The Different Ways Children Express Themselves – Real Learning? (photo above by Joan Gilmore)
And back to talking about play:). In The Personality of Play, Part One, I wrote about the different ways that children explore through play. Here in Part Two, I am writing about the different ways children express themselves and their learning through play. To be sure, there is lots of overlap. It all kind of winds together; exploring includes some expressing and expressing includes some exploring, but the focus of the last post was on the different ways that kids learn from and play with the same material and how we see their unique personalities reflected in that. This post is focused on the different ways that kids express knowledge and skills through their play.
As I was writing about the personality of play, I started to have memories of the many a-ha moments over the years. These were times that the ideas, knowledge and skills that a child had, literally came bursting into their play. They were moments that I could see so clearly what they had taken in and equally clearly the way their expression of it in play reflected their personality. And there have been other times, many of them, where I have a sense that deep learning is happening but I have very little understanding or specific knowledge of it, and that’s alright too. Actually, I think it’s very much alright.
As a bit of preface here, I don’t think we have to know about every bit of learning a child has done. Children are deserving of privacy. It seems strange to me that we need to evaluate them and determine whether their learning is enough or the right kind or on track or any other number of things. What if we afforded them privacy of their mind in the way we do their bodies?
*I realize evaluation is an expectation within school systems and some home educating families feel more comfortable regularly evaluating as well. Sometimes they may need to due to provinical or state testing. I do understand that, but I think it’s still worth noting that “evidence of learning” is often right in front of us and learning is usually more authentic when it isn’t being prepped, tested and watched – just some food for thought.
I’m thinking of all the ramshackle thoughts and “two steps forward, one step back” kinds of learning I’ve been doing these last few months and imagining how I would feel if someone decided to evaluate me! What if my style of “all over the place until I am ready to winnow it down” processing didn’t actually show “evidence” of my learning? But what if, through more playful, meaningful moments, it became clearer? Maybe not through standardized methods – maybe something much more meaningful than standardized methods. And what if there are all kinds of things I’ve learned that I don’t care to share? Do I need to?
I enjoy learning about learning! I love finding out more about the various ways people process and express themselves and I think play is a very authentic medium for that. My remembered moments of my kids’ play spurred on some internet searches on evidence of learning and methods and reasons for evaluation. It wasn’t new information, but I was seeing it freshly in the context of this focus on play as expression of learning. I came across school- based evaluation discussions, homeschooling suggestions around narration, notebooks, lapbooks, quizzes, tests, lists of things children needed to know by certain ages and, of course, these were different depending on which methodology was being presented. In living a rich life, though, many of these elements actually show themselves through play.
Play can be an expression of what children are feeling, thinking and taking in. So much of what they read, watch, experience, wonder about and learn works itself out in play.
Imagine a 9 year old boy and his friend descending a hill toward a small sand beach on the north shore of Lake Ontario. It is an unusually quiet day and the sand seems unspoiled by footprints. Suddenly, an idea comes to one of them and it seems clear that they should be staking their claims – measuring the land. They “become” pioneers, choosing space, measuring equal amounts of land to one another. They realize they didn’t bring anything with them to accurately measure, so they come up with another system, finding a stick and counting the number of times it will fit around one the rectangle of land the first one has claimed and making the second one as equal in length and width as possible.
Someone remembers that pioneers would rarely have found cleared land like this. In many places, forest would needed to have been cleared. They head back up the hill to a more treed area and begin their play again, this time with the arduous task of “clearing the land.” They discuss different ways to do this – tools, systems. They ask others to be part of their game and begin setting up task forces. “Neighbours” help one another until each person’s land is off to a good start. Eventually, they have barn raisings and begin to grow crops. Someone begins some early talk of crop rotation. This game becomes increasingly complex and lasts for 2-3 hours.
The next week, almost the same group of kids meets at the same lakeside park. The families have heard that an HMS ship will be docking. It seems ENORMOUS and several of the kids seem to know quite a lot about ships. They excitedly pass technical and structural facts on to other kids and soon everyone knows all kinds of ship terminology and that HMS stands for “Her Majesty’s Ship.” The main passer on of information also fact drops that if a king was head of the royal family right now, it would still be HMS – “His Majesty’s Ship.” We (yes, this our own story) are treated to an exciting and generous tour of the ship and afterward, there is ample time for all to play on the beach.
One boy has a metal detector that he just received for his birthday and it becomes a hot item. A mob of kids moves around the beach together in search of detected metal. Some things are found (!) but there is only enough time to dig up a couple of things.
Eventually, it’s time for most people to leave. There’s word that the HMS will be heading out early in the morning and a few people are planning to come back to see it head out. Glances are exchanged among a few of the kids that this might provide an opportunity to dig in more of the hot spots as well as do more metal detecting in general.
And it does. The great (and it is great!) sunrise departure of the HMS leaves a morning full of time for a few of these friends to continue metal detecting and teams are set up to help with the digging.
At some point, two of the boys (one of whom owns the metal detector), talk about the idea of beginning a detective agency. They do. They write up a description and lists, draw up posters to advertise, set prices, spend lots of time planning and land a few cases.
A few months later, at the house of grandparents, siblings – a four and six year old – spend the day with a four year old cousin. The trio listens to a book with CD called, The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear. There is both music and dialogue and great fun is had at trying the low voice and British accent of this particular narrator. Eventually, it just seems to make sense to act it out and it becomes a dramatic production. A mother (I wonder who?) is asked to help with choreography and ends up with the job of narrator so that the kids can more fully be their characters. The kids easily memorize their parts, gather props and show physical gestures and facial expressions that fit their parts to a tee.
After lunch, a new book and CD is chosen. Animal Lullabies is so much fun. There is a page for each animal described and a poem accompanies each one, explaining in a whimsical way, how they might go to sleep. There is also music that reflects something about them – the region of the world they are from or maybe a physical characteristic. One of the four year olds loves the slow music accompanying the poem about the snail and throws herself into exaggerated, lethargic movement.
The six year old has the whole room cracking up with his dance moves, as he portrays the camel to fast middle eastern music ( and yet this is a lullaby book, lol – it only seems to energize this crowd). And yes, dance moves – they aren’t just sitting and listening to the poetry. Each poem is narrated to music too good not to take advantage of.
Are they able to sit and listen to the book and look at the pictures? Yes. They did that the last time they were all together, taking in each of the poems and beautiful illustrations. They have also read the book before – it has become a favourite. Now they know the order of the animal poems, can anticipate which music is coming next and know most of the words to each poem by heart.
An eleven year old girl has been learning classical ballet for several years. She then has the opportunity to see a production of both Sleeping Beauty as well as The Nutcracker. After dinner at her Granny and Grandad’s, she spontaneously spends a spring evening dancing, practicing her “moves.” Sorry – so unlike classical ballet to say that, but I couldn’t resist! I’ll try again. She is practicing posture and positions and movement. She is both focused and relaxed. The air is fresh, it is unseasonably warm and watching her, one can see there is classical music in her head as she dances. Many of the steps she has practiced for quite some time are second nature and she is full of joy. This joy is there, but is not always as obvious to others in her actual classes where she is deeply observant but not always the most eager participant. The space here in the quiet evening is where this introverted girl enjoys herself and the fullness of what she has been learning.
Three girls, all friends, play freely in the bedroom of one. Excitement breaks out as they decide to plan an event. A poster advertising the upcoming party is designed, tickets are made up, and lists, many lists, of food, decorations, guests and the order of activities are compiled. It’s decided that the event will take place in the backyard with stations/ activities in different spots. A map is drawn up, complete with a legend, numbering and arrows, indicating the flow of activities because a couple of them build on each other. Times are set out in a sort of timetable / agenda. What these three share is the excitement of a big picture event that involves art and craft in the process.
One evening, after watching a series about dinosaurs, a young boy springs into action, putting together an entire setting with which to reenact the scenes and transform some of the factual elements into story. (TV shows and documentaries almost always have this effect on him. He uses them as a springboard into his play and exploration). Various flakes and grains of cereals are used as stand-ins for the different vegetation of the herbivores. Structures are built from which carnivores can descend upon their prey. Great pain is taken to make sure that the model carnivores used would actually be involved with these particular herbivores. A dinosaur atlas is consulted.
Four kids and a mother set out on a beautiful autumn hike. They stop at the beginning of the trail to read a sign that tells them this route was historically a place where men logged white pine trees, using their straight trunks as lumber for ship masts. After cutting them down, they would float them down the river which fed into Lake Ontario and eventually out to sea. The kids are all familiar with the book Paddle to the Sea . They get how this works and want to try their hand at it.
Sticks are found immediately, placed into the water and followed for 2-3 kilometres, some getting stuck in rocks, others wedged into the riverbank. Some successfully continue down the river and hopefully on “to the sea.” It’s hard to overstate the excitement of kids engaged in this kind of play/work/learning. They strategize about currents, run from bank to bank, bridge to bridge and cross shallow areas on big stones to set their wood flowing out to sea again. They work cooperatively and energetically and they each feel a sense of tremendous accomplishment. And again, personality comes into play, with the most energized driving the mission and the others excited for different reasons – one because of the social element of everyone working together, another because of the physical adventure and risk-taking and still another as interested observer.
On another occasion, an eleven year old notices the chance to enter a contest the local newspaper has advertised. The winner and runners up will receive generous gift cards to his favourite electronics store and he’s already been saving to buy something there. This child moves toward a goal like nobody’s business. As has been seen from him before and will be seen many times after, the goal becomes an almost singular focus, energizing him and leading to incredible effort.
The topic is essentially, “What would you do if you could be Prime Minister for a week?” Many of the entries in his age category will consist of things like giving out free ice cream, banning rules for kids and other similar sentiments. Not having seen the other letters yet, this child has taken the question very seriously. He has some knowledge of the role of prime minister and also is aware that different levels of government are responsible for different things, but he’s a bit wobbly on the details of a couple. He asks the parents and then looks them up online to make sure they have it right;). It won’t be the last time they’re fact-checked.
From his intense research comes a solid letter to the newspaper. It is very well written. It outlines things that fall within the power of the federal government only and takes into consideration the different mandates a government has, touching on both domestic and foreign issues (although they’re not specifically labelled as such). He addresses possible excesses in expenses for politicians (some specific cases have been on the news – a lot). On the topic of foreign aid, he includes Haiti. His younger cousin has come from Haiti a few years earlier and his family has watched with concern and interest the aftermath and different aid efforts following the major earthquake that has happened not too long ago. He includes idea of specific ways of sustainable support and partnering with the Haitian people, aware that some of the efforts so far have not gone well. He knows this through both hearing and being involved in family conversation.
When several of the letters are published in the paper, he is surprised to see mention of things like garbage and recycling pick up because he knows these are municipal responsibilities, rather than federal. Many kids mention changes to the length of school year. That, he notices, is a provincial responsibility.
His efforts pay off, he receives second place and heads to Best Buy, now with enough to buy a new video game system.
This child is bright and inquisitive, but he’s a regular child. He’s simply someone who is intrinsically motivated to earn/gain something practical and has acquired enough of a base of information to build further on.
It’s maybe questionable to include this last example as play but I think it fits in the way I’m defining play here. Wikipedia says that play is,“a range of intrinsically motivated activities done for recreational pleasure and enjoyment.” Play Scotland includes a quote, “What children and young people do when they follow their own ideas, in their own way and for their own reasons.” (Getting Serious About Play, DCMS). Based on these types of definitions, I think even things traditionally thought of as only work, such as research and writing can, in fact, be considered play.
If you look closely at each of the examples above, you’ll see signs of fact retention, memorization, comprehension, creativity, context, mathematics, literacy and almost any academic subject you can think of and it is all played out joyfully, deeply and meaningfully. You might also notice personality shining through in the way thoughts and ideas are conveyed.
What I continue to be fascinated by is the way kids (and all people, in fact) express learning that is relevant to them through play and in highly individualized ways.
This might all make sense for younger kids, but is it relevant for older kids as well? I think so. Have a look for The Personality of Play – Part Three, As Kids Get Older.
If you have children, grandchildren or children in your life in regular ways, I imagine you can see some fascinating things expressed through their play as well. I think we all may have had a bit more time than usual to see some during these last several weeks of pandemic. I’d love to hear about them, no matter how small they might seem:).
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Hi Erin, yes there is a bunch happening here. Right now it seems to be mostly connected to movies. We’ve had so much open time in our evenings since the Covid 19 situation started that we have watched a lot more movies than usual. I enjoyed the image of the one child you mentioned acting out movies or shows after watching. That’s exactly what is happening here. Other times I can see pretend play that has a theme or character that came from the movie but my son has put a different twist on it. We watch a lot of them together so we’ve also been discussing ideas. They have many, many, many interesting thoughts that come up!
Hi Liz,
That all sounds so fun. Your point about your son’s pretend play having a recognizable theme or character from a movie and you noticing him putting a different twist on it is so fun because I think that’s how new ideas and things often come about. We build on we’ve seen or learned elsewhere and add our own ideas and then maybe somebody else adds on and it goes from there. Glad so many great conversations are coming up too. Movies are great for that, aren’t they? Thanks:).
Love this! I have definitely noticed some things these last few weeks. Glad you said it could be small because this may not sound too exciting but DD and I have been reading a bunch of Dr. Seuss. We found some lesser known ones like The Butter Battle Book as well as the regulars like Green Eggs and Ham, Cat and the Hat and whatnot. Now I’m noticing all kinds of rhyming and silly poems and lots of words and sounds that she’s recognizing. On top of that, she is drawing some funny creatures. We’re having a great time naming them😃.
Mara, I am a big fan of Dr. Seuss but I didn’t know about the Butter Battle Book. I’ve just actually looked it up and it looks great! I think my favourite is Yertle the Turtle. It’s so neat that the books have sparked so many things for your daughter … silly poems and creatures sound like lots of fun:). Dr. Seuss’s imagination seemed to know no bounds so what a great springboard for diving into her own ideas. Thanks so much for commenting.