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Intrigued by new media, new
technologies and popular culture, Mason was now a
champion of ‘21st century’ play and this
example shows how he also drew on his knowledge of
password protection and access, numbers and writing.
Mason watched Leola who was cutting a piece of card,
and finding a piece of yellow card, he also folded
and snipped similar cuts around its perimeter. Next
he wrote letters and numerals, reading 'sk’
‘714bp10’ and, lifting it to his face, explained
it was ‘a spy gadget… 'sk' is ‘to keep the
password safe. To switch it on you have to say
'714bp10'’. I asked if there was a way to switch
his 'spy gadget' off and picking it up he replied
excitedly 'Yeah! You have to read it backwards!'
promptly reading, '10
pb417'. |
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Nathan’s astronaut -
nursery
 Nathan
was in the art area, exploring an idea of his own.
Taking a white envelope Nathan tucked coloured paper
beneath the flap of the envelope, securing it with
masking tape. He explained that the coloured paper
was an astronaut, and the envelope was his suit: the
tape allowed the astronaut to undo his suit (the
flap of the envelope) and climb out of the space
suit.
Nathan accompanied his spoken explanation with
actions, moving his model rapidly above his head in
a trajectory to ‘the moon’; saying ‘blast off!’ and
making a whooshing sound as, in his
imagination, the rocket left earth.
Although the meaning of Nathan’s astronaut was not
immediately accessible to adults, the artefact he’d
made and his words and vocal sounds combined with
his actions and explanation to make symbolic
meanings. |
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One is a snail, ten is a
crab
After
sharing the delightful picture story book One is a
Snail, Ten is a Crab with the children in her
combined nursery and reception class (4-5 year
olds), the teacher suggested that the children
choose their own number and work out which
combination of creatures’ legs would total their
chosen number.
 Tyrees
burst out ‘I know why 10 is a crab, because it’s got
10 legs – see, 1, 2, 3, … 10.’ Then added, ‘I know,
9 could be an octopus and a snail.’ He explained he
was going to work out which ‘800’ and reaching for
some paper wrote ‘800’, after a while explaining
that he had 4 crabs and 4 snails ‘that’s 10, 20, 30,
40 and 4 more – 44! That’s not the 800 – I need
loads more so I think I’ll do more crabs ‘cos
they’ve got most legs.’
He
continued to draw ‘There, I done 6 more crabs.
That’s 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 40 – there’s 100
and 4 more snails – that’s 104.’ Pausing, Tyree
decided ‘I don’t think I’m going to do any more
because it’s too big. I need 6 more so I can do 6
snails, or a dog and 2 snails, or 3 people – but I’m
just going to do a fly because that has 6 legs.’
Calculations: children’s own written methods:
counting continuously, separating sets, counting
with larger quantities
Their
teacher described this as a real ‘eye opener’: this
was the first time she had tried to support
children’s use of their own graphics to support
their mathematical thinking. She regarded the
children’s self-challenges and their individual
problem solving as remarkable. |
