Woof Woof....... Woof Woof.......

The children were playing with the plastic animals from the block area a lot.  A teacher sat in the block area one morning to see where the interest could go.  She started laying blocks out and one child began to place some of the animals around the blocks.  After a few moments the child got a block from the shelf and added it to the square that had been made with the teacher.  “Gate” he said as he placed it in the corner of the square where the blocks didn’t join up.  He moved the block to make an opening and then walked an animal into the square and joined the blocks all back up again.

Over time different props were added to the block area to extend the animal play.  We added a slab of fake green grass, dried leaves and plastic trees from the duplo.  The children then added the animals to these props and participated for long periods of time consistently.  Also the children helped a teacher to make a book with pictures of different fences and gates found on Google Images.  The children often read the book in the reading area, but they also began using the book in the block area as they played with the props for the animals.  From the keen interest in the pictures of fences and gates, large pictures of different farm animals were printed and laminated for the children to use as well.  The Te Whāriki Exploration strand encourages educators to provide opportunity for “Children to develop strategies for actively exploring and making sense of the world by using their bodies, including active exploration with all the senses, and the use of tools, materials, and equipment to extend skills” (MOE, p86).

From here the children’s interest went back to animals and we started discussions about what animals each child had at home.  One of the teachers brought in her toy puppy dog from home.  This puppy dog could bark and walk.  The walking, barking puppy dog became very popular and being toddlers the children became very possessive of the new toy.  It was constantly on the go and one day a little girl (that seemed to be spending a lot of time with the puppy dog) approached me with a very sad face.  She brought to my attention that the puppy dog was not barking or walking anymore L  I explained to the girl that the puppy had got very tired and needed a rest.  The little girl took the puppy dog to the family corner and put it in the bed with a blanket over it.  I managed to find some batteries to put in the puppy dog.  I showed the children the process of taking the old batteries out of the toy and put the new ones in, which magically gave the puppy dog the energy it needed to entertain his friends again J  Hooray we then had a walking and barking puppy dog again.  With this new found energy the children continued to play with the toy again and find new and exciting things to do with it.  The puppy was read to, carried everywhere, sat at the table at meal times and even taken for rides in prams and trolleys.

The children had the technology that gave them social experience and extend on skills.  The children developed awareness of how to respect the toy and ensure it was kept safe from harm.  They practiced in turn taking and offering, built on relationships and learnt that learning can be fun as the toy was shared around the children to play with.  Believe me there were trying times as the children came across conflict situations.  The children persisted with the important task of resolving the conflict situations with verbal and non-verbal cues.  Infants and toddlers are going through the motions of learning Erikson’s three stages of psychosocial development, Trust, Autonomy and initiative.  “Social skills are learned behaviours that connect us, help us to be independent, and foster cooperation and interdependent relationships” (Gonzalez-Mena & Eyer, 2007, p251).   This continued the children’s learning from previous experiences such as caring for others (even though it wasn’t living, they thought it was) and linked to the children’s interests.  The children sustained the great use of technology and learnt through these experiences.

Gonzalez-Mena, J. & Eyer, D.W. (2007). Infants, Toddlers, and Caregivers: A Curriculum of Respectful, Responsive care and Education. New York: McGraw Hill.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa. Wellington: Learning Media.