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After a bit of rough and tumble play that had the potential to inflict hurt on one or more participants, Diane asked the children to discuss strategies to reduce that potential. The children came up with some interesting ideas: from verbal warnings, to time-outs, to naps, to putting repeat offenders in jail. Diane wanted the children to consider creating a form of play that was satisfying but not dangerous. Notice how the children modify their ideas by referencing what the previous child said, such as jail being a reasonable sentence only if you were bad many times, or how one child’s suggestion for a nap as a time-out would also allow the offender to “think about what he had done.” These are just a few examples of children co-constructing rules around issues of social justice.

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When two children enter the frame of peer teaching, we witness both cleverness and a few gaps. We are not sure why Justin asks Sami if she can whistle by blowing out, when in fact her whistle by sucking in is excellent (00:07 – 00:12). Could this be a case of Justin looking for something to teach? He loves to teach, as we see in an earlier video, “Can Three-Year-Olds Teach?” We should credit him for knowing what he can do and also for recognizing how Sami’s cheeks indent when she sucks in to make her whistle sound. Justin makes the contrast “whistle out instead of in.” By implication he is asking, “Can you whistle my way instead of your way?” It is interesting that Justin has difficulty whistling by sucking in.

Justin shows his competency as a teacher when he blows out in an exaggerated way without making a noise (00:16 – 00:17). We assume that he does this deliberately to make it clear what he means by “blowing out.” He breaks down the master skill into component skills. Perhaps he realizes that when you actually whistle, the difference between blowing out and sucking in does not look sufficiently different, so Justin blows out as though he were blowing out a birthday candle to help define what he means.

Justin also knows what not to do (00:17 – 00:26). Perhaps he has been told, “Be sure you don’t puff out your checks.” But the interesting fact remains: he thinks to point this out to Sami. The great teacher, Marie Montessori is known for her insight in showing children what not to do as a contrast to what to do. Justin not only breaks the master skill down into the components of blowing out plus whistling, he also knows that whistlers sometimes use a strategy that is not helpful. But again, he has made the objective unnecessarily difficult for Sami, who whistles perfectly well by sucking in. Is this like asking Phil Michelson, “Yes, but can you play golf right-handed?”

It is fun to listen to Sami and Justin compare family whistlers. Sami lists several people. Justin starts with this same strategy, but then bumps up listing individuals to saying, “My whole family knows how to whistle.” (00:37 – 00:47). Is he looking to have the last word on this little bit of competition about which person has more whistlers at home? Sami dilutes the finality of Justin’s “whole family” closing remark by changing the subject to pets. Unwittingly, Justin regains his status by using a medical term, “allergic” (00:49 – 00:54).

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In this video we celebrate the joy of infants among infants as they share the delight of bells, jiggles, and babbles. As we watch their movements, we wonder what they wonder. Why do they shake the hanging bells while looking elsewhere? Is there a contagion from one infant’s action to another? Are their babbles messages to one another or spontaneous expressions of delight? What can we infer by the slight variations on the ways in which they pull on the hanging slinky and bells? What does it mean for an infant to change from a low perspective to a higher one by pulling up on a vertical bar?

Please click on the thumbnail photo to find this title in our streaming video library. Watch the clip once straight through with these and your own questions in mind. Then replay the clip and note the key moments that we have indicated in the text below the video using the time codes as markers. These key moments are some of the places where we might get clues to better understand what the infants may be thinking. At these moments, we offer our speculations on what the infants may be thinking. (We write our speculations in adult language to communicate a basic idea). We have added a second speculation, preceded by the phrase, “as opposed to” that states what we believe the child may not be thinking. This second speculation would most likely be too advanced or the video gives little evidence for the second speculation. We ask for your judgment. Have we under-shot or over-shot what the infants may be thinking? Speculating on what children may conceive is a necessary step in good teaching and an important strategy for evaluating the social and developmental appropriateness of the physical environmen

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Arthur, in his fourth year, was present when the school director gave Miss Maria money to buy stickers for the writing corner. Arthur clearly wants Miss Maria to buy the stickers. But Miss Maria takes this opportunity to present alternative uses of the money to see how Arthur will react. Arthur understands that some things can be changed, such as the day Miss Maria goes downtown to buy the stickers if she cannot go right now (“Go tomorrow.” he says.) or if she is too busy to go tomorrow (“Go buy the stickers on Saturday”). But the contract for the money’s use had been set. When Miss Maria says she thinks she will use the money to buy something else, Arthur clearly states, “But this money is only for buying stickers.”

Miss Maria continues with an idea of using the money to buy Mr. Tony a coffee. Arthur, not to be undone, suggests that Miss Maria buys the stickers on Sunday, perhaps thinking the problem was still the time of purchase or maybe he was deflecting the discussion back to when to buy rather than what to buy. After all, if he was being so conciliatory about waiting until Sunday for the purchase, then shouldn’t that offer be honored?

Realizing that she has been a little too unilateral about changing her mind, Miss Maria asks Arthur if it is fair for her to spend the money on coffee. Once again Arthur shows his openness to possibilities, but not ones that include buying something other than the stickers. He states that this money, in particular, has been designated as the “stickers money” but Miss Maria could use “other money to buy coffee. “ In the end everyone reviews that the money came from the director to buy stickers for Arthur to use. And Miss Maria agrees with Mr. Tony that she can use her own money to buy him a coffee.

To take one perspective, this episode shows that even young children have a strong sense of verbal contracts. We are not quite sure if Arthur would have been so principled were the money to be spent for something of less interest to Arthur. But given the quickness and firmness of his position it is likely that he was using a principle of fairness. One does not go back on a promise. You can change the means to the promise, but not the consequence. We expect his next step will be to consider what conditions would make a change of mind fair, such as an emergency or some other higher need for the money than coffee.

Do you think this episode helped Arthur think about these issues of fairness? We accept that the video helps us know how Arthur thinks, and that is important. But given that this provocation was somewhat staged, and was at times rather unilateral, what will be the take away for Arthur? It could be Arthur felt outnumbered by the three teachers. Or it could be that the utter unfairness of this dominance caused him to rally around his principles. Do you believe confrontations that have this emotional charge to them could generate more serious thinking about fairness, perhaps more nuanced and earnest than happens when children read a story about fairness followed by a discussion? We know this episode is controversial. That is why we offer it to you. Please enter your comments below so that we can “closely map” our judgments onto the specifics actions in this video.

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We might conclude that the mark script is more advanced than the medium script. It may well be, but on another day Will could be intent on making specific marks, and Ava could be lost in the joy of stirring the water in the bowl. We can evaluate the complexity of the action script without setting the developmental level of the child. Diane understands that marks require high-level thinking. The mark is more distal to the action that produced it and is an early kind of symbol, a symbol for the shape of the brush’s movement. Toward the beginning of the clip, she names the marks that Manny and Ava have made. She asks Will how he is making marks, but then notices that he is banging the water with his brushes. She affirms his strategy by saying, “Oh, you just like to work with the water? Okay. You work with the water.”

Later we will see how Diane experiments with her own paper, inviting the children to watch or not watch what she is doing. Using this indirect method of modeling without an explicit invitation or without framing this as: “I want you to do what I am doing,” she shows that she trusts the children to let her know naturally what they read and what they do not read when looking at her actions. They might read the energy of her mark making and apply that energy to rapid stirring of the water. They might read the growing wetness of Diane’s paper and attempt to cover their paper with water rather than make a defined line. They might read Diane’s distinct mark and take care to create a defined water line with a controlled stroke. Diane understands that what her actions cause a child to do can be treated as the child’s interpretation, a reading that tells her a great deal about how the children think and what aspects of the world are most salient at this time.

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A one-month-old child makes sounds and moves to indicate how she feels.   An observant parent can “read” the infant’s internal states and supply what is needed to calm the infant, so credit for the communication goes to the parent.  The infant is just doing what is natural – crying or smiling, fretting or laughing.  Eventually infants learn the connection: “If I cry, I will be fed”. but that is not the same as realizing someone out there understands the message. So, when do deliberate attempts to communicate to a listener begin and how do these strategies change with maturity? If we see a twelve-month-old point at a dog while looking at her parent, we can feel more comfortable saying the child has an intention to communicate, to share a referent with someone else who has a mind and thus can understand the child’s communication intent.

We have used our Videatives library to create a playlist that illustrates how children’s assumptions about communication change as they mature.  (Note – If you have a subscription to the Video Streaming Service, you too can create playlists that illustrate comparisons of interest to you)  Click here to see the video clips that we have selected to show children’s language development.

Notes from the Field

The following is taken from an email that Bonnie Blagojevic sent to the ECE Tech List:

In the spirit of sharing new resources, together with colleagues from our Early Reading First grant in Maine, our article Young Children and Computers: Storytelling and Learning in a Digital Age – Expanded Version was just published and is available as a link from http://www.naeyc.org/tyc/

This summer, if you have not yet checked out our Diigo group at http://groups.diigo.com/group/ecetech please take a look and join us. I have a set of sign on instructions for Diigo/our group- if you are interested, email me directly at Bonnie_Blagojevic@UMIT.MAINE.EDU and I will send them along to you. Some of the tags we use in our Diigo group, such as techchildren, techeducators, techresearch correspond to the sections of our website, and provide another way to help our volunteers discover new resources to consider for future updates. We welcome your involvement!



Beginning in the first year of life when children bang identically shaped blocks together at the mid line, symmetry evolves into finished structures of increasing complexity. Placing two same-shaped blocks side-by-side as a finished product captures the mid-air action of banging them together. As the child reflects on the symmetry of side-by-side, he tries to create other forms of symmetry, such as bisecting a lower block with a smaller block placed on top, thereby making the two empty spaces on each side of the smaller block equal. Later, the child figures out how to create symmetry with three blocks, using two identical blocks as book ends for a uniquely shaped middle block. Each stage requires the child to consider a greater number of spatial relations than the previous stage, and thus explains the developmental sequence.

Listen to the narrator (George Forman) explain how the symmetrical structures that children make can be understood as a language of spatial relations and the beginning of the mathematical concept of equivalence.

The stages of block play mentioned in this video come from a two-year research project by George Forman, David Kuschner, and Jean Dempsey, published in Action and Thought, 1982, New York: Academic Press.

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Notes from the Field

NAEYC is revising its Technology and Young Children position statement in partnership with the Fred Rogers Center. The Fred Rogers Center is conducting a survey about how Early Childhood Professionals use various kinds of digital technologies in their professional and personal lives. They are interested in knowing your views about the use of such technologies in your setting. All answers will be analyzed anonymously and collectively. Your specific responses will be kept confidential. Your help is greatly appreciated. The survey will take about ten minutes. Click here.

Notice: The completely redesigned www.videatives.com website was launched on Friday, May 14. We hope you find it more attractive and dynamic and easier to use. The site focuses on the five ways that we present authentic video: streaming from the internet, instant downloads to your computer, files mailed on CDs, studied in our online courses, and inserted in our free bi-weekly newsletter. Please visit us at www.videatives.com and check out our new eStore page.

When children intentionally create block structures they are, in effect, making statements about the spatial relations among the blocks. On top, next to, between, and covering are some of the relations that block structures can represent. We might want to give the structures names, like arch, row, or stack; but we can understand the stages of block building better if we think about the relation between one block and another. Near-but-not-touching (a gap) is more complicated than touching (a row). We can reason that the near-but-not-touching is more complex than touching, the same way an aborted kiss is an action on an action and a kiss is simply that action executed.

Part I of The Language of Blocks covers the most elementary structures: the stack, the row, and the arch. Listen to the narrator (George Forman) explain how children “speak” spatial relations with blocks and also how children “read” a lone block on the table in different ways; sometimes as “coming up from the table,” sometimes as “the beginning of a horizontal extension.” These different “readings” of the lone block cause the child to complete the “sentence” with different endings, to wit: a stack, a row or an arch. Click here to watch this narrated clip in our streaming video library. You will notice that this video clip has an adult demonstrating the stages of block building rather than video segments of actual children. We thought you might appreciate a more condensed presentation of these stages. Please let us know what you think of this format. Of course we will continue to add to our library video of authentic actions of children at play.

Notes from the Field

In 2001, the videative was born as a combination of video and text, that is video + narrative = videative. In 2008, enter the vook, a combination of video + book. Vook.com has taken well-written books and enhanced them with video clips as eBooks that can be viewed on desktop and laptop computers, as well as mobile devices, such as the iPad and iPhone. One of the most relevant examples from Vook.com is the video enhanced version of Ellen Galinsky’s book, Mind in the Making. Check it out. We would like to know if a video enhanced eBook appeals to you, as compared to a large video library with short clips that you can mix and match on your own. You may remember several years ago we initiated the “Textbook Helper” service that would add our video clips to the textbooks you use. We are still interested in this format but would like opinions from you, our readers.

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In this video, we see a 17-month-old girl who, like many children, loves water play – pouring water into bottles, stirring water in the water table and splashing in the puddles outside. But what drives her interest in water? We might know “that” she is interested in water play, but can we say more about how her thinking and predicting sustains her play? We learned from this child’s teacher that the water faucet holds more interest for toddlers than the water table. Unlike the faucet, the water in the water table does not continuously flow, cannot be turned on and off, and does not make a sound as it goes down the drain, nor is it associated with the “grown up” routine of washing hands.

At first viewing the child’s actions look stylized, as if she is showing herself the moves of washing her hands. But are these actions, when observed carefully, really repetitions or are they slight variations that test a new prediction about the sound, flow, and feel of the water? And are actions that are repeated done so for the same reason? But one might also see her behavior as imitative, acting out the ritual of washing hands without much interest in the water as a physical event with consequences. Either way, we believe that when you slow down to consider the child’s intention for each specific action, only then will you discover the full breadth of childhood intelligence. What do you think? Click here to view the video clip and read the thinkprint transcript.

Notes from the Field

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual conference is being held in Denver this year, April 30 to May 4. The AERA conference includes many presentations of interest to early childhood educators and child development professionals. To browse presentation titles, go to this page, then click on the "search online program" on the left.

Given the proximity of Denver to Boulder, Boulder Journey School is hosting an Open House and Reception for AERA participants on Monday, May 3, from 6:30-8:30pm. If you are planning to attend the AERA conference in Denver and would like to join your colleagues at this event, please contact Ellen Hall (ellen.lynn.hall@gmail.com) on or before April 30.

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For many weeks, Dryden has shown an interest in unusual rocks. He collects them near the school. Today he has found a rather large rock, too heavy for him to carry. He requires the help of an adult. Watch this six-minute clip and reflect on the ways in which his teacher, Mr. Pat, balances helping with encouraging the children’s planning. Note his strategy of not using his full strength, so the children will participate in the rock moving challenge. When you click on the link to watch the video, you will find our observations and interpretations surrounding Mr. Pat’s role in the experience. We encourage you to use our blog to offer your own interpretations and comments on how you might handle a similar situation.

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Notes from the Field

The Early Childhood Education program at Eastern Connecticut State University has produced the fourth in a series of eClips for early childhood professionals. We invite you to watch this video on “The Importance of Play.” Below is the description we copied directly from the ECSU website.

Research shows that play has an essential role in children’s learning. In eClip #4, Dr. Jeffrey Trawick-Smith of Eastern Connecticut State University discusses the importance of play and advises early childhood professionals to look at several elements of children’s play, including engagement in make-believe play, social interaction during play, and play complexity. Teachers who enhance children’s play can help promote children’s development in a variety of domains.

Click here to watch.