Extended Encounters: Part III

**This post is the third in a series about our three-month material investigation. To read more, go to the first post here.**

Going Deeper

Spending an extended period of time with the same material led many classrooms to really delve into the possibilities and potentials of their chosen area of exploration. Teachers and children alike developed new understandings and expanded their vocabularies as a result. 

“I never had the depth of knowledge [about natural materials] before… I was learning what items are called what names. I went from an admirer of nature to understanding a little bit more about it. They were playing around with it all the time… but some of their questions were fascinating and led to introducing new vocabulary like density. … and exploring along with kids perhaps at the same level at times brought me joy…. I don’t know why, but the whole time, a piece of poetry kept coming to my mind:

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 

And Eternity in an hour…”

 From Auguries of Innocence by William Blake

- Akbar, Toddler 2 North

“I think that the requirement of using the material in your curriculum everyday really forced our team to push past what the surface level uses of paper were. We spent the first weeks having paper in our room and building up our children's vocabularies about the material. But once we had spent a few weeks on that we were forced to dig deep into how paper can be used in the classroom. We found ourselves asking questions like  "what does paper sound like" or "what happens to paper when it gets wet." And as we expanded our idea of how "paper" could be in the classroom so too did our children. Today if you took all the paper out of our classroom, it would be mostly empty.”

- Wheeler, Toddler 1 South

“... because the kids are so much shorter, they would notice things on the ground, and it reminded me to look down not just up… and the question “what’s inside” sparked a lot of interest… it was amazing how happy or angry they got depending on what was inside the acorn.”

- Elayne, Toddler 2 North

“When we decided to explore natural materials for the first three months of the year, I had no idea how far we could go with offering authentic, raw materials from the outdoors. In the past, we had laminated leaves to offer our babies a close-up, yet indestructible way to access the leaves that fall to the ground. This year, we have offered fresh leaves, branches, pine cones, and even produce from our garden! … It’s been thrilling to see our babies, as young as three months, reach for and grasp leaves and pine cones. As they’ve grown, we’ve expanded our exploration by offering giant leaves from collard green plants, for example. How exciting it is to see how babies can make their mark, and thus, learn about natural materials, when they wouldn’t usually have access to them!”

- Christina, Infant South

“It all started with a lid. We brought lids into the classroom in August because it was a loose part that we had available to us. I had the expectation that children would use metal lids to explore sound. Although the infants did explore sound, I was amazed by the variety of ways children interacted with lids, and how their actions led us teachers in the development of our loose parts exploration over the past few months. After the children explored the sounds of the lids, they began experimenting with how the lids fit into different objects. This helped expand our loose parts curriculum into containers of different sizes. Next, the kids seemed interested in how the lids stick to other objects, and this informed our investigation of magnetic properties. The children currently seem interested in the shape of the lids, and we plan to investigate wheels and things that spin. I am amazed that the infants have shown interest in lids constantly for three months! I am fascinated by the new properties of this material that the kids continue to discover, and how their interactions with one material have been a driving force for our curriculum throughout the year. I am eager to see what the children discover next, both with lids and with other loose parts!”

- Hannah, Infant North