Friday, November 11, 2011

Playing with children often takes a turn on its own

I wanted to write about this yesterday, but didnt have the time. I had prepared a sensory tub for Anjali and Sophia - for Sophia mostly, as Anjali never had been one for sensory tubs. It was mostly an upcycling of one of our nature baskets. I added to the seashells and pinecones some paint box lids, a small box of pista shells, some beads, which were in a box together with the paintbox lids, some kitchen paper rolls and some toilet paper rolls.

Anjali was playing go with husband and Sophia got a headstart on the sensory basket. By the time Anjali joined us, we were pouring and funneling for all it was worth. When Anjali joined us, she did a bit of exploration, but as I had expected, was not very interested in exploring the tub. Instead, she dug out the beads and began to play with them

So I offered her some string to thread the beads together and she brought out all her beads that were in a bead box. The strange thing was that the bead box was within her reach for several months and she had never cared about it. It took a single misplaced bead to trigger the creativity.

So with a needle and thread, she strung together a bead necklace. Sophia, in the meantime, had finished with her sensory tub play and put together a bracelet with colorful shapes.

Anjali wore the bead necklace to school yesterday morning.

It was time to clean up and Sophia was helping me. Here is an interesting question - What happens if the child's idea of clean up doesnt correspond to yours? I had put the seashells and pinecones in the basket and a bunch of pista shells in another small basket. Sophia, in the act of cleaning up, dumped the pista shells into the big basket, mixing them all up. Obviously, she had thought that the pista shells were in the small basket because someone had poured them there - we had been transferring stuff between the baskets all evening.

I didnt have the heart to tell her that she was wrong, not when she was so proud of herself for finishing up the cleaning, so I just put the whole messed up basket on the stool to sort out the next morning

No comments:

Post a Comment

For your little notes and ideas