocks surrounding the water, soaked their brushes and filled their pots. They then started to make their way down from the rocks but quickly discovered that climbing down with water was tricky. My first instinct was to offer my empty hands, but I held back and observed. After a few moments of fidgeting, the girl handed the boy her water, set her brush down and jumped off the wall. She then reached up and took the two filled containers and both brushes from the boy. He climbed down carefully, gathered his supplies and they made their way back to the rabbit – no adult help needed.

I followed the pair and watched as the painting continued. New children approached, got their lesson and painted for a few minutes before moving on. And, hours later after all the kids were gone, the rabbit was still specked with painted sand.

PlayWatch: A Climber Tale

This story was shared by AmeriCorps Museum Educator Leah Taradash. 

As I was sitting out in the garden with my back turned to The Climber, I heard a child yelling, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair!” Then I heard a high-pitched voice yell back, “I can’t, it’s stuck in the beanstalk! You have to come up to get me!”

I turned around to see who was playing the part of Rapunzel, only to discover that the players were twin boys, about 7 or 8 years old. They continued in their roles for the next 20 minutes, fully engrossed in their pretend play. Rapunzel was eventually rescued by her prince, who used pretend suction cup shoes to climb the “beanstalk.” When the boys' mother noticed me watching them play and smiling, she turned to me and said that the son playing Rapunzel always talked about wanting to be an actor in movies.

PlayWatch: Water Play

This story was shared by Experience Coordinator Meg Sullivan.

During the hustle and bustle of daily life at a children’s museum, it's nice to take a break every now and then and remind myself why I’m here in the first place. Recently in Water Ways, I watched a young girl – about 4 years old – actively engage in in pretend play with “loose parts” that typically have other functions.

One of the many cool aspects of Water Ways is an array of different sized pipe pieces that allow children to construct various fountains, and it's amazing what some kids create. While at first the girl started playing with the fountain parts the “right” way, soon her imagination took hold.

A fountain top first became a cup that contained a hot beverage. She walked around blowing on it and offered some to her father, cautioning him first how hot it was. Then she took some of the little pipe pieces, filled those with water, and poured them back into the large fountain top. As she stirred it with a smaller piece, she muttered to herself about her concoction. Once she tired of pretending it was a beverage, she started using the fountain head in other ways. She emptied it into the waterfall, into the plastic boats, and finally into the water table itself. She stirred her mixture again in the water table with a little pipe piece.

This pretending went on for the full hour I was there and I rather wished I knew what she was picturing. Working at a children’s museum allows me to relive the imagination and wonderment that we all felt as children!

Play Watching

This article, by Museum Executive Director Janice O'Donnell, was also posted on Kidoinfo. 

If you’ve visited the Museum in the past couple of months, you may have noticed members of the staff with clipboards lurking in the Museum’s newest exhibit, ThinkSpace.  Doing some lurking of my own, I spent nearly 20 minutes watching a very small visitor push big wooden beads along the wire and bead maze, watch them slip down, push them up again.  Twenty minutes – amazing concentration for an 18-month-old.  I tracked a 7-year-old who solved one block-stacking challenge after another, translating abstract drawings into three-dimensional models, and a 9-year-old who was determined to map all of the mystery mazes.  I took notes, timed how long they spent at activities, and listened for spatial language: “Rotate it!”  “I need another parallelogram.”  A mom asked what I was doing.  “Observations,” I told her.

Careful observation is as important to the exhibit creation process as planning, designing, building and installing.  It’s how we know what’s working well, what activities engage kids of what ages, how adults respond, and what we should change.  We expect to be surprised.  No matter how carefully we test prototypes and how much experience we have, kids will do something we didn’t foresee.  And sometimes we know we don’t know, so we might put up a temporary label or try out a series of easily changed activities and see what happens.  We observe systematically for several weeks after opening an exhibit and make adjustments.

But our observation isn’t limited to new exhibits – it’s a constant.  We record and share stories of the power of children’s play in the Museum’s newsletter, on this blog, and on our documentation board in Discovery Studio.  Watching kids at play helps us understand and appreciate their capacity for and ways of learning, and we want our visiting adults to be as delighted by their children’s ingenuity as we are.  That toddler freely exploring cause and effect at the bead maze encountered a perfect learning opportunity, developmentally and physically within his reach.  One child, solving a mystery maze, said each of her steps aloud: “First it goes down, then when I do this it goes that way, and then it goes back and then down…”  Another silently drew his solution.  Different styles, same determination.

Children can navigate social situations as deftly as they solve a maze.  I watched two previously unacquainted kids, ages 6 and 7, working together to assemble seven large, unusually shaped blocks to build a cube.  A Museum play guide supplied well-timed hints, suggesting that they “try rotating it” and offering other clues.  The boys worked diligently, incorporating the hints: “One two three four – that side’s too high!”  “Start again!”  “Rotate!”

Five-year-old sisters of one of the boys joined them and even when the younger ones sat on the blocks and generally got in the way, the boys carried on.  “Give me the yellow,” one ordered his sister, who hopped off the yellow block and handed it to them. After at least four start-overs, they could see the solution.  Some silent understanding developed among them that the little girls would put in the last two pieces.  The last block.  The boys could see exactly how it fit in, but the 5-year-old couldn’t quite get it.  “Rotate,” her brother told her.  She turned it around and slid the final piece into place.  The boys climbed atop their completed cube, arms raised in victory, while everyone cheered.

In a recent blog post, museum planner Jeanne Vergeront suggests there ought to be an app for play spotting, which she describes as  “… pausing and observing children at play.  It is watching them and getting to know them and their thinking through their play.  It is noticing what fascinates them and glimpsing the intensity they invest in play.”

Children take their play seriously.  We learn so much when we take their play seriously, too.

PlayWatch: Block Builders

Story shared by MuseumCorps Educator Megan Beauregard

Two boys, ages 7 and 8, had just met each other in ThinkSpace and were building together with the unit blocks. They started out with a standard “building,” stacking blocks to build arches and paths. I observed and soon asked if I could help, which mostly entailed holding blocks in place for them.

The conversation I had with the boys as they built was very detailed and took many imaginative turns. When I asked one boy what was going to happen next, he told me step by step and prompted me to hold blocks as he did so. “Now, this is going to be the elevator. It works by pulling this lever and moving into this room...” They told me about halfway through that this was the Children's Museum.

This Museum was no easy task, either. Throughout their play, other children would come to the blocks and knock their masterpiece over. The boys waited patiently. Once the children left, they would go right back to rebuilding the Museum, bigger and better than the last one.

Within 20 minutes or so, the two boys had successfully made Providence Children’s Museum – with a face-lift! For the Museum now had 10 floors, an elevator, a slide, a secret passage and a swimming pool.

The final product used every single unit block, and this picture was taken right before a curious toddler knocked down the structure. The boys were okay with this, and they thanked me for the help before they went to explore the rest of ThinkSpace. This was a great way to break in one of the components of this new and exciting space!

PlayWatch: ThinkSpace Stories

These observations of kids’ creative play and focused spatial thinking in ThinkSpace were shared by Museum staff and AmeriCorps members.

Soma Cube

• Two brothers, ages 11 and 6, played with the Soma cube while their mother observed and told them to “think spatially.”  After the boys found a solution, their mom challenged them to find another one. 
• A grandmother and a 4-year-old had a great time figuring out the cube: “It took patience but it was so rewarding!”

Mystery Mazes

• A 6-year-old girl reported that she finished maze boxes 5, 6, 7 and 8 on her last visit and now wanted to do 1, 2, 3 and 4.  She was already on 3 and had lots of erasure marks on her paper from drawing diagrams of the mazes!
• The mazes were a hit with an 8-year-old boy who really loves drawing; he made good use of the answer keys, comparing them to his diagram and trying again.
• Devising a creative new challenge, a 7-year-old boy stacked two maze boxes end to end so he could get a ball to travel through both.

Shape Talk

• A father and daughter took turns being the speaker and listener, laughing and cheering when they got their patterns to match. 
• Another family – mom, dad and 10-year-old daughter – also traded roles.  The girl built a complex stacked structure and successfully described it so that her dad was able to replicate it.