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Like the director of a play, the girl in this video clip assigns the role of “baby” to the adult. The girl notices that her symbol for a baby (intern teacher) is misread when a classmate asks the “baby” for help tying her apron. The girl works to refine her symbol. She directs the intern teacher: “You have to get up and…you sit in my lap” (00:22). The girl realizes if the baby sits on her lap it’s a better symbol. The girl’s giggle tells us she senses the irony of having an adult on her lap when she says, “Look at baby” (00:42). Next, the child instructs the adult to crawl (00:53). She may hypothesize that a tall adult positioned low to the ground, and thereby beneath the children’s line of sight, is a more convincing symbol for a baby. The child symbolizes her own role as “mom” by quickly removing items from the baby’s path and adopting a stern tone when saying, “No”. In what other ways does the girl elaborate her symbols for “mom” and “baby”? What might her play indicate about her assumptions surrounding the real-world relationship between a mom and a baby?

Keywords: Fives, Props, Pretense
Length of video: 2 minutes, 32 seconds