"Stop taking the playdough to the home corner" (and other ways we attempt to stop "cross pollination" of our resources!!)
Just this morning, I read a comment in our online learning community from a legend named Morag which used the term "cross-pollination" when talking about children moving resources from one part of the environment to another. I loved the term straight away - the concept is something I've banged on about for many, many years... but I've never thought to phrase it in that way.
Reading this comment this morning got me thinking about the concept again. There are a whole bunch of ways that this shows up in our environments and interactions.
Let's unpack some of them...
"Stop taking the playdough to the home corner." Sure, I get it. Your dramatic play space is on carpet and the idea of playdough on carpet doesn't light anyone up (especially the cleaner!)And perhaps we are worried that if all of the playdough is taken to the home corner, it doesn't leave any for children at the dough table. But the real question is why are the children taking the playdough to the home corner? Is it because they are making dinner and need something to be the "food" and the playdough is malleable and can become whatever they want it to be, while the plastic banana is really just a plastic banana? What if instead of stressing about playdough in the home corner, we moved the dramatic play space to a part of the play space that isn't on carpet? What if instead of worrying about not having any playdough left at the dough table, we made a second batch, just for dramatic play?
"They keep filling up their sand buckets in the bathroom and trekking it across the room." Again, I get it. Our bathroom sinks end up full of sand, water is sloshed on the floor and dripped across the playground. We used to have this very problem in the service I worked in. Educators were getting frustrated at the mess, and the potential slip hazards and would just say "no more water". But again, the real question is why are children trekking water from the bathroom to the sandpit? Sand is an amazing loose part, and when we add water to it (another great loose part)... it changes. Sand is malleable in a different way when water is added to it, and the play possibilities change. What if instead of saying "stop filling buckets in the bathroom", we created access to water at the sandpit (e.g. a rainwater tank with a tap, or even a large container/water jug with a tap)?
"The toddlers keep putting all the block in the prams and moving them to other parts of the room" This is a common one we hear from educators in toddler spaces. They put things in handbags, they put them in wagons, they fill up baskets. They move all of the things to all of the different places. Why do they do that? SCHEMA. The filling and emptying and transporting schema are well and truly at play here. Schema are urges and exploration, and trying to stop them is like trying to stop a runaway train. What if instead of stressing about what goes where, we created environments for toddlers that embrace schema play, that actively support this type of exploration: environments filled with items for transporting (buckets, baskets, bags, wagons and more).
Children's play is messy. Children's play is fluid. Children's play is mobile. Children's play spans across different parts of the environment.
We should be celebrating and embracing all of those things, and creating environments that support play. I recognise this can be challenging at times, but I suggest every time you see a child "cross-pollinating" the resources in the environment, bite your tongue. Stop and wonder "what's really happening here?" and think about how you can best support the child's play and exploration.
Want to know more about this?
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