By Todd Erickson, Head Teacher
A play-fueled morning in East AM is filled with opportunity, excitement and wonder. Dramatic play and oral, visual and written storytelling bring imaginative narratives to life. Around the classroom, children engage deeply with Bing’s basic materials (blocks, clay, paint, sand and water), supporting the notion that children approach their play with the same seriousness that adults approach their professions. In the sand area, rivers are planned and excavated. At the water table on the patio, measurement and conservation become part of the hands-on experience. Inside, children manipulate balls of clay, applying a sense of aesthetics with a potent mixture of fine and large motor skills. Nearby, the paint easels invite rich and satisfying self-expression and experiments with color, texture and space.
Meanwhile, the East AM child interested in building with blocks has several options. Unit blocks, which were invented over 100 years ago and have since become a staple of early childhood education, are inside our classroom and can be used for abstract and representational building on a smaller scale. Outside in the area known as the neighborhood, a storage shed holds our newest blocks, known as Outlast blocks. Resembling huge wooden Lego pieces, these interlocking blocks create more prescribed building possibilities while also allowing for greater structural stability.
Located on our patio are the hollow blocks. Hollow blocks are substantial, sturdy and, thanks to open ends on either side, easy to carry and move. Crafted out of maple by Community Playthings, hollow blocks come in square, rectangular and triangular ramp shapes as well as flat boards. The smallest rectangular blocks are 5 1/2 inches high, 5 1/2 inches deep and 11 inches long, while the biggest rectangular blocks are 5 1/2 inches high, 11 inches deep and 22 inches long. As might be obvious from these dimensions, one of the potent features of hollow blocks is the representative pretend play they engender.
This year, the East AM children were especially driven, regardless of age, gender or experience, to create structures that allowed for play in, on and under these simple yet elegant design components. On any given day, our entire collection of hollow blocks (well over 100) was in use by the industrious and adventuresome builders!
Building homes is a basic and powerful use of the hollow blocks. Simply by stacking the rectangular blocks on their long ends, a child can easily compose what looks like a wall. This was the idea a 5-year-old girl brought to the patio one morning as she repeatedly stacked pairs of our smallest rectangular hollow blocks on their short ends to build four walls. After finishing her walls, the girl laid our flat boards across her structure to create what appeared to be a roof. In addition, she created shelves for plastic plates and cups by again stacking the small rectangular blocks on their long, flat sides. Her structure was not only functional, with a space within the walls and under the roof to play, but also visually appealing. After finishing her work, the young architect climbed atop her home and used two blocks as pillows for her mid-morning nap.
As is often the case in East AM, that morning several hollow-block structures were simultaneously taking shape. Across the patio rug from the child above, two 4-year-old twin sisters were crafting a home of their own with a 5-year-old female playmate. While their building was slightly lower to the ground and featured fewer walls, the girls were enjoying their big screen television, made out of blocks. “You are the mom and we are the sisters,” one twin told the 5-year-old. “And we’re watching TV!” When the blocks became the symbol that represented a television, the girls were engaged in symbolic representation—the process of using symbols to take the place of other objects (or concepts). This process becomes paramount as children apply their symbolic representation skills to making sense of the symbols known as letters and numbers.
Just as important to the three children, however, was the dramatic play stimulated by their newly constructed home. Play invites children to try on new or reinvented roles and construct rules that allow them to make greater sense of their play scenario and, in so doing, the world around them. In this instance, one child was able to try on the role of a mother, while the sisters were experimenting with household rules like the use of the television. Our hollow blocks served as a springboard for this dramatic play episode.
On a separate morning, a 4-year-old boy approached the blocks and began to build what looked like mirror-image, back-to-back staircases out of the rectangular hollow blocks. Once he was satisfied with this portion of his work, he placed triangular blocks atop each of the rectangles, creating identical, back-to-back ramps that offered the opportunity for children to walk up and then down. “It’s a roller coaster,” he told the curious children in the area as he moved up and over the pinnacle he had created. Some of his peers challenged their sense of balance as they traversed the roller coaster hill while others moved in to help him finish the rest of the roller coaster “tracks” that ran in a large oval around the edges of the patio rug. A playmate engaged in emergent literacy, as he set to work writing and mounting a sign for the roller coaster. The roller coaster creator then cut paper into tickets and handed the tickets to children interested in sampling his new ride. Once the tickets were given away, he switched roles and became the ticket taker as his peers embarked on their roller coaster journey. His sense of ownership, pride and competence swelled as he not only built his own roller coaster but also entertained his classmates. The children who rode the roller coaster were able to test their sense of balance and large motor strength as they made their way up and over the hill, holding a teacher’s hand if needed. By facing and moving through a physical challenge, children built both self-assuredness and physical capacity.
One of the exciting aspects of working with young children is witnessing the endless creativity they bring to their play. The very same hollow blocks that once served as homes and a roller coaster were put to a very different use on a separate occasion. Two 4-year-old boys began by first constructing four tall walls that created a long, narrow enclosure. Next they carefully placed a series of rectangular blocks along the top edges of the walls. When a teacher inquired about their block structure, one of the children replied, “It’s an army castle.” With this information, the rectangles were transformed into castle battlements or perhaps turrets, and our two builders were now the lords of this formidable structure.
No sooner had they finished building than other children were interested in stepping inside. At first, the two children were hesitant. They had worked for almost 40 minutes to create their castle and were worried that visitors might knock down their structure. This was an instance for a teacher to facilitate a dialogue between the builders and their prospective visitors. The builders requested care and respect from the visiting children, while the visitors assured the two boys that they would be vigilant. This bit of conversation allowed both sides to experience successful problem-solving, reinforcing the power of words and listening. And through the sharing of needs and hopes, the children were also able to widen their perspective-taking skills. These skills allow a child to more fully consider the viewpoint of a peer and are an important part of friendship, collaboration and empathy.
As East AM children pursue deeper understanding of, and meaning from, the world around them, the hollow blocks become an essential part of their hands-on experience. In addition to providing a tremendous amount of fun, these blocks offer children repeated opportunities to bolster their fine and large motor abilities, their social-emotional skills and their cognitive growth. As a teacher of young children, it is inspiring and invigorating to witness children committed to their open-ended play with hollow blocks, one of Bing’s trusted basic materials.