These curvy snakes have wiggled their way into our play in a number of ways . . .
Here is what we (the teachers) did:
We originally introduced snakes because we expected that children would be interested in the way snakes can slither under items and disappear into their homes, based on the children’s play in the classroom.
Having read a number of books in which birds, snakes, and worms were featured together, we thought the snakes could also provide a natural extension of their dramatic play.
Here is what the children showed us:
Johann balanced a snake on another snake, holding them out in order to pass the snake to Diane. Wesley and Kesler noticed this and were “hooked”! They immediately began experimenting with hooking, learning about balance along the way: Why does a snake sometimes balance on another snake and sometimes not?
The children also showed us...
…that they were watching each other figure out how snakes hook together. The children are learning how to learn, and learning how each other learn.
We remembered:
Children had debated passionately whether the worm in this book was actually a hook! So we had observed them expressing an interest in both worms and hooks.
We brought this to the class:
Every day this week at meeting time we tried out making hooks with our fingers (often hooking our finger to another person’s finger) and then handed out fabric-covered wires to see how these might be bent into hooks. Then the children all attached their hooks to the teacher’s hook. Interestingly, despite their enthusiasm for this activity, it has not transferred to the wire at the playdough table, which remains primarily a tool for poking into playdough or for being used as candles on a birthday cake, which may become an engineering experiment to see why sometimes the wires stay up and sometimes fall over.
We noticed some children exploring transformation:
The children often gain familiarity with a material through imaginative transformation: In the process of making a hook, Stella noticed her hook also looked like a door, and then a footprint; Wesley’s became a mask. They are acquiring the ability to simultaneously view a worm as a hook, or a hook as a worm – or a door, footprint or mask.
What are the children learning?
Children are developing an awareness of factors that influence whether things fall or not, due to balanced weight distribution. They are also gaining flexibly in their thinking: something can be two or more things at once.
Wait! What happened with snakes and dramatic play?
We were still interested in how the children might use the snakes in dramatic play.
We initially introduced curved blocks to this table (along with the snakes), wondering if the children would create bridges for the snakes to crawl under (as they showed us with their bodies and toys, in the photos at the top of this post), and we observed some interest in this.
Then we moved the snakes to the table with holes in it and half-pipes underneath. Since their birds were nearby, would they connect the birds with the snakes, perhaps taking a cue from the books we had read about birds, snakes, and worms (e.g., “catch a wriggly snake” from Hooray for Birds at the top of the post)?
Here’s what Josie, Ellie and Stella did here (with Mark) and the directions it took from there.
On Wednesday, Josie begins her play in this area just after dropoff:
Josie piles up the snakes: They need to be together, then sends them down the pipes, one by one, with a Wheeee!! Ellie comes by. They slide down the slide, Josie explains, and Ellie sends one down, too, then asks, You got any more snakes?
(Mark: I think we have to get them under here…)
Josie says, They walk up the slide, as her snake slithers back up.
Stella arrives, and Mark asks, Would you like a snake? Here’s a snake for a slide.
Josie Well I got a slide.
Stella crawls under the table, looking for snakes. Ellie’s snake hisses, and Mark’s hisses back to Ellie’s. Ellie’s snake slithers over to one near Josie.
Ellie (talking for the snake): I love you, Mommy. She brings over another snake, who replies, I love you, sister. She brings them over to a slide: We’ll go down the slide.
Josie grabs some snakes on the table. No, those are mine, Stella objects, and Josie gives them back, saying, I want some, Stella. Stella immediately gives Josie two and then another: So you’ll have the most, Stella says, smiling. She gives one of hers to Mark, then gives one more of hers to Josie. Now Stella has only one snake. She says to Josie: You get the most, ‘cause we only need one.
Josie turns to Ellie: Ellie, I saw Livia!! and Ellie runs off to greet her.
Mark’s snake hisses to Stella’s snake and says, Hi, snake, and Stella’s snake replies, You can be my dad snake. I can be your dad snake? We can hug.
Josie’s snake slithers over. Stella says, She can be the sister. The snakes go down a pipe together.
Stella takes her clipboard off the wall: I’m going to draw a snake, she announces, grinning. After drawing a squiggle for the snake, she adds a line all around the snake. This is where the snake went. She picks up a snake and holds it up high: And this snake can fly. Wheeeeee. Then Stella returns her clipboard to its place and returns to a pile of snakes on the structure. She starts sorting them by color. You (Mark) can have all the dark snakes. Me can have all the light snakes. And Josie can… (inaudible)
Josie sends a snake down a hole, saying, This is the diving board. (She is referencing a book about a diving board that she had just read with Diane: Jabari Jumps.)
Stella is still inspecting the snakes, trying to figure out how to categorize which are dark and which are light when some have both dark and light on them, and after a bit, she and Josie leave the snakes and move to the playdough table. Stella picks up a wire and curves it.
Mark asks, Are you making that wire into a snake?
Yes. She gives a wire to Mark. You make one into a snake. She gives a wire to Josie, too. Suddenly the snake theme is over, and their play turns to food: cake and pancakes. When Mark makes a snake, neither girl responds.
The next day, Henry and Josie spend time there.
Henry arrives first and wriggles the snakes across the structure and up and down the pipes, much as he had done with his bird on a previous day. Soon Josie comes over, and she discovers a log underneath with a hole through it. She pulls it out and puts some snakes inside. It’s their house, she says. It’s night time. After she heads off, Henry continues playing with the snakes on the structure, as he talks and hisses for them. Then he crouches down to the log on the floor and takes some snakes out. They wake up. He invites Mark’s snake to join them: You want to come with us, he directs. The snakes go back to the table and down a pipe.
At some point during this play, Mark tells Henry how other children had figured out that snakes could be used to hook each other together, pointing to the documentation on the wall (the photo of Johann and Wesley at the top of this post), and Henry is briefly interested in this and tries it out before moving back to the dramatic play.
Before leaving the area, Henry rolled his body over the top of the log!
