This is an offering to the children and families of the infant classroom from the infant teachers. The ideas and questions contained within are applicable for many age groups.
Who better to offer some inspiration for working with materials than the children!? Children are creating schemas about the world around them & their impact on this world. When given a multitude of materials and the time to experiment, children will build upon existing schemas and construct new ones: learning!
The following are examples of things the children explore and what we have observed the children doing when absorbed in explorations around fabric. The observations listed are both from the video as well as myriad other explorations. Next, we propose ways you could offer fabric to provoke continued construction of their developing schemas.
Who better to offer some inspiration for working with materials than the children!? Children are creating schemas about the world around them & their impact on this world. When given a multitude of materials and the time to experiment, children will build upon existing schemas and construct new ones: learning!
The following are examples of things the children explore and what we have observed the children doing when absorbed in explorations around fabric. The observations listed are both from the video as well as myriad other explorations. Next, we propose ways you could offer fabric to provoke continued construction of their developing schemas.
What we observe: Pulling apart, putting together, piling on top, hiding behind/under, pulling up and over, lifting across, wrapping up, looking through, moving fabric fast, crawling over, trying to crawl through, looking up at fabric, putting into containers, feeling the textures (sensory experience) of different kinds of fabrics.
How you could offer material:
How you could offer material:
- Lay fabric out long or wide on the floor (any not-used-anymore sheets?) for child to crawl across or through (if you drape the fabric)
- Find fabric with different textures within your house, offer it near child to feel and work with
- Track the timing of the natural light in your house and play around with fabrics and light/shadow against your window
- Hang fabric from a higher place in your house so it drapes down creating a visual landscape
- Find containers within your house to put fabric in the child can pull out/put back in
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