On Wednesday, Chris demonstrated how two of the playdough sticks could be put together to resemble scissors; Jamie noticed and tried it too. They moved to the drawing area and pretended they were cutting paper with their “scissors.” Chris: Can (we have) scissors for me? Mark replied: I don’t have scissors out right now. You think we should get scissors out sometime? (Yeah.) I can go see if I can find them later on. It’s interesting using these as scissors. You know that scissors have two parts, don’t you?
On Thursday at meeting, we told the children about Chris and Jamie’s exploration and showed them the photo above. Then we presented scissors and stiff paper to the children so that we could all work with scissors. I demonstrated putting my fingers in the big slot and my thumb in the other slot to make the scissors open and shut, and we all tried it out.
I made a cut. I made a cut, too. I made three cuts. I can open them and close them.
Here’s the story of how the sticks were introduced:
When Jack brought over a marimba mallet and slid balls of playdough on it, Mark said he liked the idea, but that that wasn’t what the mallets were for. So he offered these sticks, and Jack was happy to try out his idea with them. Other explorations ensued – on Thursday children challenged themselves to pick up playdough with the sticks.
The more we are exposed to a material, the more uses children find for it, and its range of use as a tool expands as children grow both physically, cognitively and imaginatively. These simple sticks have been used as scissors, for lifting, for making holes, for cutting, and more.
And, of course, our fingers and hands are the ultimate tool we use for a lifetime!
