In today’s blog we want to share a picture of how children might play with the same materials in different ways given their age and development. In LifeWays with its focus on life as curriculum, it helps to understand why the sandbox or folding washcloths or raking leaves (especially for big boys) are not only relevant, but often therapeutic. They are both highly practical and academic in its best definition.
Sandbox Play
In the sand box, for instance, we see each age group playing somewhat- and often times- very differently with the same materials: digging tools, sand, the perimeter of the sandbox, each other, cups and sifters and bowls, trucks, planks, sticks and leaves. Our littlest ones pour from one container to another with great satisfaction and often play beside but not so much with another child (unless another child appropriates their cups and bowls). With the littlest children, the sandbox is a stable place in which to remain planted—no losing balance or negotiating uneven surfaces. And with such a cozy and sturdy posting, they can dig, feel the texture of the sand, and pour from container to container. Three and four-year-olds are moulding the sand into cakes, towers, platforms and have the beginnings of a narrative to inspirit their structures. In the next sandbox, our five and six year olds tell stories around the great tunnels and holes they have dug and across which they have made raised bridges.
Even at nine or ten, sand play can grow in complexity and exist as a very satisfying game. My brother and I spent hours figuring out how to make a pond. We began by finding the right place to dig our hole with several false starts as we ran into objects meant to remain buried, or found that our would-be watering hole was too far from the hose to get the water we needed. We experimented with different materials to “plug up” the bottom of the pond: grass laid close together, grass into a mat, stones lining the entire construction the way it does at the river. We did not actually manage to make our pond waterproof, or to figure out how to make the water clear and fresh to support the tadpoles and fish we planned to put in it. At that point, it became a mud hole. Though this is good, too, as it provides clay for making sculptures or“quicksand” for dangerous adventures, and it still serves as a pond which one must cross without falling in. Sand play, along with most other forms of play in early childhood, is never the same. It keeps shifting with the child.
This is the case for nearly all games and household tasks, especially when the materials remain much the same throughout the years. There exists, here, a case for open-ended toys and play materials that can grow with the child as opposed to the child “growing out” of them. As they grow, children have a sense of their own history, and the proper materials themselves accommodate different learning styles and skills. The mastery they build at their own pace contributes to their self-efficacy as well as their basic skills. Because in a LifeWays setting, different ages play together, there are consistently available models to support learning as the bigger kids to show the way. The child can learn at her own pace and repeat as often as needed to attain mastery. Likewise, an imaginative or quick learner can continually complicate the game and the skills needed to play it. For instance, with your 8-12 year olds (or very competent younger ones), you may be called upon to help them with the skills needed to support their games: how to use the hammer and nails for fort building, how to tie knots to support structures or build tree swings or climbing or jumping ropes, how to use the tape measure and the handsaw (with monitoring).
All of the children, no matter their age or developmental stage, are learning about change and transformation, about stable and precarious qualities of materials, about quantity and measuring, hypothesis and experimentation—all basic science concepts. They are learning and practicing flexible thinking as other children change their game. The structure or the character of the materials themselves may require the child to reframe his idea, an idea that may have evolved many times since they first sat down. Each time children play this game, they will bring forward their increased development- the skills and knowledge regarding materials and building techniques and possibilities for storying they learned last time- as well as increased social skill to incorporate others into the game.