In this video, Emeret, 14 months, reads herself a story as the morning is getting started. She sits with her book, opens it to the first page and vocalizes, “Um, yum yum.” Emeret turns to a page in the middle of the book again vocalizing, “Um, yum yum.” As…
Play this video and notice the strategies listed below. Think about their meaning, purpose or effect. Speculate on what the teacher may have been thinking that led to her words and actions.
First segment
The use of an orange to give the butterfly a safe and attractive…
The heart of constructivism lives in the concept that children see what they can understand. Across time a child will “see” more as she develops an ability to read higher levels of complexity in the events that happen in front of her. The child’s attempts…
Bret’s Standing Log – Reflecting on what did not happen
My amazement at children’s natural intelligence began with a single event, so mundane yet so profound that I can see it yet 48 years later. Bret, age two, was dragging a medium size fireplace log across the yard….
In this video clip, Sohum, 20 months old, attempts to stand three thin square blocks in a row, like dominoes, an arrangement he has just finished building with ease, announcing loudly as he stands (00:16) with words to the effect, “I did that!” At 00:42, Sohum’s legs tire of…
Why would a 21-month-old child find satisfaction in fitting wooden clothespins over the edge of a square plastic container? Before we look at her skill, we should speculate on what drives her to action. Too often we just start with the children’s strategies and how clever they are. But…
Two girls practice their English vocabulary using felt board cutouts. They obviously are having fun naming the cutouts as they place them on the felt board. See if you can identify places where they are using language (either English or Spanish) in ways more advanced than naming objects.
Block building encourages children to think about potential solutions to interesting and varied problems. In this video, Ria builds a ‘spaghetti-maker’. The vertical dowels that inspired her idea prevent her from inserting a horizontal dowel between the same pair of cubes. She first removes the vertical dowel from the…
Block building provides children opportunities to think about potential solutions to interesting and varied problems. In this videative, Ria explores available materials by putting a dowel through a hole in a cube. Soon, however, she encounters a problem: the first dowel that inspired her continued exploration prevents her from…
