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In this video, Jon makes an interesting addition to a familiar scene. He enjoys rolling toy cars, airplanes and a truck down a ramp that is placed at the edge of the tabletop. On the floor below, Jon uses a carpet tile as a landing pad. Notice how he often says, “Uh-oh,” when a toy misses the landing pad on the floor. We join the action as Jon places a green car at the top of the ramp, releases it, and pauses momentarily to observe where the car lands. The car comes to rest on the bare floor rather than the landing pad. Jon responds, “Uh-oh” (00:05-00:11).

Why would a 21-month-old child find satisfaction in fitting wooden clothespins over the edge of a square plastic container? Before we look at her skill, we should speculate on what drives her to action. Too often we just start with the children's strategies and how clever they are. But throughout our years of observing children at Videatives, we have learned that making separate objects fit together and stay together has universal appeal to children.

In this video, Ellymae and Garrison are having a discussion about an exchange that occurred on the playground. Ellymae is talking to Garrison about a name he called her when she tried to join him on a climbing structure. Their conversation goes as follows: Garrison: “Well we’re just being silly and just trying to call people that and just not and just not…” Perhaps Garrison was trying to say he had no malice toward Ellymae; he was just being silly. Ellymae: “You got to share this one.” She reminds Garrison about sharing the climber while they are outdoors. Teacher: "Look at Ellymae’s face.

Anders loves books and shows this by repeatedly "reading" a favorite one about a cat losing the buttons on his coat. But what does reading mean for a 23-month-old boy? Listen to the intonation of his voice, the repeated phrase "oh no" and his announcement "the end" when he turns to the last page. He points to features on one page before turning to the next page. When finished, he closes the book with the hinged side on his right, then deftly flips it so the book is ready to be opened to the first, not the last, page.

This video captures two pre-kindergarten friends, both named Finn, explaining strategies for writing their names to one another. Finn P. is on the right in the dark shirt; Finn Q. is on the left and has 95 printed on his T-shirt. These children have been in class together since infancy. It is clear that they are very comfortable and trust each other, enough to open themselves up to debate and to receive/offer feedback. Finn P.'s mother taught him a strategy for writing “N ” – “up the ladder, down the slide, up the ladder”.

Marley, 26 months old, and Dutch, 23 months old, are learning to negotiate social rules surrounding their play with blocks. Marley has a clear goal in mind as she works to arrange triangle shaped blocks in a row along the edge of the raised platform. Dutch asks, “What those?” as he uses a rectangular block to begin sliding the triangle shaped blocks off the edge. Summer, the children’s teacher, recognizes that Dutch is having some trouble entering the play and treats this as an opportunity to scaffold the children’s interaction.

Ethan and Eli, almost five years old, take turns counting about 40 seeds. If we watch the details of their actions, we see a number of cases where they give two number words to the same seed and sometimes skip a number word, e.g. saying 28 after saying 26. Both boys do say a word each time they point, but not necessarily the next word in the number sequence and not necessarily one word per seed. Can we say the boys are being careless or that they are carefully applying their incomplete knowledge?

Watch these two boys count small sets of blocks and then combine them to double the count. Would an older pair of children have to start at "one" each time they wanted to know the total number of blocks? Are there other places where the boys could have used the logic of number sets to get the total count, such as one less or for that matter, sets so small you "know" the size of the set? We might wonder why they jumped from saying "nine" to saying "eleven" instead of "ten." Notice another stumble on saying "eight" instead of "six" immediately after having a total set of eight to count.

The children in this video have been involved in a long-term investigation about wind. They have explored wind sounds and experimented with creating their own wind choir using their voices. The children previously watched videos of children’s choirs and orchestras and revisited videos of themselves creating their wind choir. They studied the conductor in the videos and began to explore this role with their friends. Watch how the children understand the conductor’s role as they take turns organizing and guiding their friends’ wind sounds. They create symbols with their fingers.

How might you use a metallic wall to which you could attach magnets? At Boulder Journey School, the children have constructed a rollway made from open tubes, accentuated with hanging xylophone bars (the chimes), color-coded for pitch. In this video clip you see them listening to a recorded melody. They try to make the ball recreate the recorded rhythm as the ball rolls down the ramp striking the chimes. They do not try to recreate the pitches of the recorded melody. What is interesting about this game?