The Heart of Play

Artifact 1: The Projector

For my first artifact, I chose this image generated by the projector. This projector gives an aurora borealis light simulation with some nature sounds such rainfall, flowing river, and such. I chose to introduce this projector to alter the sleep/rest time environment. The educator would put on soft music with nursery rhymes to help drown out the noise from the surrounding classes and lull the children to sleep. With the projector, I had hoped to bring an alternative to the music, offering a nature sounds and adding a soft moving lights to enhance the sensory experience. However, after trying to projector out once, the educator felt it was too distracting for the infants and proposed to use during transition time. We then began using it when waking the kids up from sleep and offering them snack before their parents came for pick up. This was more effective and engaging. The kids enjoyed gazing at the lights and listening to nature sounds. The ambience of the room slowly went from dark, to the soft light of the projector and then  eventually to the bright room lights as the parents walked in. This image is reminder for me to be flexible with planning experiences, sometimes they don not pan out as intended. It’s important for educators to have that open-mindedness and flexibility to adjust experiences as per the needs of the classroom.

Artifact 2: Velcro Balls

In the infant room, there was a tree taped to the wall with Velcro strips holding balls of red, yellow and green representing apples on the tree. As soon as the infants would see the balls velcroed to the tree, they would rush to it and quickly pull them off, throwing them to the ground. I would then gather the balls and put them back, and they would again rush over and pull them off. Seeing this constant repetition, we incorporated various types of play with the balls, building their schemas of trajectory, rotation, and movement. This included introducing toys with tracks to push the balls through, watching them roll down the track and having balls of various textures for the infants to carry, kick, throw, and bounce. We included relevant terminology such as roll, throw, bounce, up, down, go, catch, pull, push, etc., to build their language while engaged in play. This artifact stresses the importance of repetitive play for the infants age group. Their fascination with repeating actions or engaging in the same play for days on end signifies the understanding and schemas they are trying to build. They are exploring their world and engaging with the material, creating connections and learning how things work. Their attention span is very short so they easily tire of an activity, moving on to something else, but will often come back to a previous activity. Understanding this aspect of their development is important for educators as they plan provocations and activities for this age group.