It’s not a hula-hoop, it’s a puddle!

In Kindermusik, it’s rare to ever call hoops by their actual name; usually they’re mountains, meadows, or even puddles. In fact, last week my toddlers we’re ecstatic to “hop-a-doodle” around their “meadows.” With my early elementary kids, they loved playing the rhyming “Dr. Foster” game with their “puddles.” Even my preschoolers were looking forward every week to taking the “tricky trails” with their imaginary friends in our story “Josh and Katie.”

At the end of the week, I realized that a bunch of plastic 2 dimensional circles managed to not only thoroughly entertain all the children, but more importantly helped them learn important skills like how to jump on one foot, how to communicate with each other to go through “the tunnel”, and even how to work on their special awareness. All these important learning concepts were addressed by using something that costs around $5.

Funny thing is, in the same week, I was talking to a dad at my preschool, and he was mentioning how he just spent $30 on a toy that was supposed to be geared to his son’s learning, yet after the first week, his 3-year-old never touched it.

So if children can make a hula-hoop be a mountain, or a puddle, or a meadow, and never tire of it, then what separates the hoops from that very expensive gadget at the toy store? Why do they love the cardboard box more than the toy inside?

It all boils down to how children play. Both parents and childhood professionals alike can tell you children not only love to pretend but it’s how they learn. Children can grow in all domains of development through play. Often, when children pretend, they associate an identity with an object in their game. A block is not simply a block, it’s the start of their hospital. Then more blocks become the road they need to connect it to their house. Then perhaps from the hospital, the children will decide to use their scarves as wings and become helicopters, spinning away onto another game, and so on. We call these objects endowed objects because the scarves, for example, would never be called those; they would be endowed to be butterfly wings.

We see these elements of pretend play particularly in children 3 years old and up, however children learn these skills much earlier, in toddler hood. That is why in Kindermusik classes, we use these elements as the basis for the songs and activities. In fact, manipulatives in Kindermusik such as hoops, scarves, and streamers all have one thing in common: they are open-ended. The more open-ended an object is, the more roles it can have in play.

We see children assign multiple identities to an object all the time. One day, a scarf is a butterfly wing, but the next, it’s a leaf. When children can use an object in their play in many different ways, they will pick it up again and again. Children can play with legos for years because it can be so many different things! When children are autonomous and own their learning, they not only enjoy learning more, they retain it better. This comes from choosing how to learn a certain concept.

 So when you’re at the store this holiday season, think about that toy you’re buying and if it will be worth the cost. Some of those higher-priced toys are really cool, I am a big fan of some of those science-oriented toy stores, but some are just too closed-ended to keep our children’s attention with their growing minds!

-posted by Teacher Aaron, who still has his first set of legos!