The children of preschool two love to build! They use wood, foam and plastic blocks; Duplo; cardboard, and various loose parts, to express themselves and explore creativity, size, shape, volume and balance. They especially love their magnetic tiles. This, along with the delivery of our new provocation mirrored table, and the joy of Christmas, inspired me.
I gathered together the different kinds of magnetic tiles, some LED tea lights, and magnetic loose parts: bells, pieces of pipe cleaner and magnetic coloured disks. I offered these items to the children as a provocation, carefully displayed on the mirror table, and let their self-expression and exploration go. The lights were on low in the room to empathize the glow and reflection.
I could see the excitement on the children’s faces as they watched me prepare the table. “Waiting,” I could hear Xavier say as he watched. At first it seemed to be about the schema of enclosing, as the children-built structures with the magnetic blocks to put things inside.
Nina made a cube with an open top and filled her cube with other smaller blocks as well as her tiny handfuls of bells.
Frankie built a cube as well but closed in the top of hers. Opening the front side like a door, she placed as many tea lights as she could fitting four inside.
Xavier began by stacking some of the tiles and then using two square tiles that met in the middle to create a triangle roof. He put a tea light inside.
A triangle roof was also evident on Matilda’s structure, but she used the four smaller triangles placed on each of the four sides of one square tile, with them all coming together at the middle.
“My house is glowing like Christmas,” Lincoln told me, placing her light inside her house, built with a full cube bottom and triangle top, and closing the roof, smiling.
Jack took one simple red square tile and added bells to the magnetic areas, began shaking it and singing jingle bells. You could then hear Theo, and Alex join in as they worked, and jungle bells filled the room.
Alex took the green square magnetic blocks, stacking them one by one on top of each other, and adding only one coin to the top; “look at my clock!” he told me, “It’s tall like a tower.”
Brody expanded on his structure. He built a base of squares standing up in a line horizontally and added triangles to the tops of each base. He then slid the tea lights inside as it balanced. Once the structure of the creation was finished, he began to decorate it with the various loose parts. He began with the bells, placing them at the joining corners and points. Some coloured coins were also added to the walls as if to be windows.
Kinga took a tea light off the table and examined it.
At this point Xavier was the first child to discover how to turn the lights on and off with the switch at the bottom. Lincoln and now Kinga followed.
Kinga turned hers on and off a few times and then placed it glowing on the table. She took some of the coloured coins and surrounded her tea light with them in a congruent circle. “It’s a campfire,” she told me. She then enclosed her campfire light with a cube she built with the magnetic blocks.
The children mostly worked independently, creating sculptures of light and colours, as they shared the materials provided. Their creativity and uniqueness were evident as they expressed their sense of self and a sense belonging. They worked, concentrating on their discoveries and their creations, showing perseverance and learning by play.
