Part of our work as teachers is to help each other think about investigations, raising more questions to decide where we could support the children's thinking or direct them to another question for exploration. We brought our experiences to a staff meeting to share the children's work through pictures and videos.
The teachers asked: Did the children feel powerful when they used the string to come into relationship with each other? Is there power in asking others to do something exciting? Does it feel powerful to invite children into play?
Did the string give them a source to test physical properties such as figuring out the amount of pull or force it takes to move something?
What would happen if we turned the tables upside down. Would that be another way to explore the question of force?
Would the children find more ways to build their relationships with each other if they were given a ball of string and invited to explore the building? Where would their unwound string take them? Who would they meet along the way? Would it take them to the other classrooms in our preschool, the kindergarten, outside or to other buildings on our campus?
Anna and I decided to begin with the suggestion to turn the tables upside down. Large balls of yarn displayed in a clay bowl seemed irrisistable.
Madison gave Zack one end of his string. Zack smiled and said he would like to tie Madison's string to his own. I was excited to see this friendship deepen as they continued to enjoy the endless possibilities string offers.
Another day Zack began unrolling a ball of yarn and proceeded to encircle the studio many times making a "web to wrap us all up in" and then continued out the studio door to our classroom. Everyone got tangled up along the way. Friends helped each other and giggled at the challenges they faced. Could it be that the children were exploring the power string provided them with, using it to connect objects, friends and places together? Did the string unraveling from the studio to our classroom represent our growing relationship with Anna in the studio?
Following the children's fascination with string has been exciting. They have become familiar with so many possibilities of what string can do. Interactions with string have continued to bring them into relationship with each other . I learned about how a material can become a language by knowing the many ways it can be used and as a result can become a vehicle for communicating with friends. In this experience, collaboration of our children and teachers evolved into a community of learners as we explored the many affordances of string together.
POWER CONNECTION RELATIONSHIP FORCE STRING
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