January Emanuel’s Roof “To keep Tina Warm” and “The Perfect Chocolates.” By Daphne Babouris Colleges Children’s Centre

Emanuel continues to be very interested and provoked by construction activities and possibilities, using a variety of objects. His special playing space has regularly been the block area, where he has created so many fascinating structures, and, play scenarios to go with these. He continually sets up building challenges for himself to solve, becoming his own ‘internal teacher’. Emanuel has two home languages, Spanish and Catalan, and is practically fluent in English. This is a story of one such afternoon at nursery...

Emanuel played with the blocks, along with Tina. Tina wanted to get right inside the constructed enclosure. Emanuel, seeing this, and wanting to join his friend, calculated “I'll make two seats”. He understood that the small, cylindrical block was ideal for “round chocolate for Tina”. Immediately after, he calculated that the long planks and other long cuboid shapes, would also be perfect shapes for roofing....”that’s to keep him warm...I put these slides to keep him warm”.

Then he selected 2 more pieces of pretend den food... “Two perfect chocolates!... Some more ?”, inviting Tina. Then, he placed all the ‘perfect food’ cylinders on the building...singing... “ 3 little chocolates sitting on the wall!” And, glancing into the enclosure, he explained his building calculations so far.... “This is for putting to make him warm”, adjusting the roof a little as he spoke. Suddenly, Roger came, and was invited to take a turn inside the enclosure. Emanuel explained, “that’s the pretend chocolate, that’s the perfect chocolate.” Roger, insisted, “That’s a block, that’s not chocolate, that’s not chocolate”, making Emanuel smile, and again explain, “That's pretend chocolate!”. This little conversation continued, with both children explaining what they felt the cylindrical block represented for them. (This was a very interesting conversation to listen too.)

Emanuel continued to problem solve : He was delighted to find same large, flat rectangular wooden boards, and positioned them safely, at the top of the structure, to continue the important roof project, to keep his friend warm and cosy. He was delighted with this new building challenge. New children came to play, and could not predict the fragility of the stacked walls, so when they leaned against one, it consequently crashed down to the floor, but Emanuel was able to predict the need to keep his distance when he caught sight of this actually happening.

Emanuel helped to stack away the blocks into their corresponding shelves, demonstrating strong spatial awareness, problem solving skills, and quick calculations of how many more objects where needed to fill certain gaps and crucially, of what shape and size: He calculated which shapes where needed to fill the shelf, and how many, just by looking at the remaining space. He quickly selected the blocks required, out of a muddled, tumbled mass, and thoughtfully manoeuvred them back into their corresponding gaps on the shelves. Later, he chose the two hardest shapes to fit, and explained to Mrs Babouris how they should be placed, in order to eventually fit back onto the shelf, “You do it this way, this way”, holding the block and showing exactly what he meant, to help the adult understand. Mrs Babouris was grateful, as she had always struggled with these deceptive shapes (irregular, square prisms).

The Next Steps for Emanuel... could involve building with boxes and other materials, so that he could join these and create some sort of structure, possibly to role play in. This would, probably, involve a few other children sharing the same interests. The children’s ideas and conversations would then determine the theme and direction of this play, and any decisions regarding simple, yet provocative, recourses. The next two weeks at nursery will involve story telling, and perhaps the idea of Emanuel constructing his own role play setting or resources could become part of the learning opportunities for him. Calculation and broader mathematical opportunities could be drawn out of this activity, by adult observations and dialogues based on what the child was engaged in exploring or trying to solve. Drawing up the building plans. After this, clip boards or large whiteboards could be used to represent what had been built, ‘so that other children would know how to build it to make one too.

` Making Learning Visible to the Learners and their peers, to stimulate further learning and ideas, and to give learning processes value. Before any building, this lovely little story will be read ‘back’ to the ‘creator’, Emanuel, and his peers, at official story time, including the proposed next steps. I wonder what the children will say! Making Learning Visible to the family, and working in a partnership with them. When Mummy comes to collect Emanuel from the Orange Room, this story will be available for him to show her too, and for her to note if there are any suggestions the family would like to make, or even, photos to add, regarding Miguel's amazing building journeys. His family will be pleased as they confess he reveals nothing much about his days at nursery school!