Not Just Play!
What is interesting about Kieran, a three-year-old boy, gluing do-dads on a two-by-four? When you slow down and watch his clever change in strategy, you will find out. As Kieran works and thinks about the sequence of his actions, he figures out how to eliminate steps. In this brief segment, you first see how he has placed glue on right side, sticks a button to that spot, then later puts glue in a second spot on the left. In the second half of this clip, notice how he gets enough glue on his spatula for both the right and left spots, effectively eliminating a second trip back to the supply of glue. He does this not because he is in a hurry, but because this sort of spontaneous organization is natural for children everywhere. When you watch the entire video clip, you will see an even more amazing extension of Kieran's high-level thinking as he continues to cut out steps. This is not just play! This episode represents the spontaneous organization that children everywhere exhibit during self-regulated play. Such spontaneous organization only occurs when children reflect upon the structure of their actions, to see the pattern of steps such that some can be eliminated. To help you pick up the details of Kieran's thinking, we have added a time-lapse animation so you can clearly see how clever he is.
Keywords: Threes, Glue, Child-Object, Spatial Relations, Sequence, Efficiency, Reflective Thinking, videative
Length of videative: 4 paragraphs, 4 video subclips
Length of stand-alone master video clip: 4 minutes, 33 seconds
