The slinky is a toy that Hazel found in a bag hung on the wall, and she adored the structure of the toy, and it didn’t take long that she and Ruishan began to play with it by grabbing on the each end of the toy and did a parade-like walk. Both of them laughed loudly. When the parade seemed too long that the slinky may break, Christine redirected them by showing another way of playing with the slinky. She put the slinky by the wood toy, tipped over its top in a downward direction, and the toy “jumped” down from the wood.
Hazel loved what she just saw, and she couldn’t wait to try the same. The slinky, instead of “jumping”, simply rolled down, but Hazel didn’t seem to mind. She tried it again. Still rolling. Again. It was not until the fifth time that she finally “made it”. She became excited and showed me this new “trick” she just learned.
“Ok! Let’s try another way!” She used some more wood toys to make a surface that is higher, and she put the slinky on it, letting it “jump” from the higher level to the lower level of the wood. The surface of the wood was very smooth, so after “jumping”, the slinky did not just “landed” on the lover level of the wood, it glided instead, all the way to the floor. All movements happened so quickly and Hazel gave me an amazed look. “I’ve made a slide for Slinky!” She called out.
Hazel did not stop there. She began to explore other possibilities for the Slinky, some of them worked, and some of them did not. Watching this, Ben also wanted to contribute his ideas too. “Ka-Chow!”(That’s how he always called the toy car Lightening McQueen) He started to put the toy cars inside the Slinky, wanting them to jump together. “It stucked!” Ben cried out. Hazel wanted to help, and she took out the toy cars and showed Ben a Slinky-Jump. Then, as if being reminded of something, she told me that she had an idea, and off she went, started to work on her ideas, and she ended up with a stairs with three levels, a perfect place for the Slinky to have a nice jump!
Reflection
What are the learnings here?
The exploration of the Slinky started by the children. For them, there is not a “right way” or “wrong way” to interact with this bouncy toy. Yes, it will become loose or even break when children overly stretch it, but how should they know? Do we allow children learn about consequences with the risk of breaking toys? Or, when we offer toys for children to play, are we limiting their learning possibilities? But still, Hazel apparently had a great time after learning about the “right way” to play with the Slinky, she explored herself different ways to let Slinky “jump”, and although Ben had not yet managed the jumping trick, he saw the movements and he added his own idea. What I am taking from here is that, learning opportunities for children are infinite, no matter is in the box, or out of the box, as long as the box is not sealed. Our responsibility as educators, I believe, is not to get rid of the box, but to cope with the boxes and manage ways to keep the boxes open.