Our new addition

“Toddlers are active and curious, determined to become competent and to make sense of happenings, objects, and ideas” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p23).  The toddlers in our infants and toddlers room are very curious about our new little friend.  Our little friend’s name is ‘Google’ and he is a goldfish.

Google came to us through the children’s growing interest of the beach.  The children have been role playing scenes from the beach within their dramatic play throughout the play areas.  They have been engaging in different beach themed experiences such as water play, props added to the sand pit and more.  While a teacher was giving the children the opportunity to make a beach mural, sharing their ideas of what is at the beach, one child began talking about fishing.  This sparked the direction of the interest in fish.  The children made fish for the mural and it spiralled from there.  Sea creatures had been added to the water play on numerous occasions however the children were not maintaining the interest the same.  We revisited the mural when it was displayed on the wall.  The mural had textured surfaces and this seemed to satisfy the children’s curiosity and the interest hovered for a little bit longer before slightly fading again.  The books and songs about fish were not cutting it.  With discussion and ideas thrown around between the teachers we decided that the children needed something real life and hands on to maintain the interest.  We came up with an idea to bring a real fish into the classroom for the children to experience.  One of the teachers kindly offered to bring her fish from home to share with the children.

In a flash the children crowded around the fish tank as Google was welcomed into his new home.  Google arrived already in the tank, I think that the short trip in the car made him a little dizzy however it didn’t take him long to swim to the surface of his fish tank as the children gave him his first meal – goldfish flakes!  The fish tank is set up at the children’s level on a table.  The table is located in front of a power point so extreme supervision has been required while the children’s curiosity shifts from the power cord for the oxygen pump back to Google himself.  The children slowly learnt that it was a special cord to help Google breath and have nice water to swim in.  And it also took perseverance from the teachers as the children learnt the lid at the top was for feeding Google only, not for giving the play dough extra moisture when it got dry!  Although some of the children thought it was a great idea to add some seashells to his tank, because there are seashells at the beach J  It was wonderful to watch the children’s awareness of living creatures grow.  The children began their understanding of living things during their interest in crickets and other bugs and Google has expertly increased this understanding to another level.  

Once Google was set up and settled in as one of us in our room, I began to realise not only his connection to the children’s interest but also his connection to using technology in the centre and the unlimited learning the children could gain from his stay with us.  The children began to learn about fish, how they live and how they can care for him.  Smorti (1999) states that “technology is about helping people and problem solving” (p1), the technology being the fish tank, solved our problem of maintaining the children’s interest in fish and providing a real life experience.  This helped the children to learn more about their interest and be available to them at all times.

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

Smorti, S. (1999). Technology in Early Childhood. Early Education, No.19 Autum 1999