See What Children Know
Two infants sit on the floor near a toy harp. After the teacher plucks the strings, Olivia tries her hand at mastering a pluck that makes a sound. She modifies her strategy from a pinch to a grasp to a pluck on her way to success. She even generalizes her new skill to the bottom of a pot, but this time modifies her pluck into a scratching movement that works better on the pot. Michael had not seen the teacher’s pluck. He holds a maraca that he applies to the harp like a drumstick. He tries to insert the maraca in the harp hole but the hole is blocked by the harp strings. And banging the strings don’t seem to satisfy him, so he reverses the harp so he can drum on the other side without the strings. This video clip will impress you with the amount of intentionality and learning that occurs in only three minutes. And for fun, we made a second version of the clip into a “thinkprint” where a voice-over speaks the possible thoughts of Olivia and Michael.
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Notes from the Field
The Center for Early Childhood Education at Eastern Connecticut State University has created a series of e-clips for the professional development of teachers. These are highly professional, well edited short video clips that stream from their website. The topics include “Five Predictors for Early Literacy” featuring Theresa Bouley, “Introducing Technology to Young Children” featuring Douglas Clements and Sudha Swaminathan, “Culture and Play” featuring Patricia Ramsey and “Positive Relationships” featuring Jeffrey Trawich-Smith. Please check out these wonderful resources by clicking here .
I enjoyed the clip, but FYI the instrument you feature is not an autoharp. Not sure of its name, but an autoharp has keys & produces chords when these are pressed & strings strummed. To view an autoharp, try googling “autoharp”. I have an autoharp & use it often in our ECE Lab school, much to our kids’ delight. They love to explore & experiment with its sound-making potential!!
MKW,
RECE, ECE.C
Thanks, I changed the name to “harp.”
I also found the clip interesting. The camera’s proximity really lets the viewer get a sense of the children’s intentionality — even if it’s not the same as one might see in an older child (dexterity being one difference), their activity is hardly random. They are exploring. It struck me that some of Olivia’s whole-hand movements were also similar to scratching, or at least capable of producing a scratchy noise on some surfaces.
I have seen the instrument referred to as a “lap harp” but that may not be the official name.