When H was a preschooler, she loved using loose parts to create pictures. Today, I was thinking about something she could do while Y was napping so I decided to draw a design and left a box of markers and some loose parts for her. They included dry beans, wooden beads, glass pebbles, plastic pebbles, painted wooden cubes and pom poms.
She was super engaged and created this lovely piece. When Y woke up, he insisted he needed a picture too- a ladybug was his request.
Later in the day, I left him with the jars of the loose parts H hadn’t used with specific instructions not to destroy his sister’s piece.
As I typed away on a project upstairs, I eventually heard the sound of glass bottles hitting the floor and what sounded like hundreds of pieces falling. I came down to discover that is indeed what happened.
As I stared at those hundreds of pieces while the kids ate dinner, something inside of me snapped. I turned on some drum beats and the three of us worked together to clean it up. It’s amazing the things parents are (sometimes stupidly) willing to do to get 15 minutes of uninterrupted time.
I realized after the fact that it was foolish (I’d like to believe optimistic is a better word) for me to leave Y alone with so many parts without modelling what to do. I think we will try this again when I’m available to scaffold. I’m curious to see what he comes up with.
Discovery Dome 