Logo

Two children, two years of age, play with blocks and small plastic animals. With Tucker’s help, Ayla places animals on a train that is going "to the office." George, the adult, occasionally poses a question or suggests an alternative placement. He asks Ayla, "Well, so you don't want me to put it (horse) over here?" as he slowly moves a horse to another block. Ayla explains, "No, this goes right there. The horsie eats hay." She repositions the horse near a raised block that looks like a hay trough. George’s question causes Ayla to add a motive to the horse's placement when earlier her placement was arbitrary. A short time later, Tucker calls a short tube a drill, and when George shows interest in why it is a drill, Tucker acts out a turning and pressing motion. Pretend play can help children think more about how things work (function) rather than how things look (description), and can give children a reason to add intention and motive to their pretend characters.

Keywords: Twos, Blocks, Children-Teacher, Pretense, Classification, Function, videative

Length of videative: 6 text pages, 9 video subclips
Length of stand-alone master video clip: 7 minutes, 47 seconds