Stepping Back: Watching Children Solve a Problem

Uh oh. A ball got stuck in a bamboo pipe. How could we reach it? Of course the children's first idea was to come to a teacher, but I put on my best innocent, quizzical face and said, "Oh dear. It's stuck. Does anyone have any ideas for getting it out?"

Many children assured me they could help, but their hands were too big to fit in the pipe. They also tried to push it out with another ball, but that didn't work either. They could think of no other way to solve the problem. Since they were stumped, I suggested we write a note to another classroom of older children to ask for help. They wrote a note to the Garden Room.

Another ball did not push the stuck ball out.

It's really far down in there.

The Garden Room children were eating snack, but one child had an idea right away. "I know how to get it out! You need something smaller to stick in it. We could try my sword."

A Garden Room child pushes the ball out with his sword, while a Forest Room child watches.

After watching the Garden Room child carefully, this Forest Room child promptly came back to our classroom and stuck the ball back in the bamboo pipe. I watched as he started to put his hand in, then stopped. I could see him thinking. Was he remembering that his hand didn't work? He looked around the classroom and found a magnetic wand, which he used to push the ball out. He was so pleased with himself that he repeated the process many times.

Magnetic wand in hand, ready to pop the ball out.

How capable young children are! By not interfering, but only supporting, I was privileged to watch an older child help a younger one solve a problem, and watch the younger one apply this new knowledge in his classroom. We love these cross-age learning opportunities, and the constant ways children show us their thinking, if we only step back and allow them the time and space to do their work.

DARKNESS + LIGHT

The dark part of the year invites hibernation.  It is a time when we instinctively seek out warmth and light.  Cold winter days are the time to head down to the basement, where we have set up a Light Studio.

This large, very utilitarian space is transformed by darkness and light into a place of magic. 

Here, children investigate light in various forms. 

Most recently the light source they have been exploring has been a long strand of LED lights.

The children delighted in the discovery of this rope lighting.  They were immediately comfortable manipulating this long strand of light, which quickly became a plaything, full of possibilities.

They wrapped themselves in light, carried the light around, created stories with the light and invented props such as nests and thrones for their narratives.

Illuminated Nest

Drawing around their bodies with light

It was striking to observe how totally at ease the children are with this form of light and how their imaginations soar with the simplest of materials.

"Light tomorrow with today" ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

CONNECTIONS

 Here in the Garden Room we are observing that the children are intrigued with the idea of connecting things together.  We first started noticing this in the early days of the children's paper exploration.

 


 
Children immediately started figuring out ways to join pieces of paper together.

  

 As they found new ways to put things together, they saw new possibilities

 

Connecting animals with beads

Connecting tables together with tape

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connecting rulers together

Connecting your house to my house

Looking more deeply at the work of the children, we see another form of connection taking place:

Our shared experiences are connecting us together.

 

 

 

 

“Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.” ~ John Muir