Deer class has started their new UOI: how we express ourselves. In this unit, we explored the concept of play, how play positively contributes to our life, and how play helps us to learn. We began by asking the children what they thought play was. Some said they like to play outside and others said they like to play with this or that toy. With a bit of prompting, we agreed that play was any activity that was fun.

Teacher Kiki introduced the children the story book “Not A Box” written by Antoinette Portis. In the story a child explains that a box is not a box, it can be a car, rocket ship or secret hideout. After the story, we gave the children a large box with no instructions other than to play with it. They came up with a host of different games and told us that the box was a cave, tunnel, treehouse, and many more exciting things!

We explored construction as a form of play and asked what we can learn from playing with construction materials. Our first lesson was about building a house and why houses have four walls and a roof. We started with one wall which quickly fell over, then asked the children how we could make it stronger. They quickly discovered that adding a perpendicular wall gave it a lot of strength. As we added more walls and a roof, the children noticed that the house was much stronger.

Next, we asked the children to build a bridge over some ‘water’ (our blue carpet). After some trial and error, the children were able to work together to complete the bridge and drive a toy car all the way over it.

Our next inquiry was focused on ‘light and shadow’. The children learned about how light can travel through some objects and not through other. They also learned that shadow is the absence of light. To facilitate their learning, we built a darkroom in our classroom. In the darkroom, the children can use different light sources to create shadows.

We also spoke about the emotions that we feel when thinking about darkness. The children initially said that they felt scared or anxious when in the dark. Teacher Kiki then showed them some pictures of people lighting fireworks and playing games in the dark. The children quickly understood that the dark can be fun, and it shouldn’t always be something to fear.

Our journey of Exploring Play and Learning is still ongoing, and we look forward to sharing more interesting learning stories with you.