Learning & Development: Schemas Part 3 - Observing ... Reece

Reece started at Pen Green Nursery in October last year, aged two years 11 months, and attends nursery five afternoons a week. He has settled in easily to the nursery routine and coped well with his transition in to the nursery.

Home context

Reece lives with his mother, father and two sisters, aged 12 and 18 months. He also has an older brother, Carl, who lives away from home at university. His mother said that at home, Reece has enjoyed using a construction set with real screwdrivers and likes taking items apart and putting them back together (disconnecting and connecting). She said he also loves playing outdoors, especially climbing on the apparatus in the park and playing on the trampoline in their garden (trajectory).

Observations at nursery

Reece has been able to explore and engage confidently with the resources. Some of the observations made in his first two months included :

- Reece has spent lots of time exploring the nursery garden and he usually chooses to go outside as soon as he arrives at nursery.

- Reece (2 years 11 months) repeatedly went down the fireman's pole (trajectory) and through the tunnel slide (going through a boundary).

- He enjoyed climbing up the scramble net and the climbing wall (trajectory).

- Reece (3 years 0 months) spent time at the workbench, using the saw to cut through pieces of wood, passing the saw backwards and forwards through the wood (trajectory). Cutting the wood was functionally dependent on moving the saw backwards and forwards.

- In the block area, Reece lined up the blocks in straight lines to make his construction (lines).

- In the home corner, he was interested in how the handle of the toaster moved up and down (trajectory). He pressed the light switch on and off several times. He seemed interested in the light going on and off. The light going on is functionally dependent on the switch being pressed.

- Reece often paints pictures and then covers them over with paint (envelopment).

- Reece used the glue gun to attach cardboard circles in a line to his piece of wood (connection and lines). Connection is functionally dependent on covering the surface with glue.

Supporting Reece's explorations

Reece's schemas have been recognised, supported and extended by his parents and nursery workers. We looked at 'Possible Lines of Direction' for all areas of the EYFS curriculum and planned experiences and resources to support and extend his schemas by providing:

- A set of cogs for making connecting lines

- A glue gun for connecting and model making

- Electric circuits - connecting for electricity to travel through

- Marble run - tubes that connect together for marbles to go through

- Trip to the water therapy room to create trajectories with a shower hose

- Literature, for example Anthony Browne's The Tunnel (Walker Books) with an emphasis on going through

- Using a rocket set - creating trajectories using forces

- Dominoes - making lines and connections

- Train track - making lines and connections

- Tubing and funnels - to create possibilities for going through and creating trajectories

- Lengths of guttering - to create possibilities for changing the direction of trajectories using water, balls or other materials

- Using a zip line - to physically feel the trajectory with his whole body.

Observation of Reece (3 years 1 month)

Reece was in the discovery area. He had been experimenting with adjusting the force of the water from the tap to fill a jug. At first, the pressure was so great that it caused the water to shoot back out of the jug (see box on Newton's Law). After three attempts, he was able to adjust the force of the water, so that it stayed inside the jug.

Reece found a length of plastic tubing, which he tried to connect to the tap, but was unable to because it was too rigid (fig 1).

He watched another child, Leon, connect tubing to the tap. Reece watched as water flowed through the tube and said, 'I can do it. I had that.' He then selected a piece of hosepipe that had a connector attached (fig 2).

Reece attempted to attach the hosepipe to the tap, holding it in place as he turned on the water. He seemed to be aware that the hosepipe was not connected securely as he looked back at it several times and then tried to wiggle it into place. Leon was holding the other end of the hosepipe. Reece negotiated with Leon to swap places and as they swapped, the hosepipe connector came off the tap.

Reece held the other end of the hosepipe, looked directly in to the end of it and asked, 'Where's the water?' (fig 3). At this point, Reece seemed more focused on the water coming through the pipe, so I decided to stop filming and help Leon fit the connector securely to the tap so that Reece could have the satisfaction of seeing the water come through.

Reece held the end of the hosepipe and used it to direct the flow of water, filling up the plant trough. He used one hand to angle the hosepipe upwards. As he did so, he was excited to find out that this caused the water to make an arc through the air (fig 4).

Reece spent time directing the water across the discovery area. He put his hand in front of the hosepipe and caused the water to spray up into his face. He dropped the hosepipe.

Learning

When Reece was trying to fill his jug at the tap, he was discovering force and its effects (see box on Newton's Law). He discovered how far to turn the tap, so that the water would stay inside the jug.

When he first tried using the tubing, he was finding out how things fit and connect together. When trying to connect the hosepipe, he was exploring how much force was needed to connect the hosepipe to the tap.

When negotiating with Leon to swap ends, Reece was finding out how to negotiate with his peers to follow his own interests.

Reece demonstrated a possible working theory - that the hose needed to be 'held by one of them' in order for it to remain connected, so that the water flowed through it. (When I fitted it securely, he may have seen that it did not need to be held.)

Once the water was flowing through the hosepipe, Reece experimented with creating a trajectory with the water. As the trajectory came under the influence of gravity, Reece discovered the physics of a parabola, which is dependent upon the force of the water and the angle at which the hose is held (see box for a definition of parabola). In this observation, Reece was able to co-ordinate his interest in connecting, going through a boundary and trajectory.

Developmental Levels

Schemas can be explored through:

- Senses and movement: Reece felt and saw the effect of his actions when he put his hand in front of the water and made it spray into his face.

- Functional dependency relationships: Reece discovered that the water flowing through was functionally dependent on the hose being connected to the tap.

- Symbolic representation: This occurs when children represent experiences and make one thing stand for another - for example, if Reece had said that the arc of water was like a 'rainbow'.

- Thought: This occurs when children discuss events in the absence of concrete reminders - for example, if, that evening, Reece had told his family about using the hosepipe at nursery.

DEFINITIONS

'A schema is a pattern of repeated actions. Clusters of schemas develop into later concepts' (Athey, 2003)

Schemas explored by the child in this article are:

- Trajectory - moving in or representing straight lines, arcs or curves

- Disconnection - reversing the connections made, resulting in greater understanding of connections and reversibility of operations

- Lines - using objects to create lines

- Enveloping - covering themselves, objects or a space

- Going through a boundary - causing oneself or some material to go through a boundary and emerge at the other side

- Newton's 3rd Law - of reciprocal actions: To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The force with which the water hits the base of the jug exerts a force of the same magnitude in the opposite direction, so the water shoots back out of the jug

- Parabola - the curved path followed by a missile or projectile

- Connection - connecting themselves to objects and objects to each other

Part 4 of this series by Pen Green practitioners will appear in the issue of 17 December