Evolution of a Project - Puppet Show

It all started with me showing Sid and Nidhi an empty cardboard box used to hold oranges and asking "What does this remind you of?" and it snowballed into a big project!

They quickly responded looking at the box, "A Window!", "No! A Gingerbread house!"

"Hey Mom! Can you give this to us?". Sure, I handed over the box and they started to look for materials to convert it into a house.

Nidhi pulled out a roll of unopened contact paper and inserted it into the handle of the box making it look like a tent pole. Then came the roof of cardstock attached with tape. 

"Hey! Let us decorate the roof. I ll draw candy canes.",said Sid.

Decorating the roof of their Gingerbread House

"Look Sid, I have drawn checkered pattern on roof!",  exclaimed Nidhi.

"Really?! Checkered like the Window? That's good!", complimented Sid.

The house was ready but the roof kept falling down and they found a wooden arch to reinforce it.

Now, they wanted to do a puppet show of Hansel and Gretel with opera music using this Gingerbread house like in Curious George episode "Sock monkey opera". I offered them a few animal finger puppets we had at home. They put on a show with a moose, a parrot and a mouse for a few minutes.

Trying out puppet show with animal finger puppets

Then Sid said, "This is Gingerbread house, so we need a witch." "If you want a witch you have to make it", I replied.

"How to make one?", they asked.

I pulled out the iPad and showed them a few images of puppets made with strings and puppets made out of cardstock. They studied it very carefully for sometime and started to source their materials.

Sid started to make a witch, a fairy and Hansel. Gretel was missing.

Fairy, Witch and Hansel - Popsicle stick puppets

 Nidhi was working on tying a couple of pipe cleaners, a lace and a cube. I assumed she was trying to make a String puppet. She said  "This is a swing. See, it swings."

String Contraption made by Nidhi

They tried their puppets peeking in and out of Gingerbread house.

Trying out popsicle stick puppets in Gingerbread house 

 Then suddenly declared "We need long paper".  With a long roll of easel paper they began drawing scenery (a tree, forest, house etc.) for the Hansel and Gretel story.

Preparing the scenery for the puppet show

Time to prop up the scenery. Nidhi requested us to load the easel board with scenery. With a little bit of help from us, the stage was set to perform the Hansel and Gretel puppet opera. Rolling and unrolling the easel rod changed the scenery.

I was amazed to see Nidhi sticking her fairy puppet on the String contraption to make it fly!

Nidhi changing scenery with one hand and making her fairy puppet fly with the other

They were engrossed in it the whole day and put on multiple shows for dad and grandparents.

It was great to see their little project evolve from a simple box for oranges to a full blown puppet show.

It was a long, hard work full of creating, problem solving and troubleshooting. Most of all, it was a blast!!

Encouraging Block Play - A Progressive Approach For Young Toddlers And Preschoolers

Blocks are the most versatile, open ended toys that can be lifelong companion to any child.

A lot of research talk about why block play is important in toddlers and preschoolers.

I read up on those research articles and felt pressured that I have been losing time on introducing blocks to Sid and Nidhi. So, I hurriedly bought our first set of blocks from IKEA and presented it to the twins when they were almost 2 years old.

I was eagerly awaiting to watch them start stacking right away but to my dismay it laid unattended. If you are in that phase right now, relax! We are well past that stage now and blocks are an integral part of play in our everyday life now. How we did it? OK, Let me share my step by step progressive approach in keeping my then young toddlers( now young preschoolers) interested in blocks.

1. Start with building Horizontally and use pattern/idea cards

       Start slowly introducing blocks for very young toddlers.Though our mental image of blocks are tall stacked towers and castles, using them for particular task gives the toddler focus and a sense of accomplishment. Start with shape and color matching or sorting activities.
I made simple laminated pattern cards of cars, trucks, trains etc with the blocks I had and put them on their montessori shelves for matching. Make sure each card has not more than 4-5 blocks to start with.
Using magnetic blocks on cookie sheets can help reduce frustrations.

Laminated card made to match blocks

2.  Shift to building vertically and use pattern/idea cards

       Once you feel your child is ready for some tumbling excitement present the same blocks with idea cards such as a bridge, a house, a rocket etc.. The cards can be hand drawn 2D shapes or photo print of simple structures built by you.  This is basically a copy and build activity. To keep the interest alive you can present them with progressively complex structures.

An inspiration card for building a Rocket

3. Set up provocations with pictures of real structures

       Once your child has mastered copy and build with blocks or his interest has moved on, challenge your child to build with pictures of real structures. I set up provocations with pictures of castles, downtown, bridges etc and ask them if they can replicate the structures.
Take care to provide block shapes equivalent to the shapes in the real structure to avoid frustrations when introducing this step.

A provocation set to build castles

4. Enhance block play with add-on materials

       As your child gets older his play gets structured, imaginative and intentional. He starts to build with intent. To encourage this phase, introduce other materials in your block play area. The materials can also act as subtle hints on what they can build. For example, adding animal figurines with blocks can lead to building a barn/zoo. Adding peg people/cars can lead to building a community or race tracks...
Follow your child's current interest and add materials accordingly.

A Barn built with Magna Tiles and Animal Figurines

5. Encourage Tinkering with Blocks

        This suggestion is useful for older preschoolers who are interested in creating or tinkering. Present materials for tinkering such as glue sticks, velcro, scotch tape, masking tape, straws, cardboard tubes etc in the block play area. We found that foam blocks are great to tinker with.

A Tower crane lifting a bunch of sticks - built with Foam blocks, Tape, Cardstock and Straws

PS:
1.  These ideas came out of  my experiences with my kids and we are still exploring. There are many other ways to encourage block play if these don't work for you.
2.   Leave out the blocks for easy access and your kids will surprise you one fine day.
3.  If blocks are left unattended for long time, sit and build something by yourself and the kids will surely follow you.

Finally, there is no one way of playing with blocks. If your child only loves to knock off your beautiful structures, so be it! Just relax and have fun!!

Past week - A Photo Journal

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood." - Fred Rogers.

Here are some snapshots of some play based learning that I happened to capture last week.

Math Provocation - Button grouping

I arranged this simple provocation with a bowl of buttons and muffin tin.

  "How many different ways can you group/sort these buttons?"

I was very curious to see what kind of answers Sid and Nidhi could come up with. 

Past weeks update - First experiences

The past couple of weeks has been fun with a few first experiences. I am recording our explorations via pictures.

Air Dry Clay Modelling

We enjoyed our first modelling experience with Air Dry clay. It was a great sensory and fine motor activity. The kids tried to create snowmen, pinch pots, rings, cookies,buttons, happy faces etc.
They molded, stamped, kneaded and rolled. They learnt the tactic of sticking clay pieces with little water. We are going to color the clay pieces once they dry out.

Our little Snowmen creations standing tall

Trying to make a pinch pot - a great fine motor exercise

Making a ring out of clay

Holiday Show Performance

The twins were part of Holiday show called "Festival of lights" at their school. Sid played a Dreidel and Shrinidhi, a Snowflake. It is their first time getting on stage and I am happy for the way they carried themselves. Here is a snap shot of them in their partial costumes before the performance.

All set to become Snowflake and Dreidel 

The Nutcracker Ballet 

A most exciting experience of all has been our visit to watch live performance of The Nutcracker Ballet. This was a first theater experience for us adults too in USA and we loved it. The kids were leaping, twirling and role playing the Nutcracker and Clara ever since. 

                                                 

Are you ready to spin Sid?

"Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression" - Dr. Haim Ginoff

Hope these first experiences have made deep impressions in their mind. :)

Check our last week photo journal to peek into their other activities.

Also visit our Math Provocations to see our explorations in Mathematics.

The Conveyor belt Project

The twins were playing with their tricycles yesterday and suddenly they put their trikes upside down and started rotating the pedals giggling heavily.
"What are you doing?"
"We are moving the ducks."
"Ducks? What ducks?"
"Like George!"

I thought for a second and then it struck me. They are mimicking Curious George from TV. In one of the episodes, Curious George builds a conveyor belt system to help his friend Allie to get better at a bean bag throwing game at a fair.
The conveyor system looked like this.

Looking at their enthusiasm, I asked "Would you like to build the system like George?"

They got very excited.

I provided them with a elastic band I had in hand and they threaded it around the wheels. 

"How are you going to join the ends of this band?"

"TAPE!!" 

Scotch tape has been our universal go getter to bond anything in our house nowadays.

So I gave them the tape and they taped the ends of band.

Now for the ducks, Shrini tried to draw ducks and Sid cut small pieces of cardstock claiming them as ducks. They stuck the ducks to the belt with tape.

Now, time for testing. We faced many problems.

1. The tape to join the ends of band didn't work. We had to think of plan B. When asked what other option they have Shrini asked me to pin the ends. It worked better.

2. The ducks didn't stick well to the belt. But it didn't bother them much. They kept on taping it again as they fell.

3. The belt(band) did not stay on the wheels. It kept sliding out so much that the frustration levels were increasing. Shrini then taped the band to the wheels and it worked better.

4. They were moving the wheels when rotating the pedals and it caused the band to come off.

Here is a short video of the conveyor belt working.

Such a seemingly simple system and yet so much of trouble shooting and fixing. They also explored different ideas like 

What would happen when you rotate both wheels in different directions?

Can you keep the system going by rotating only one wheel?

Though the idea is not original, I loved that they learnt persistence, patience, trouble shooting and of all a big idea that you can build something by watching TV!

Their eyes were gleaming with a sense of accomplishment and mine with pride :)

Our Music and Sound Inquiry continues...

In Inquiry based learning, the learning is not steady paced. Instead, it ebbs and flows along with the interest of children. Our Music and Sound exploration has been our favorite and longest running inquiry till date. How do I know if the kids have temporarily paused an interest in a topic or they have completely moved on to a different subject? I observe their talks and play to know their interests.
I set up provocations like the xylophone exploration, water xylophone exploration or making musical instruments to see if they are willing to take their explorations further.

We have been listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons Violin concertos frequently.

"How do you feel when you listen to this music?" I asked. They responded with feelings of happiness and sadness. They could relate the tempo of music with emotions. The faster the tempo, Sid said "I feel happy". With slow tempo he said he felt sad whereas Shrini said "I am happy but I think the Violin is sad!".

We have started discussions on compositions and composers. Sid asks "Is composer a conductor?"
I am trying to find right kind of resources to explore more on this topic with them. This inquiry may be slow paced but I love that the interest sustains and hope to update more on this soon. 

Integrating Music and Pattern Inquiries

" Even the youngest children have the potential to inherently respond to music and the mathematical constructs it contains."

I recently came across this article on The Patterns of Music which talks about importance of exposure to music at early years to support developing mathematical concepts in children from infancy to 5 years of age. Coincidentally the twins' teacher also suggested to get them a xylophone at home to practice music. So I did and took this as an opportunity to let them make the connection between music and pattern inquiries.

Xylophone exploration:
    I presented the xylophone with color coded music sheet for playing "Twinkle Twinkle little star". To my surprise, Shrini very quickly caught on the concept of playing according to the notes. Very soon she started singing along "Red,Red, Blue,blue, Indigo,Indigo,Blue" to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle little star. Then she observed "Look Mom, it is like AB pattern 2 times".
Here is a short video of her playing the tune the first time.

She also observed that the xylophone had rainbow colors and decided to paint one by herself.

We are now planning to explore what patterns we can find in "Baa Baa black sheep". What fun!!

Can you make Musical Instruments?

Provocation : Random objects

Can you make musical instruments with these objects?

I set up this provocation to check if it would provoke an interest in the mechanics of musical instruments. Here are pictures of what they tried and explored.

Does it make sound when I blow through a ring?

"Hey! This looks like a Tambourine but doesn't make sound when I shake it?"

"This bowl is just a drum."

"This is Not a Straw! This is a drum stick!"

"This foil makes sound when I fold it!"

"Stringing couple of rings makes a chime"

"Look mom! I filled this shaker with water and now shaking it makes sound!"

Number Sequencing

Provocation : Glass gems numerals and a muffin pan
What can you do with these numbers?

I set up this provocation yesterday asking the kids "What can you do with these numbers?" I also presented a chart from 1-20 hoping to give a hint on number sequencing. Sid instantly picked up on the hint and started to arrange the numbers in sequence in each muffin cup. Shrini also helped him pick the numbers he wanted out of the bowl. Soon, they had sequenced numbers from 1-20.

 Then they encountered a gem marked with zero. They both had a brief discussion on where should zero go.  It was not in the chart I had given them.I was curious to see what they conclude and they both agreed to place it after 20.

So much of thinking, team work and decision making process behind such a simple open ended question!
Next, it was Shrini's turn.She quickly filled the muffin cups with a gem each in random order. Then she counted the empty cups and said "Mom, I need 3 more of these (gems) to fill this tray." Yup, that's another way of doing this Math! :)

Simple Provocation: Household Objects

The idea behind this provocation is to encourage the twins to view the world around them in 3D. At first I thought of presenting them a few pictures of buildings such as the Louvre museum, Pisa tower, Egyptian pyramid. However apart from identifying the shapes of those structures, I wasn't sure how far they will take the inquiry further.

I also wanted to present to them the fact that most of the structures are made of multiple three dimensional shapes.

So I printed out a couple of castle images and presented it along with a few household objects.

Here is a snapshot of the provocation that was presented.

Simple Provocation - Household Objects

"Hey! Look at all those shapes!" exclaimed Shrini. I am glad she could perceive those objects as shapes rather than considering them as is.

I showed them the castle images and asked them what do they see. They listed all shapes they could identify. 

"Can you build your own castle?". They happily obliged and here are the snapshots of structures they built.

In the background, Shrini carefully studying the castle image before starting to build hers.

 Tada! Look at my castle!

"No Sid! This castle has a cone. You don't have one"- Shrini. "OK, Here's one with a cone"

Sid trying to balance a cube on top of the funnel. 

"Look Amma! Here is the gate that opens and closes"

"Will it stay or fall?!!" It stayed!

This was the most complex of all structures they could build.

Of course, blowing away the structure is more fun than building it.

Sid and Shrini started enacting the scene from Three little pigs - "Iam going to huff and going to puff and blow your house down!"

They discussed about different shapes, balancing them and wondered why it was easy to blow the cardboard tubes but not wooden cubes. Without a doubt, they had a blast!

The Shopping Project

"I want to go shopping" said Nidhi, "Me too!” joined Sid carrying their Halloween baskets. They just wanted to pretend play. An inquiry on shopping is filled with early learning opportunities. Here is the conversation that happened next.

Me: What do you want to buy?

They: Fruits and vegetables!

Me: Do you have any money?

They: No!

I suggested them to make some money and Nidhi volunteered happily.

She cut paper, drew circles on one side and the corresponding numbers on the other side. She wanted to write the numbers by herself and to my surprise switched to tally marks whenever she couldn't draw the numeral. Sid joined in to paste some stickers for the circles.

Making money

I provided them some fresh fruits and vegetables to set up shop.

"We want shopping list". I wrote a couple of grocery list.

They wanted me to play the role of shopkeeper which I happily accepted. Then they counted, collected the items as per the list, waited for their turn for billing. I billed them and gave receipts. They identified the currency for the amount in the receipt and paid me. This went on for many rounds till I got exhausted and had to announce that the shop is closed.

Collecting items- selecting right amount of money- billing-checking receipt

They also figured out that 'Tomatoes are squishy', 'thin carrots are breakable' and 'Chayote squash is heavier'. In my opinion, they could not have figured these facts out if they were given play food and vegetables.

I was amazed at the amount of learning that happened in the hour of this pretend play. I am listing the learning outcomes below.

1.     Counting practice- counting the items as per the list, counting the dots on money to identify the right amount etc.

2.     Subitizing - speedy recognition of number representations.

3.     Writing skills and reinforcing tally mark.

4.     Fine motor skills - cutting, sticker activities.

5.     Identification and categorization of fruits and veggies.

6.     Learning grace and courtesy - we modeled courteous conversations such as “Thank you for shopping with us", "May I help you!" etc.

7.     Taking turns and learning to wait in line patiently.

Perhaps these outcomes can be achieved by making a real trip to the grocery store but this role play gives chances for repetition, widens their imagination, deepens their confidence and gives a chance to sharpen many skills that may not be part of real life experience.

I can see this project extending in many dimensions like 

1.     An art project to design name and logo for the shop

2.     A math project where simple additions, concepts of pricing, weighing etc. can be introduced

3.     A science project in which various fruits and veggies and their nature are discussed.

What's my learning outcome as a guide/facilitator?

Don't ignore kids when they pretend play. Engage and aid them and be amazed by finding out how much they are capable of learning.