Thursdays at SM are always exciting!
Every Thursday we pick a book and read it with our 4- 5 year olds. Another reason why children look forward to Thursdays is because they get to take home a new book from their library. And this Thursday we chose to read a book called “Not a Box”. To help children connect better with the book, the class was set with empty cardboard boxes of different sizes for them to imagine and play with.
As children came in, some were confused, some amused and some curious. Sh came inquiring about the boxes in the class,
Sh: Ma’am, why are these boxes in our class? Did you put them here?
F: Yes, I put them here. You can do whatever you want with them.
After this conversation, it was amusing to see the things children could imagine with mere empty boxes!
In the image below, all that can be seen at the first glance is probably just a bunch of children standing inside an empty box. But if looked a little deeper, a whole new world of theirs is what we will see.
Every Thursday we pick a book and read it with our 4- 5 year olds. Another reason why children look forward to Thursdays is because they get to take home a new book from their library. And this Thursday we chose to read a book called “Not a Box”. To help children connect better with the book, the class was set with empty cardboard boxes of different sizes for them to imagine and play with.
As children came in, some were confused, some amused and some curious. Sh came inquiring about the boxes in the class,
Sh: Ma’am, why are these boxes in our class? Did you put them here?
F: Yes, I put them here. You can do whatever you want with them.
After this conversation, it was amusing to see the things children could imagine with mere empty boxes!
In the image below, all that can be seen at the first glance is probably just a bunch of children standing inside an empty box. But if looked a little deeper, a whole new world of theirs is what we will see.
For E, they are on a bus traveling to school where V is the conductor of the bus. For Ash, it's an aeroplane ship, an aeroplane that turns into a ship when it falls into the water and for Av, it's a submarine.
J pulled out a long strip used for compartmentalizing from inside one of the boxes, wrapped it around himself and said “Ma’am, this is my seat belt”.
Ad and An playing ‘Peek a boo’. And on and on they went with their wonder, excitement and endless bouts of imagination!
Often as adults, we are so clouded by our understanding of how things work, that we forget to understand what it means to play. It then gets easier to teach children what things do before letting them tinker, experience and learn by themselves first. If we step back and observe with an intention to know them rather than teach them, we will see that everything that comes across as ambiguous about our children will begin to inspire us. They are exploring the new world around them, constantly making connections, learning from everything they see or do and reproduce it in different ways.
And we can contribute in their journey by learning to explore with them.
Contributed by Yashika CG, Asst. Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz.
And we can contribute in their journey by learning to explore with them.
Contributed by Yashika CG, Asst. Learning Facilitator at Sparkling Mindz.
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