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Exploration in the Sandbox: A Learning Story

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Exploration in the Sandbox: A Learning Story

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Nina, I saw you outdoors in the sandbox today playing with the sand. You were smiling while shoveling sand from the pile to the bucket. Your hands were careful while pouring the sand into the container, and you were sure not to drop any of the sand out. At one time, you calmly waited for your peer to take sand from the pile in front of you since he was between you and your bucket. Furthermore, you continued shoveling the sand by moving your arms in the right direction towards the bucket. You observed attentionally when I filled your peer’s cup with the sand from the pile you were playing on. You kept pouring the sand into the bucket when the interaction was over. After putting a considerable amount of sand into the container, you settled it with the shovel by patting it repeatedly. Some peers got beside you to play with the sand and you kept pouring the sand into your bucket, stopping sometimes to observe your peers' movements.

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In the demonstration of her play, Nina shows evidence of 4.4 Spatial Exploration, from the domain cognition. This is because it was observed that she was engaged in filling the bucket with sand by scooping and dumping the sand with her shovel. She also displays signs of the social domain by the root skill of 1.3 Parallel Play. For instance, she continued to play with the sand while the other two toddlers joined the sandbox to play. Nina also showed the 2.2 Behavior Regulation skill from the emotional domain. For example, while settling the sand into the bucket, she sometimes waited and controlled her impulses to keep on playing while her peers were trying to reach for sand from the same place that she was. Nina showed a sense of engagement when she focused her attention for a long period on the activity presented. For instance, the way she calmly waited for her peers' interference to continue her play and kept manipulating the objects around her.

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We observed that you are very interested in scooping, digging, and dumping. To help you develop your spatial awareness we will offer you more materials that allow you to explore how objects may fit in different situations. For instance, we can provide you with more gardening tools. In addition, we intend to hide a toy in the sandbox and make an invitation/provocation scenario for you to develop your spatial exploration skills. We also observed that you have started to develop your parallel play skills, we aim to provide you with more space in your chosen activities, allowing other peers to join you and scaffold this skill.

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What type of toys or activities that Nina is interested in that involve exploring space or objects?

Have you ever observed if Nina imitates what her playmate is doing?

How does Nina react while playing beside others?

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To continue developing this episode and use it for pedagogical documentation, we plan to use an iPad and a Chart Paper. Through the iPad, we are able to capture moments in videos and pictures, as the moment occurs. By using the Chart Paper, we can document specific ideas and observations that happened to support the continuum development of Nina.

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To include the voices of the family we plan to send through email the media taken in the iPad, including also a brief indication of what we observed and our prompts for her family. When the parents answer the email, we will connect and have a better understanding of Nina's family interactions and background.
By using the Chart Paper we are including the voices of our colleagues. We can write objective keywords about our observations and leave a pen available for them to give their suggestions.
When displaying the pictures taken on chart papers in the room, the voices of the children will be included. We will decorate the papers to be child-appropriate and while interacting with the children we can listen to their ideas. This way we can better plan our curriculum based on children's point of view. This action can also be shared with families and colleagues when occasionally entering the room.

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Ministry of Education. (2014). Excerpts from “ELECT”: Foundational knowledge from the 2007 publication of “Early Learning for Every Child Today: A Framework for Ontario Early Childhood Settings”. Government of Ontario.

RedleafPress. (2013, March27). Focused Observations Chapter 2 Video 3 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sl0Srx7P5s

Ministry of Education. (2014). How does learning happen? Ontario's pedagogy for the early years. Government of Ontario.