By Rinna Sanchez-Baluyut, Head Teacher
Building ramps and rolling a variety of objects down the resulting slopes captivated children in the Twos classroom this school year. The interest arose after teachers placed plastic rain gutters and a variety of balls on the patio for the children to explore.
Children in the Monday/Wednesday/Friday AM and Tuesday/Thursday PM classes placed the gutters at varying heights and experimented with rolling whiffle balls, tennis balls, wooden balls, hacky sacks and rubber band balls. Many children gravitated toward this activity and were fascinated to see how the balls traveled at varied speeds. A child observed, “These small balls are the fastest.” Hacky sacks did not roll—they just slid down—which puzzled the children. They continued to slide these bean bag-like balls down the gutters, and after a while realized that they needed to exert more force to make them go all the way down.
As the weeks went by, we offered a wide range of gutter layouts, including some pipes, tubes, rubber ramps and blocks, that provided varying heights and surfaces for children to explore. After repeated experiences, one child formed a theory about why some balls roll faster than others: “This incline is higher and the ball rolls faster.” Additionally, as children became more comfortable using these open-ended materials, they were often seen adjusting them to control the distance and direction the balls would go.
We extended this play by adding small vehicles for children to use with the gutters. This added a different kind of experience for the children, as the cars and airplanes had wheels and moved along the gutters differently than the balls had. Given more time and opportunities with the same vehicles, the children continued to experiment with the gutters. One child used a chair to prop up both ends of a gutter and create a bridge for the vehicles to cross. Then the same child explored other ways to use the gutter. While the vehicles were all parked at the bottom end of the gutter, he decided to lift that end and cause all the vehicles to roll backward, right into the bin used to store them. This demonstrated his understanding that adjusting the height of these gutters influenced the movement of the vehicles.
We also placed gutters in the water table along with some toy boats, ducks and fish—at first a short piece of gutter for children to test out, and then longer gutters so they could extend their play. Using water in the gutters offered an additional learning experience for the children. They investigated ways to pour water down the gutter to make the boats, ducks and fish flow down. They learned that adjusting the angle and amount of water produced varying results. Even when children weren’t able to attain their immediate goals, they persevered with this play, exhibiting an amazing amount of resilience.
Through their repeated play with gutters, children gained a better understanding of inclines and began independently pursuing these interests in various areas of the classroom. For instance, in the block area, a child used unit blocks to build a ramp for her cars. The child stacked several blocks and then leaned a long block against the stack, creating a slope. She then excitedly exclaimed, “I made a ramp. It’s ready.” As she gathered several small cars, she said, “I need lots of cars to go down the ramp.” She then positioned the car at the top of the ramp and excitedly exclaimed, “See how it goes … it went down!” The child was happy with the success of her ramp and then turned to a friend and offered her a car, saying “Your turn!” In another instance, the children excitedly played with toy school buses outside on the patio, moving the buses from one end of the road to the other. While exploring the buses and roads, a child decided he needed ramps. The child went over to the area in the classroom with hollow blocks, picked up a long board and carried it over to the carpeted platform where the buses were being used and propped this piece on the edge to create a ramp. While this was being carried out, another child quietly observed what he was doing and began helping. This child got more wooden planks to add a longer ramp. Without any hesitation or any requests for help, these two children built a longer ramp together.
Evidently, the act of playing with ramps inspired social engagement and collaboration. The children invited one another to play, took turns and shared materials, and collectively built inclines. The children exhibited resilience and perseverance while figuring out ways to make the ramps work, and they exercised problem-solving skills when some of the ramps fell down and came apart.
Additionally, these open-ended materials supported the learning of many scientific and mathematical concepts, such as force, pressure, gravity and cause-and-effect. Through trial and error, children gathered information regarding the movement of balls and vehicles, made predictions about which items would roll faster or slower, and learned that the height and angle of slopes affect how the objects on them roll. They frequently exercised mathematical skills such as counting (“I have four balls”), sorting (organizing the different kinds of balls and vehicles), comparing (“These small balls roll the fastest”), and understanding spatial relationships (honed as they arranged the blocks to create the ramps). Through active engagement with these materials, children learned so many essential skills, and, most importantly, they loved the joy of learning through play!