Learning & development schemas: part 6: Observing ... Jennifer

Jennifer is four years and two months old and has been attending the Pen Green Nursery for five afternoons a week since November 2008. She settled well into the nursery routine and enjoyed the new experience of being in nursery.

HOME CONTEXT

Jennifer lives in Corby with her mother Vesselina, her father Martin and younger sister Georgia. Although Jennifer settled well into nursery, I did notice, however, that her mother was struggling with Jennifer starting nursery and appeared anxious. Vesselina opened up to me and shared her worries and concerns that she had about the nursery.

It became apparent that the freedom and choices that we offer the children at Pen Green were quite a different experience to her own when she was a child growing up in Bulgaria. There, nursery was more structured and teacher-led, so Vesselina found it hard to see what the children would actually learn from an environment like ours.

I explained to Vesselina the principles behind the Pen Green approach, outlining the workshop environment that we offer and how allowing the children to lead their own learning supported by adults allows the children to embark on deep-level learning (Laevers, 1997).

Vesselina found the concept of schemas particularly enlightening in trying to understand what Jennifer was trying to find out about. She says that attending the Parents Involved in their Children's Learning (PICL) group has really changed her view of Jennifer's learning. She talks to her friends and family about how children learn through schemas and is now spotting the patterns in two-year-old Georgia's play as well.

From early observations of Jennifer at nursery and information from home, it was clear to me that Jennifer had a strong interest in Trajectory, Transporting, Lines and Connection (see definitions box).

At home Jennifer was displaying her schemas by:

- helping Daddy dig up the vegetables in the garden

- chopping up the vegetables to help make soup

- using rulers

- drawing lines

- transporting things around the house in her toy pushchair

- lining up objects - for example, newspapers and labels her mother brings home from work.

OBSERVATIONS AT NURSERY

Observations showed how Jennifer was exploring line and trajectory in a range of ways in the nursery. She would explore her interest by:

- Cutting the playdough with a knife

- Sawing wood at the woodwork bench

- Lining up and connecting the trains

- Using scissors to snip paper and cut art straws

- Watching the direction of water flowing through tubes at the water tray

- Using the guillotine

- Using the zip line in the garden

- Creating lines with many different objects

- Experimenting with the movement of the conveyer belt (from side to side).

- Observation 1: Jennifer uses the watering can (figs 1 and 2)

Jennifer, aged three years and one month, was playing on the 'beach'. She had been exploring the outside tap, filling the watering can and transporting the water over to the flowers. She repeated this process several times.

On one occasion while she was carrying the watering can, the water spilled out accidentally on to the decking. Jennifer noticed that the water coming out of the spout was creating a line on the wood. She was extremely interested in this discovery and focused her attention on creating the line.

One Jennifer had made a long line that she was satisfied with, she started to walk along it, then ran along the line. During this sequence Jennifer discovered that she could make a line on the decking by walking along and simultaneously regulating the amount of water she was pouring from the watering can. She seemed to be exploring Equivalence by seeing and experiencing with her whole body the water in the can and the same amount of water in a line.

- Observation 2: Jennifer makes a number line (figs 3 and 4)

Jennifer, aged three years and two months, had been enjoying playing hopscotch with the number tiles that I had set up in the corridor. She then went on to arrange the number tiles in a different way.

She started to line them up, placing one after another. She carried on placing the tiles carefully next to each other in a line up the corridor until she had used all the tiles. Again, Jennifer explored her line in a dynamic way by running up and down it.

It appears to me that Jennifer has a real interest in exploring size, shape and space by exploring it through her play and repeated actions, but also through her body when she explores the trajectory through her senses.

Chris Athey describes the line as the 'figurative' aspect of the schema and the movement is the 'dynamic' aspect (Athey, 1990).

- Observation 3: Jennifer uses the guillotine (figs 5 and 6)

I was using the guillotine when Jennifer, then aged three years and two months, became interested. I asked her if she would like a turn. She chose a long piece of paper and divided it into lots of narrow strips. The trajectory of the blade moving over the paper to cut the paper was very satisfying for her. Then she placed the strips in close proximity to each other to create another line - finding that a whole can be divided into parts and parts make up a whole.

Exploring lines will lead on to Jennifer developing an understanding of length, distance/measurement and in the future time, height/depth, beginning and end - all concepts she will use in later life.

- Observation 4: Jennifer draws lines

Around the same time (when three years four months), Jennifer began drawing lines both horizontally and vertically and intersecting them at right angles.

- Observation 5: Jennifer makes a number line (figs 7 and 8)

Just this week, more than a year after she started using the number tiles and now aged four years and three months, Jennifer created a line from one to 18 in the correct order, with no help.

She then asked what comes next. I repeated '18...?' Jennifer thought and said '19?' I asked her 'Do you know what 19 looks like?' She shook her head. I said '1 and...?' She responded by saying '9' and ran off and found the tile with 19 on it. We continued like this until she had used all the tiles, which went up to 24.

LEARNING

- In Observation 1, Jennifer observed how she could change the appearance of the water by pouring it in a line. She experienced the length of the line by walking along it.

- In Observation 2, Jennifer made a long line with tiles, a very different material to the liquid used previously.

- In Observation 3, Jennifer began with a long line and divided it up, showing she understood the function of the guillotine.

- In the fourth observation Jennifer used her up-and-down and side-to-side action to leave a mark, showing a co-ordination of horizontal and vertical trajectories.

- In the fifth observation Jennifer, who is now four years three months old, has co-ordinated her schemas together. She has demonstrated an understanding of seriation by placing the number tiles in the correct order. Jennifer explored one-to-one correspondence when she jumped on each number tile along the length of the line. She recognised numbers one to 18 and was able to count one to 24.

DEFINITIONS

'A schema is a pattern of repeated actions. Clusters of schemas develop into later concepts' (Athey, 2003)

Schemas explored by the child in this article are:

Connecting - Children become interested in connecting themselves to objects and objects to each other

Trajectory - Moving in or representing straight lines, arcs or curves

Lines - Using objects to create lines

Transporting - Carrying objects from one place to another (an aspect of the exploration of trajectory)

One-to-one correspondence - Matching one object with another (in this case, Jennifer jumped on each tile)

Equivalance - The water in the can looked different to the same water in a line on the ground but was equivalent (these explorations contribute to understanding 'conservations' of amount)

Seriation - Ordering objects or people according to size or other comparative features

Transformation - Children act on materials to make changes (some of which are reversible). As adults, we can make children aware of what they are doing by having conversations about their actions and effects.

REFERENCE

Athey, Chris (1990) Extending Thought in Young Children: A parent-teacher partnership. Paul Chapman, London