See What Children Know
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As you view this video, find what problems the two girls confront as they pour water on a wheel. Also notice any place where either girl is surprised by what happens or disappointed by what does not happen. In this way you will find the educational value of play, even two minutes of play. Once you have looked for problems, surprises, and disappointments, consider what questions you might have asked these girls or what changes you might make in the physical environment that would extend their exploration. In the text that follows we offer our answers, but you will certainly have others.
To purchase a high resolution download of Water Wheel Play, click here. The download folder will include our answers that appear next to the clip you are about to watch. To subscribe to our streaming video library of over 200 video clips with supporting text, click here.
Notes from the Field
We thank Bonnie Blagojevic in Maine for finding an easy way for children to animate their own drawings. Using the touch screen of an iPad, children can move their drawings of story characters while the iPad records the movements for later replay. The microphone records the stories the children narrate. This application, Toontastics, was created by Launchpad Toys in partnership with Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and the San Francisco’s Children’s Museum. So here we have yet another way that new technology is giving children “replayable playables” (see Mirrors That Talk, a free article in our eStore).
We have launched a new product line, titled the Learning Moments series. Many of you prefer high-resolution video clips (with supporting text files) sent to you on a CD, so that you can play the files anywhere you have your computer. These high-resolution clips are grouped by topics such as Special Education, Literacy through Art, and Learning Through Play. We have already released two in this series of six CDs, with two more scheduled for release in February. For each CD title we have created a full set of video trailers you may preview in our eStore. Go to the CD section of our eStore and click on any title with “Learning Moments series” in the keyword slot. We are quite proud of the quality and appeal of this new product series.
