The evolution of Beautiful Things

In recent days our beautiful stuff has been edited down to smaller items plus some larger cardboard pieces.  To inspire continued building, the materials have been placed adjacent to our newly mirrored sensory table.  We wondered if this different environment would create a renewed interest in imaginative play around the materials.

Nearly as varied as the items themselves were the ways in which the children approached them. Some experimented with what the materials could do while others painstakingly took the time to arrange beautiful things from beautiful stuff. 

I’m making spaces and a circle now for all these diamonds because they’re so pretty. It’s a house for jewels.

Using her hands and sticks, Charlotte discovered interesting ways to spin ‘wheels’ both lying flat on the mirror as well as rolling on their edges.

 

 

 

I call these gems. It’s a house for stars and moons and hearts.

 

 

 

These go inside the spaces. There’s supposed to be a constellation in there.

Over two days Elliott, Wes and Jonah worked collaboratively adding more and more materials.  A castle was created with deliveries made through a hanging basket.  The castle turned into a jail and then a dungeon.  But alas, the castle became flooded so Jonah brought in pipes to drain the water. When the castle was habitable again pumpkins were brought in to celebrate Halloween and finally beautiful stuff decorations inspired a Christmas party.

As they worked the boys listened to each other’s ideas.  They built upon the stories they were hearing from one another and worked out a solution as to how to hang the basket.  The thrill was in adding increasingly more materials and adapting their stories accordingly.