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

Raising Spatial Thinkers

This article, by Early Childhood Programs Coordinator Mary Scott Hackman, was also posted on Kidoinfo. 

I recently had the privilege of watching my granddaughter, at 9 months, negotiate the positioning of her body.  I could see the wheels turning as she tried to move into a sitting position, thinking “if I do this, this might happen…”  As she pulled herself up into what I refer to as the ‘majestic triangle,’ she brought her hands together celebrating the growing sense of herself in space.  She was really thinking spatially – developing an intuitive understanding of shape and space, a skill that is necessary to navigate the world around us on a daily basis.

Spatial thinking begins in infancy and develops over a lifetime.  As infants reach and grasp for things, they are increasing the number of neurons in their developing brains.  When a baby crawls under a small table and ducks his head, he is developing spatial sense.  As a preschooler unpacks and repacks a toy bin, she is thinking spatially.  Puzzle making, navigating an obstacle course, packing a backpack, all require thinking in this specific way.

Research shows that if we are not naturally gifted at thinking spatially, we can improve our skills with practice.  And we, as parents and educators, can help our children improve their spatial thinking abilities by giving them challenges and opportunities.  Here are a few tips and ideas:

• One of the most important ways you can begin the process is by using spatial language and gestures with your youngsters – big and small, up and down, near and far, rotate, turn.

• Take a walk through your office and pick up a stapler, a pencil cup, a ruler and a paper clip.  Position these objects on a large sheet of paper and trace around them.  The next time your 4-year-old is looking for an activity, roll out the paper and put the objects in a basket, inviting her to match the items to their outlines.

•  Gather a large plastic container and many small items, like ping-pong or golf balls.  Ask your kindergartener to predict how many balls will fit in the container.  Try the challenge again with other objects of different shapes and sizes.

•  Save your cardboard jewelry boxes.  When you have a critical mass, line a shoebox with them in a way that 10-12 boxes fit perfectly.  Dump out the jewelry boxes and present your 5- or 6-year-old with the challenge of finding the way to fit them into the shoebox.

•  The next time you go on a trip, invite your 6-year-old to pack his own suitcase.  (This is not only good for spatial thinking, it’s great for his sense of self!)

•  When your 8-year-old accompanies you to the grocery store, ask the clerk if she can do your bagging.

•  On a hike, discuss navigation and have your child practice using a compass and a map.

This hands-on experience is important to raising a successful spatial thinker.  Your child will thank you years later when the GPS dies and she knows how to read a road map!

Why Spatial Thinking?

Spatial thinking is integral to everyday life and is necessary to navigate, explore and survive in the world. People think spatially all the time – when tying shoes, reading maps, finding the way to school or work, packing suitcases, building snowmen, doing jigsaw puzzles, designing costumes, climbing trees or slicing pizza. Spatial thinkers are engineers planning bridges, pilots flying airplanes, doctors reading x-rays, electricians wiring houses, meteorologists predicting weather, bakers decorating cakes, geologists studying fossils and trapeze artists flying through the air. Kids are spatial thinkers, too!

Put simply, spatial thinking is about developing an intuitive understanding – a sense – of shapes and space. It’s about the location and shape of objects, their relations to each other and the paths they take as they move. It’s about the ways we can change, manipulate, represent, reason and communicate about shapes and spaces.

Spatial thinking is an important problem-solving tool and – as research shows – a key to kids’ interest and success in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines. The connection to the arts and design is pretty clear, too. Research also suggests that, while everyone (at any age) can become a better spatial thinker with practice, spatial thinking skills may be most malleable early in life and, for young children, hands-on experiences are especially significant. However, while kids learn the basics of shape and space, spatial thinking isn’t systematically taught in schools.

In order to build strong spatial sense and become proficient at spatial thinking, kids need to opportunities to...

• Actively explore shapes and spaces in unusual and playful ways
• Practice imaginative abilities (e.g., rotating objects in their minds)
• Experiment with the interaction between space and body by, for example, inhabiting spaces and or changing perspectives
• Investigate shapes and spaces through fine and gross motor activities
• Explore shapes and spaces through sound and touch in addition to visual methods
• Hear and use spatial language and gestures
• Experience and play with tools of representation for spatial thinking (diagrams, maps, etc.)

Spatial thinking is powerful and fun – and the more time and opportunities kids have for this kind of play, the better their spatial sense will become. That’s exactly what Museum visitors will discover when ThinkSpace opens next week!

 – Contributed by Exhibits Director Robin Meisner 

---

Much of our understanding about the development of spatial thinking in young children has been influenced by the research of Dr. Nora Newcombe and her colleagues at the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center.

More about the importance of spatial thinking:

The Benefits of Spatial Thinking (FABBS Foundation)

Spatial thinking, the way we navigate the world and manipulate the space around us, is crucial to problem solving.

Spatial Intelligence in Children (Parenting Science)
Spatial intelligence is an essential tool in many fields, yet it's relatively neglected at school.  Experiments suggest that we can improve a child's spatial thinking skills by a substantial margin.

Why Don't We Value Spatial Intelligence? (Psychology Today)
For students who are not talented with words and numbers but who are talented with mentally rotating figures and shapes, there is often very little to recognize and challenge them in the regular school system.

Scheduling...Over!

This article, by Early Childhood Programs Coordinator Mary Scott Hackman, was also posted on Kidoinfo.

The summer crowd has a special feel here at Providence Children’s Museum. Visitors seem relaxed and joyful, peer excitedly around corners, anticipate what the next room or exhibit will hold, hold hands with their children, and run up the ramp, entirely open to the possibilities. The unplugged, gleeful way they experience the Museum shouts, “We’re on vacation!”

In contrast, the approach of our visitors changes in September. Parents or caregivers engage with their children but they don’t necessarily lose themselves in play in the same way. Their cell phones are on and they are likely watching the clock so they can run to school to pick up their other child and deliver him to some after-school activity. Everyone is back on schedule! As summer comes to a close I wonder, how can we hold on to that carefree summer attitude when the reality of fall is moving in so quickly?

Working Americans operate under the myth that if you put in more hours, you are more productive. And ever since “No Child Left Behind,” classrooms have operated under a similar premise, limiting recess or removing it entirely. But this shift is not translating into more academic success. Not only is being too busy not productive, it actually makes us – young and old – more stressed, more burned out, and less healthy.

Overscheduling elementary school-age kids is a modern day parent trap. When parents sign their children up for this lesson and that sport, they think they are being good parents whose children will be happy and accomplished. We think we’re saving our children by keeping them busy, but we’re actually burning them out before they have a chance to achieve.

Parents are also under pressure to start scheduling their children and introducing academics at a younger age.  But research shows that children who attend preschools where academics are emphasized are more likely to experience higher levels of test anxiety, are found to be less creative, and generally have more negative attitudes towards school than children attending a play-based preschool.

David Elkind, noted authority on parenting and child development, stated a sad reality: “Over the last two decades alone, children have lost eight hours of free, unstructured, and spontaneous play a week.”  So what is the answer? I think we need to make critical decisions about where and how children spend their early years and watch them for signs of burnout. Make a goal to leave more hours of non-screen free time in kids’ schedules. Let them have an opportunity to be bored and encourage them to find creative ways to spend their time, allowing them to get caught up in open-ended, self-directed, no-rules play. Give the kids a break – and yourselves a break, too!

Pretend Play is a Literacy Activity

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

Your 3-year-old can recognize the first letter of her name when she sees it in print or maybe hit the right letters on the electronic game when the recorded voice says “B… ball… B.”  You think she’s pretty smart.  She is, but not because she’s beginning to recognize letters.  Let’s face it – chimpanzees can learn to do that.  Where you can really see and celebrate her developing literacy skills is in her pretend play.

Children’s capacity for pretend, or fantasy, play begins very early and is marvelous in its creativity.  When children pretend, their thinking is fluid, flexible and amazingly responsive to new information, ideas and resources.  Renowned educator Vivian Gussin Paley recorded this kindergarten dialogue in her 2004 book, A Child’s Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play:

“Someone has to be the wolf,” Red Riding girl said, putting on the red velvet cloak.
“I’m not the bad guy,” argued Erik, in a vest and tie.
“You’re really the dad hunter but you pretend huge teeth.”
“Like a wolf?  See it bited me so my teeth got stronger like a wolf.”

While practicing social skills like cooperation and compromise, children create their story’s plot, characters, even backstory.  They understand the elements of storymaking well before they read or write.  And of even more importance, they internalize the rich complex world of stories – and are primed to become enthusiastic readers.

There is no research showing that children who learn to read by age 5 have stronger literacy skills long term than children who begin reading at 7.  In fact, recent research by Sebastian Suggate of University of Otago, New Zealand, demonstrates there is no difference.  Suggate theorizes that “…the most important early factors for later reading achievement… are gained without formal reading instruction… play, language and interactions with adults… prepare the soil well for later development of reading.”

Given enough unstructured screen-free time, children will naturally engage in pretend play with other kids and by themselves.  Young children will often invite you – their grown-ups – into the play.  Accept the invitation and follow their lead.  It’s fun and it’s really interesting to observe their imaginations in action.

You can let them know you value their pretending by taking it a step further.  Keep a box of dress-up clothes within easy access.  Capes, pieces of glittery fabric, silly hats and old Halloween costumes inspire fantasy play.

Listen to them as they play and write down their story.  For example:

Little Red Riding Hood walked through the forest.  Suddenly she saw a wolf.  She started to run away.
“Wait,” he said.  “I’m not really a wolf!  I’m your dad!”
“But you have huge teeth!” said Red
“Because a wolf bit me and my teeth got huge and strong,” said dad, “but I won’t bite you!”

Read the story to them and ask them to add to it and illustrate it.

Or tell their stories back to them.  On vacation last summer my grandchildren spent days on an elaborate fantasy involving an elf, a princess and a ninja.   At bedtime I began the story, “Once upon a time a princess lived in the forest with her best friend the elf.  One day a ninja came to the forest…”  Of course the kids corrected and embellished and wanted stories about the ninja, princess and elf again and again.

Pretend play is a literacy activity.  For that reason, the Children’s Museum’s team incorporated a lot of pretend play elements in its design for the new Chace Children’s Discovery Library at Providence Public Library.  Raise readers by reading them books and telling them stories – and by allowing plenty of opportunity to make their own stories.

The Story Starts Here…

This post was contributed by Exhibits Director Robin Meisner.

Children learn to love reading at a very young age, so the Museum’s exhibits team was excited to be commissioned by Providence Public Library to transform their young children’s room into the Chace Children’s Discovery Library, a purposefully designed space for children ages birth to 8 and their adult caregivers.

Concept drawing by Graphic Designer Valerie Haggerty-Silva.

The Library’s goals for the space – to open on Saturday, January 28 – are to foster young children’s love of reading, promote parents and caregivers’ understanding of the importance of early literacy activities, and provide professional support for early childhood educators.

As designers and educators, our job was to turn these written goals into playful activities, environments and messages to surround and support the Library’s rich collection of children’s books.

This morning, after months of planning, design and fabrication and three weeks of installation, the room was opened for a sneak preview to 32 preschoolers and their teachers from the Dr. Pat Feinstein Child Development Center and to early childhood educators from around Rhode Island. Their reactions were wonderful to see and hear!

Soft rolling hills of storybook phrases welcome library patrons through the doorway.

First lines from beloved children’s books swirl around the walls and columns. 

“The Forest,” a whimsical woodland environment that inspires imagination and storymaking with a tree trunk hideaway, giant leaves and other playful props. An artful alphabet mobile of translucent green and yellow birch leaves with letters hidden among them hangs overhead.

Intricately carved alphabet-block doors open to reveal astronauts and apples, bears and balls and other alliterative objects from A to Z.

Throughout the room, engaging kits and interactives welcome children to explore and discover.

Nestled into a quiet corner, comfy chairs built for adults and children to share encourage reading together.

Play (and, especially, pretend play) is a literacy activity, and we hope the new space will inspire a love of stories, books and reading. We also hope that caregivers will come away from their experience at the Library with a better understanding of the role of play has in children’s development. And, from what we observed this morning, we think this might just happen.

Coming soon: learn about the process of creating the Children’s Discovery Library, and celebrate the grand opening on Saturday, January 28 from 12:30 to 5:00 PM! To learn more about the opening events, visit www.provlib.org.

Making Learning Visible

Last fall, 22 teachers from nine Rhode Island community and family childcare programs took a course called “Making Learning Visible,” in which they learned to engage their children in making how-to books. The books were a vehicle for 200 children to develop skills in literacy, sequencing (mathematics), language development and communication, and how to give thoughtful instructions for a step-by-step process.

This story of one child’s process and the learning that transpired as she presented her work to her classmates and teachers is on display on the documentation board in Discovery Studio. It shows how important their feedback was to her success.

 *****

Benedetta’s teachers began by asking the class what they were experts at. They named a range of abilities including soccer, scribbling, being silly and drawing. Benedetta responded that she knew how to make a pattern bracelet. Benedetta’s teacher, Jenah, asked her to explain how to make a pattern bracelet and transcribed her directions.

The directions were presented to the whole class for feedback. The group noted that Benedetta’s direction, “Put a purple, then a blue, then a purple,” was limiting. “What if someone wants to use other colors?,” they asked her.

Benedetta’s classmate Holden suggested, “Put a color 1 bead, then a color 2 bead, then a color 1 bead” as an alternative. Benedetta liked his wording and asked Jenah to add it to her directions.

Benedetta drew a picture for each step in the directions. When she got to the eighth step, Jenah asked, “How are you going to show that a color is bead one?” Benedetta’s solution: “Label a yellow dot (representing a bead) 1 and a pink dot 2.”

Prompted by Jenah, Benedetta recalled important moments from the book-making process: “I got feedback (from the whole group) and “how Holden told me color 1 and color 2 instead.”

When asked how she became a pattern bracelet expert, she said it was from watching her classmate, Orla, in the art area and learning the word ‘pattern’ from Jenah.

*****
 

Benedetta and dozens of other children and their families came to the Museum on Friday evening to see their how-to books on display and try out some of the activities. Benedetta was particularly excited to see her story!

Ready to Learn Providence posted one of our favorite books, How to Fly Like Superman, and here's another one of our favorites:

A selection of the children’s how-to books will be on display in Discovery Studio through February 17 – drop by and check them out!

What Are You an Expert At?

This article by Director of Education Cathy Saunders was also posted on Kidoinfo.

That’s a question that 22 Rhode Island preschool teachers and family childcare providers asked their 3- and 4-year-old children as part of “Making Learning Visible: Inspiration Takes Flight,” a five-month professional development seminar offered by Ready to Learn Providence and supported by Providence Children’s Museum.

It turns out that the children are experts at lots of things.  Many of them know how to do crafts from creating a crown to drawing happy faces, dinosaurs, monsters and self-portraits to making a sugar flour cake.  They are excellent movers; they know how to run, climb on bars, dance, and do flips and jumping jacks.  They have mastered many of their important daily routines, such as being a big brother, tying shoes, cleaning up, and sleeping.  And not surprisingly, they are fantastic players.  They can tell you how to fly like Superman, play the card game Face-Off, put on a performance, and even how to pretend to be a dog.

The children, with the help of their teachers, shared their expertise by making how-to books about each of these activities, providing step-by-step instructions and illustrations.  Angeliz explained “How to Make a Happy Face” in seven steps:

1. Make a big circle.
2. Make two small circles inside the big circle.
3. Then make two dots inside the two little circles.
4. Then you make a dot in the middle of the circle for the nose.
5. Make a line going up that looks like a big U.
6. Then you make ears – make a half a circle next to the big circle, make one on each side.
7. You can make the hair with a straight line or a wiggle line.

She read the book to her classmates and then they successfully drew their own happy faces, following her instructions!  It’s easy to overlook how much very young children know.  These how-to books are excellent reminders that children are powerhouses of knowledge, that they are constantly acquiring and processing information and skills.  Through this process, the teachers learned how to observe and document children’s learning, and we all discovered that how-to books take careful thought – you need to plan the order of the steps, make sure the words you choose can be understood, and decide what kind of illustrations (drawings or photos) are best.

Ready to Learn is asking the Mayor of Providence and other adult leaders to make how-to books as well.  You and your family could make them for each other.  What is each of you an expert at – making pancakes?  Writing letters?  Growing plants?  Start a book and have your family members test your instructions.  Get their feedback and make revisions.  Make a bound copy with illustrations to use again and again.

All 106 of the preschoolers’ books will be on display at the Children’s Museum during MetLife Family Friday on January 20 from 5:00 - 8:00 PM. Between January 21 and February 17, you can also drop into Discovery Studio to see documentation of one child, Benedetta, making her book, “How to Make a Pattern Bracelet,” and a display of a few others.  Who knows, you may learn something new!

Toddlers at Play

I watched a team of toddlers busy in The Children's Garden as they filled cups with water at the fountain and carefully carried it back to the sand pit to mix with sand. Because they were only able to bring back small amounts of water and there is a lot of sand, it didn't produce much mud, but they were intent on the task nonetheless. One small girl had another idea. She dipped an archeologists’ brush into the cup of water and used it to “paint” the stone wall.

– Janice O’Donnell, Executive Director

I witnessed a great family play moment after a mom and dad followed their two young, excited daughters with these beautiful blonde curls into Littlewoods. The girls were sweet and cute, playing with the puppets, climbing the tree, and running through the cave. At one point, the parents were near the 2-year-old in the boat, while the 4-year-old put on the skunk costume. She walked over to her family, turned around, bent down, and sprayed them! They all cracked up and the parents were flabbergasted because they had no idea she knew that skunks sprayed! Then the girl just kept spraying them over and over again, and they all just laughed together. It was such a fun moment witnessing the parents learning something about their daughter and also taking part in and appreciating her play.

– Cassandra Kane, AmeriCorps Museum Educator

Welcome to Explorers' Studio

This post was contributed by Mary Scott Hackman, the Museum’s early childhood program developer.

“What children learn does not follow as an automatic result from what is taught. Rather, it is in large part due to the children’s own doing as a consequence of their activities and our resources.”
–Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach

What does it mean to provide open-ended programming for young children and why are open-ended activities so vital to a child’s successful learning experience? We in the field of early care and education always hear the phrases “process, not product”; child-directed learning; self-esteem; hands-on activities. What does all of this mean?

For us here at the Museum, it means that we take seriously our responsibility to honor the words of Malaguzzi and furthermore, honor our youngest visitors by making these phrases the essential components of each of our new Explorers’ Studio programs starting this fall.
Our classroom will change from week to week. Depending on the activity at hand, children ages 3 to 6 will be invited into the color lab; the wood-working shop; the art studio. They will be presented with assorted papers, natural materials and, as always, recyclables so that their creations will be their own, each one different and unique. Sometimes they will get to use real tools, like a pipette in the art studio or a hand-drill in the workshop.
In October, we’ll explore fall in the color lab; kids will hammer nails into a stump in the workshop; and at the end of the month, they’ll craft masks to accompany their Halloween costumes. In the weeks ahead, we’ll invite children to join us in the workshop again but this time to explore different tools, perhaps wrenches and clamps. We may reopen the art studio for clay sculpting and mural making. In short, new activities will be offered within a schedule of repeated themes or experiences. This, we feel, is helpful to young children since it is by repetition that they learn, in their time, going back in, figuring it out.
The studios will run for 2 hours allowing children to stop by and stay for as long or as short as they like. Who knows? They may need to come back! Drop into the studio this month on Thursdays from 1:00 to 3:00 PM and Fridays from 10:00 AM to Noon – check the calendar for a full schedule of activities.