Essential Resources: Schemes, Connecting - Follow a thread

When children have a repeated interest in connecting pieces of train track together, joining together cardboard boxes or sticking Sellotape to paper, the chances are they are exploring the connecting scheme.

Children with this scheme are also likely to knock down their constructions or take apart their carefully threaded pasta-tube necklaces in an effort to explore disconnection.

Lynnette Brock, director of SchemaPlay, says, ‘Observing children’s schemes, rather than simply looking at the resources as an interest, can help early years educators to effectively “seed” resources that are attuned to the child’s explorational interests.

‘By asking questions such as, “What are they finding out about through their operations and actions? Could it be that two things can connect? Or has this developed further and the child is investigating length, height, or that two or three objects can create one, such as two triangles forming a diamond?”, we can provide or “seed” the right resources to further the child’s interest in the scheme.’

SEEDING THE ENVIRONMENT

To support children’s exploration of the connecting scheme, early years educators can ‘seed’ the environment in the following way:

• Babies might enjoy playing with Velcro toys; wooden stackers; stacking cups; blocks; wooden drumsticks; or pans with lids.
• Toddlers often demonstrate more sophisticated investigations in their play: how to make different sounds or create different shapes with blocks or train tracks. They may explore height with Duplo blocks and Lego, or play with tessellation shapes to create patterns or new shape formations by bringing two shapes together (early fractions).
• Pre-schoolers may have the fine motor skills to thread beads on a shoelace to create a necklace or explore length and pattern; create a range of constructions and 3D shapes with connector straws, or build a tower with blocks that can be used to measure their height.
  
  

IN PRACTICE

St Peter and Emmaus, Wanslea Early Learning and Development (WELD) in Western Australia, has recently been using the local recycling centre to provide materials for the children who are ‘connectors’.

Kylie Ridder, pedagogical leader at WELD and lecturer at Murdoch University, who attended a schema play trainers’ workshop, says, ‘Matthew, aged two and a half, is particularly drawn to this scheme. When a range of loose parts are presented to him, he immediately starts connecting plastic and cardboard tubes together, taking them apart and using egg cartons and lids to create constructions.’

She adds, ‘Matthew’s key person, Fernanda Santiago, watches from the periphery and adds more loose parts to extend the play. When she adds small cardboard tubes, Matthew leaves what he’s doing and connects the tubes to his fingers, and experiments as they now become an extension of his fingers. Later, he takes them off and connects them to other loose parts in different ways. He appears to be exploring how to extend the length of objects.’

Children with a connecting scheme not only use it in their play, but also when building relationships with people and their surroundings.

Kylie says, ‘When Matthew enters the room, he is usually connected to his mum: through her hand or touching her body. As he transitions into the room, he connects himself to an educator until he feels ready to explore the environment. He likes to be connected to materials and he often carries an item in his hand as he plays.’

Matthew is now exploring the ‘rotation’ and ‘enclosure’ schemes, but his connecting scheme is still strong and remains the anchor in these operations and explorations.

Lynnette says, ‘Children need opportunities to combine their schemes; to see how they fit and do not fit in a range of contexts, thus developing scheme application competencies. This supports problem-solving, investigations, and enables complex operations to develop through child-led play, such as measuring, counting, adding and writing. Schemes are the foundations to all learning.’

EXPLORING MAGNETS

Three-year-old Dan, from Ryders Hayes Primary School in Walsall, is fascinated with magnets. This led to an adult-guided activity around what objects could be attracted to the magnet. When testing a wooden car, Dan announced, ‘Car like my Dad’s. It doesn’t stick to the magnet. It’s not magnetic. But it does have things that go on it. The wheels go on…but sometimes the car breaks… because the wheels come off.’

Dan’s key person, early years teacher Jennifer Adams, responded, ‘Yes, Dan, cars do have wheels and sometimes they do need to be taken off. I have a story book which is about wheels that get fitted to a car.’

After reading the book, Rattletrap Car by Phillis Root, they talked about how the family’s car fell apart and how the wheels and car parts all connect into position in order to work. The next day, his key person ‘seeded’ a wooden car in a garage, with one of the wheels missing.

Dan was immediately motivated to carefully find the axle, add the wheel and connect it to the car. His key person enabled a meaningful problem-solving activity, supporting an opportunity for Dan to own his achievement. He also started to explore inertia and force as he tested the car, pushing it harder and harder and then down a ramp.

Lynnette says, ‘The combining of Dan’s operational scheme, connecting, and his figurative schema knowledge of cars – what they look like and do – supported a wonderful opportunity to foster an engagement in a story. The schemes and schemas in the storyline are meaningful to him and may also support his narratives; small-world play; role-play; and engagement in new problem-solving skills.’

She adds, ‘Children’s scheme explorations are often creative, mathematical and scientific.’

RESOURCES TO SUPPORT CONNECTING

Construction:

• TTS’s Wooden Magnetic Construction Blocks, £84.99, have been designed for under-threes; and its Constructa Den, £179.99, can be fitted together to build all sorts of hideaways.
• Alice Sharp’s Eco Build a World, £149.99, available from TTS, can be used as a simple construction set or for complex creations.
• Early Excellence sells two complete sets – the BRIO Builder Resource Set, £185, and the Building and Constructing Complete Collection 3-7 years, £985. It also stocks the Set of Flexible Tubes & Connectors, £115, and a Set of Pipes & Bends, £69.95.
• Cosy’s Imagineering Blocks, £1,139, can be stacked, nested and lined up to create all sorts of structures. Use them outdoors with the H Crates Class Pack, £260, or the Wooden Chutes and Stands, £84.99, both from Cosy. For indoors, try Cosy’s Natural Build ‘a’ Boards, £345, or its Tinkering Blocks, £39.99.
  
  

Threading and peg board activities:

• Try TTS’s Wooden Threading Trees, £59.99, or its Giant Rainbow Peg Board, £15.99. For team collaboration, fit together the pieces in TTS’s Team Walker, £70.95, or try its Metallic Threading Set, £54.95.
• Yellow Door’s Threading Pebbles, £20, are a bestseller. And Cosy’s Threading Numbers and Letters, £31.99, are ideal for counting in ones and twos and seeing number patterns.
• Maths Boats and People, £49.99, are great little peg people that can be slotted into wooden boats or houses to make small-world scenes.
  
  

MORE INFORMATION

SchemaPlay has launched a Curriculum Wheel to support educators’ pedagogical knowledge and observation of schemes and to identify these exciting capabilities and findings that can be extended upon to support a joy of learning. For further information about SchemaPlay training, email: admin@schemaplay.com or visit www.schemaplay.com