Knot-tying with a three-year-old means:

• Twisting
  Wrapping
  Inserting rope into holes between twisted or wrapped ropes

Teaching or Playing?

Knot-tying is a great way to play with your child. When interacting with your child, a good question to ask yourself is: “Is my goal to teach or to play?” There is always the temptation to teach, but let’s say your primary goal at this moment is playing.

Playing is, in fact, exploring – exploring by only doing what your three-year-old can do, and trying new things that they discover as they come up with new ideas. When exploring rope, we have found that simply finding holes to insert the end of your rope into is a great place to start. It’s a little bit of scaffolding to initiate play. As Chris said, I’m putting my piece where no one will see it. Once you get going, wonderfully huge knots may form, alongside long rope bridges.

Jamie, Wesley and Johann’s Exploration

Let’s look at Jamie’s rope exploration, alongside Wesley and Johann (Ellie began here, but left soon after Jamie arrived):

Mark has been watching Wesley and Johann wrestle with figuring out how to wrap a rope around a log, sometime providing a word or two of guidance. Jamie arrives and joins in. Like the others, Jamie initially delights in holding out his long piece of rope from the log, admiring its length; he says the rope is a bridge (Johann and Wesley also referred to stretched out ropes as bridges, both this day and the next). Then, without prompting, Jamie begins wrapping it around the log. It’s tricky! Numerous times Jamie declares I’m done and leaves, but soon returns. He’s demonstrating grit! After returning a few times, he is consistently successful. As Jamie wraps, Mark comments on what Wesley had discovered – that he can insert the end of his rope in a space underneath a wrapped rope and pull it through (Mark is making Wesley’s learning visible – in this same way, Johann had just learned this, too, and is immersed in this technique). Jamie picks this up quickly, finding it quite satisfying. When a piece of rope is wrapped until nothing is left, he asks for more and another piece is tied onto the end of the last piece and the wrapping continues.

Wesley’s Questions:

Wesley asks if the branch is the same one that was above the clay table, and Mark says yes. Wesley asks if Mark had to use a ladder to get it down, and Mark says yes. Wesley asks why we are wrapping rope around it, and Mark tells him that after using string the museum, he and Diane thought the children would like wrapping rope, too.