To support children’s schema play we have created a ‘Busy Board’ here at Hearts & Minds! (Big shout out to Chris who actually did all of the work here!) Amongst many other things, the Busy Board supports children who are investigating a range of different schemas. The wheels are perfect for little ones who are fascinated by exploring the 'round and round' of the Rotation Schema. The doors are a fun peek-a-boo game and also support the Enveloping Schema, which is when you might notice children becoming interested in repeatedly opening, closing, covering and hiding things. We have various locks for little fingers to figure out and some fun photos behind the doors!
What happens when I close the door?
Where has the photo gone?
Is it still there when I open the door?
To make the pompom run we simply attached these wall hooks (link below) to the wall and added some stick-on Velcro so the children can add their own tubes and pipes creating their own marble or pompom run (we use pompoms due to having babies with us). This encourages even more schema to be investigated! The Connecting Schema in which children physically put together the tubes and pipes and the Trajectory Schema in which children are studying the rolling or falling movement of the pompom.
Will it roll? Will it fall? Will it stop?
How long will it take to hit the ground?
Which direction will it go? Where will it land?
Children naturally investigate these schemas. Our job to is notice when they are displaying certain behaviours and facilitate their investigations by providing resources and support. Over time, this repetitive play allows children to work out "how we represent movements in our minds so that we can recreate them at a later time" (Ralphs, 2022). There's a link below to a great article if you want to find out more about toddler schemas.
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