SCHEMAS OF PLAY IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS

I love to watch my children play. A lot of the time, I don’t get on the ground and play with them. There is value in independent play, and there’s value in observing our children’s play. Children demonstrate natural play schemas (or schemata, to get technical!) through the stuff they find in nature. Schemas of play follow a child’s developmental stages. Young children, who learn through play, demonstrate different schemas or urges, through their play.

Think of schemas as instinctive and repeated reponses or experiences related to how to learn and play. By prompting these “instructional patterns” over and over, children develop physically and cognitively. With these skills, they are better able to engage in the world around them. 

It's important to note that children can play within multiple schemas simultaneously. Play patterns are constantly changing and growing with your child.

One of the absolute most incredible things about play schemas is that it doesn't matter where a child grows up, what language they speak, the color of their skin, or their family's economic status; all kids exhibit these same play schemas. It's something that naturally connects children all over the world.

These schemas were identified by Jean Piaget, a psychologist who is often noted for his discoveries of child development. Some people, especially those who truly believe that a child is capable of learning without being spoon-fed ideas, think that Piaget underestimated the thinking abilities of young children.

But, I think there is still value in understanding how our children learn through play. Play is so important to their learning, and when we can identify what they’re doing as valuable and as building blocks for future skills, we feel more comfortable with a play-based learning through out life.

Schemas of Play

Sometimes, my little ones have different ways to play that leave me scratching my head. Miss Hope asked for Washi tape for Christmas, and it basically has ended up in layers all over my house. Instead of wondering why she’s wasting her tape, I can recognize it as a brain-building play schema. For this post, I wanted to focus on what these schemas would look like outdoors, since that’s where the bulk of the Charlotte Mason early years are spent! When it comes to outdoor play, I try make sure they have access to a variety of different settings, from travelling to nearby beaches, walking through forests, and even simply playing in our own back yard.

Related: Nature Study Must-Haves from Amazon

Enclosure/Container

This is a play schema where children place things inside of larger things. They might even enclose themselves in a big box or fort.

Nature Play Examples:

• Weston has a little red tricycle with a storage container on the back. He just LOVES to cruise around on it and find treasures for the storage container. This quickly gets filled with leaves, sticks, and rocks.

• Playing in a hollowed out tree or outdoor fort.

• Filling up a bucket with rocks, water, or sand.

• Putting bugs in a jar or insect viewer.

• Building a snow fort.

Position

Organizing things into a specific order is the schema of position. Maybe your child will sort the different things they found in nature. While using this schema, a child is laying the foundation for future mathematical and spatial skills.

Nature Play Examples

• We have rock landscaping in our yard. Miss H went through a phase where she loved to sort the rocks that she found. The reddish rocks went into one pile, while the gray rocks went into another. Rocks with a slight shimmer were the ultimate find, and they got their own special spot on the top of the porch steps.

• Lining up bark, flowers, or other nature finds in a row.

• Arranging different items from biggest to smallest, smallest to biggest, etc.

Related: Starting a Family Nature Journal

Transporting

This is one that has bothered me in the past! I’m thankful that I can recognize it now as meaningful play rather than annoying behavior! Children showing this play schema like to move things from one place to another. In our house, I know that if a library book is missing, it has probably been transported in Miss H’s backpack!

Nature Play Examples

• Moving pebbles from one area to another.

• Filling up a truck or bucket with bark and moving it to another place.

• Hauling armfuls of snow from one place to another.

Transformation

This schema, transformation, allows children to explore the properties of different things in nature. They put different parts and pieces together to make something new.

• My kids love to make mud! In the summer, they search out water so that they can make a desolate part of our yard into a mud pit. I’ve learned to not let this stress me out so much!

• Making pretend soups and stews with grass, bark, etc.

• Mixing natural objects with snow.

Trajectory

This is a schema that is definitely better outside! Children love to throw things: sticks, pine cones, and balls. Inside the house, throwing things can be problematic. But outside, this is such a fun way for them to develop their fine motor skills (while picking up a small object to throw) and their gross motor skills (when they throw the object.)

It’s hard to not automatically put the kibosh on throwing things, especially if there are other little ones around. I’ve learned that if it looks like E is going to hurt himself or someone else while throwing something, I can find a way to help make it a little safer. Instead of just throwing rocks at random, we can throw them into the stream.

Nature Play Examples

• Skipping pebbles on a pond.

• Tossing pine cones to hit a target.

• Jumping off of a large rock.

• Throwing blades of grass into the air and watching them come down.

Related: The Indoorsy Mom’s Guide to Getting Outside

Rotation

A sweet little one, spinning around until he gets dizzy, is experimenting with the schema of rotation.

Nature Play Examples

• Spinning a bird feeder that’s suspended from a tree.

• Turning a pinwheel around in the garden.

• Drawing circles in the dirt or snow with a stick.

• Marching around in circles.

Connecting/Disconnecting

Miss H is having fun with this schema currently! It includes putting things together, and maybe even taking them apart. Layering, stacking, and tying all fit into this category. Our Washi tape obsession comes from connecting it and layering it.

Nature Play Examples

• Making daisy chains.

• Making humans chains (just my kids??)

• Stacking flat stones.

• Tying a rope around a tree or tying sticks together with rope.

Related: Practice the Alphabet in the Great Outdoors

Orientation

Seeing things from a different perspective is the orientation schema. Through this schema, children learn that they can see the world through different perspectives. They do this literally now, but eventually they will learn to do this figuratively, too!

Nature Play Examples

• Hanging upside down from a branch.

• Doing handstands or cartwheels in the grass.

Enveloping

This schema involves wrapping things up. Your child might even wrap himself or herself up!

Nature Play Examples

• Burying toes in the sand.

• Wrapping things up in a big leaf.

• Your child might wrap up in a picnic blanket.

Which schemas are your little ones (or, is your little one!) interested in these days?

STARTING TO INTRODUCE AUTHENTIC RESOURCES

Are you hesitant to introduce breakables into your Early Years setting ?

That’s OK we were too when we first started.

Today, we want to share with you ideas regarding swopping out plastic pretend tea sets and play kitchen toys for real household objects. How you can introduce authentic resources for mixed aged group settings, children with SEND or younger age groups.

( Risk assessment always necessary )

At The Curiosity Approach® we feel that by incorporating authentic resources into children’s play spaces, you can create a rich and engaging experience for children that promotes cultural diversity, equality exploration, imagination, and a deeper connection to the world around them. By introducing real-life objects, we can remove the stereotypical gender constraints that often accompany commercialised toys.

Maria Montessori, advocated the use of authentic resources in early childhood settings. 

Children should have the freedom to explore and engage with a wide range of materials, regardless of societal expectations. Authentic resources create an inclusive environment where all children can freely express themselves and develop their interests and skills. At The Curiosity Approach® we look to remove the stereotypical pink and blue divide from children’s play spaces.

No longer will children ‘self police’ each other dictating what toy children should or shouldn’t play with due to its pink or blue colour!

Another benefit of utilising authentic resources is their positive impact on sustainability.

By replacing plastic toys with real, durable items, we reduce our dependence on materials that harm the environment. Stainless steel objects, for example, are not only robust but also versatile, making them ideal for various play areas such as the home corner, sand and water play, and even outdoor mud kitchens ( and much more )

🌟 Stainless steel kitchenware, like pots, pans, and utensils, can transform your home corner or outdoor kitchen into a bustling culinary hub.

🌟 When it comes to sand and water play, stainless steel items truly shine. They are resistant to rust and easy to clean, making them perfect for outdoor exploration.

Children can pour water, build sandcastles, and engage in sensory experiences, all while developing their fine motor skills and understanding of scientific concepts. The versatility of stainless steel objects allows for endless possibilities, sparking children's creativity and encouraging open-ended play.

One of the greatest advantages of incorporating authentic resources is their accessibility and cost-effectiveness.

Many stainless steel items can be collected for free by simply reaching out to parents and carers. Families are often willing to donate unused or spare kitchenware that would otherwise go to waste. This not only strengthens the connection between your setting and home but also teaches children the value of repurposing and recycling.

Show families what your after and tell them WHY 

At The Curiosity Approach® we break free from the confines of plastic pretend toys and introduce real-life experiences and materials to create powerful rich play and learning spaces and places.

Firstly you can mix and blend them together with current resources, then as collections grow, donate the unwanted unused plastic items.

Finally - When you start to build collections of REAL items that truly reflect the cultures of the children within your setting. Children feel recognised, valued and engage in imaginary play experiences relevant to THEIR lives.

They feel like they belong and are recognised here. Play is no longer pretend it’s real and relevant to them

Play Schema with Early Learners

Vygotsky’s play theory highlights the significance of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and the role of more knowledgeable others (MKOs) in scaffolding a child's learning. 

His theory emphasised the role of social interactions in learning. As a play-based teacher, you no doubt encourage collaborative play. According to Vygotsky, this is where the magic happens. Here's an overview of Vygotsky's theory and its implications for play-based learning: 

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Vygotsky introduced the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development. This zone is about the difference between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with the guidance and support of a more skilled individual. 

Play-based learning can be tailored to a child's Zone of Proximal Development by providing learning experiences that are just beyond their current level of competence but are still attainable with assistance. It’s a tricky task for a beginning teacher – I know! I also want to let you know that it becomes easier. With experience, you will be able to design learning provocations that progressively build a child’s skills and knowledge.

Scaffolding Play

Scaffolding refers to the support provided by a more knowledgeable other (a teacher or a peer) to help a child accomplish tasks within their Zone of Proximal Development. In play-based learning, teachers and other classroom members can act as scaffolds for learning. You can scaffold the learning by offering guidance, asking open-ended questions, and encouraging critical thinking. Through this scaffolding, your students will develop higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills.

Cultural Tools and Artifacts in Play

Vygotsky emphasised the role of cultural tools, like language, writing, and technology, in shaping a child's cognition. Try to include cultural artifacts and communication tools in your learning provocations. Give your students opportunities to explore and understand their cultural heritage in your play-based learning environment. It is important that you offer opportunities for your children to use many ways to communicate and express themselves.

Collaborative Learning

Vygotsky's theory highlights the value of collaborative learning experiences. Play-based learning is all over this! Collaboration and group activities where children work together, share ideas, and learn from one another are common in a play-based classroom. This type of cooperative play nurtures social skills, empathy, and a sense of community.

Private Speech in Play

Vygotsky observed that children often use private speech (talking to themselves) during play or problem-solving tasks. This self-talk helps children regulate their thinking and actions. Play-based learning environments should recognise and encourage thinking aloud and private speech. It really does help a children's cognitive self-regulation.

Make-Believe Play

Vygotsky’s theory suggests make-believe or pretend play is very important in a child's development. Imaginative or dramatic play gives children the opportunity to take on different roles and act out different scenarios. The imagination, creativity, and the exploration of social roles and situations will all be developed through this type of play.

Continuous Development of Play

Vygotsky's theory suggests that development is a continuous process influenced by social and cultural factors. With this in mind, play-based learning should provide ongoing opportunities for children to engage in activities that align with their changing developmental needs and interests.

Vygotsky's development theory supports the inclusion of opportunities for social interaction, cultural context, and collaborative learning in a child's cognitive growth. A play-based learning environment is perfect for supporting these principles. It will provide a rich and supportive environment that nurtures children's development, fosters creativity, and helps learners thrive both intellectually and socially.

What is schema play?

❥ Little ones engage in what’s called schema play. That means they repeat similar types of activities, over and over again, to learn more about how the world works.

❥ Maybe your child is curious about how different objects move through space. To experiment with this schema, they may spend a lot of time chasing bubbles, throwing balls, or rolling cars down a ramp.

❥ As they explore, children adjust their schemas — mental patterns that explain how things work — to reflect what they’ve learned. 

❥ They might notice that a ball flies quickly through the air, while a scarf floats down slowly. Or that a paper airplane travels further than a feather.Keep reading to identify which schemas your child is exploring, plus fun activity ideas for each schema!Pin it now, read it later…

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through my link but does not change your price.

“Play is the work of the child” and it is through play children develop. As toddlers grow and develop, they engage in a variety of play activities that help them learn about the world around them. When we understand their play we can better support our toddlers’ learning and development. One way to understand play better is through understanding play schemas, repetitive patterns of play that help toddlers learn about the world. This blog post discusses the 9 play schemas, how to identify them, and ideas to prepare the environment for each one.

Play schemas are not actually Montessori but they are well aligned with the philosophy. They help us understand our children and their play. They are based on the work on schemas of Jean Piaget, one of the most influential developmental psychologists of the 20th century.

One of the key concepts in Piaget's theory is the idea of schemas. Piaget believed that children construct their understanding of the world through experiences and interactions with their environment. Schemas are the building blocks of this understanding, representing the child's mental structures for organizing and interpreting new information.

The 9 Play Schemas

Transporting Schema: This play schema involves repeatedly carrying objects from one place to another. Children might carry toys, blocks, or other objects around the room, moving them from one location to another. This type of play helps children to develop their gross motor skills and their understanding of spatial relationships.

Activities:

A wheelbarrow for transporting objects is perfect for the transportation schema

• Fill a container with toys or blocks and have your toddler move them from one location to another. Provide tools for transportation such as a wagon, wheelbarrow, bags, doll strollers, and boxes. This is also a great schema for children to engage maximum effort (a Montessori concept referring to the desire of young children to exert their maximum physical strength). Provide heavy objects for moving.

• To work on fine motor work, provide small materials to transfer such as beans from one container to another. Provide different transferring materials based on the child’s age. A young toddler may use their hands, a slightly older toddler a spoon, and an older toddler might use tongs.

• You can involve the child in practical life with activities such as emptying the dishwasher or putting away the laundry.

Trajectory Schema: This play schema involves repeatedly throwing or dropping objects from a height. They also might be interested in how objects roll down a ramp. The trajectory schema is all about lines and how objects move through space. Children might drop toys from their highchair or throw them down the stairs. They might also jump off things themselves, seeing how they move through space. This type of play helps children to understand the concept of cause and effect, as well as to develop their hand-eye coordination and gross motor skills.

Activities:

• Provide your toddler with soft balls or other safe objects that they can throw or drop from a height. Provide a basket for your child to aim the ball into (this can simply be a cardboard box!) or a target such as bowling pins.

• You can also create a makeshift ramp with cardboard and have your toddler roll toys down it. Slides also offer great opportunities for rolling toys or cars as well as themselves. Ball runs are also perfect for the trajectory schema.

• A simple water sensory bin with pouring options can be perfect as well.

Rotation Schema: This play schema involves repeatedly spinning or turning objects. Children might spin wheels, turn knobs, or rotate objects around in their hands. This type of play helps children to understand concepts such as cause and effect, as well as to develop their fine motor skills.

Activities:

• Provide your toddler with wheeled objects and knobs. These spinners are often super fascinating during this schema or gear type toys. This stacker is also perfect for the rotation schema.

• Bikes, scooters, and cars are likely interesting during this schema as well.

• A salad spinner is a perfect practical life activity during this schema as well as a mixer.

Positioning Schema: This play schema involves repeatedly arranging objects in a particular way. Children might stack blocks, line up toys, or organize objects by color or shape. This type of play helps children to understand concepts such as spatial relationships, size, and shape.

Finding toys lined up and sorted is a sign of the positioning schema

Activities:

• Provide your toddler with blocks or other objects that they can stack and arrange in different ways. The Montessori Pink Tower is perfect for the positioning schema, but other stacking toys and stackers work well too.

• Sorting is also interesting during this schema so you can provide opportunities to sort by different characteristics such as by color or shape.

• Placing dot stickers on lines is a simple and easy activity you can provide for a toddler during the positioning schema. You can also make an animal parade with a blue painter’s tape line your child can place animals on.

• Try sorting silverware or setting the table for practical life.

Connection Schema: This play schema involves repeatedly joining objects together. Children might connect blocks, link chains, tie things together, put tops on containers, or snap buttons. I noticed this with my son when he was trying to attach a container top to a circle on his stroller’s wheel. It might also include knocking things down to explore disconnection. This type of play helps children to understand the concept of cause and effect, as well as to develop their fine motor skills.

Activities:

Puzzles are a great material for the connection schema

• Provide your toddler with train tracks, LEGOs/Duplos, lincoln logs, magnetic tiles or other building toys that they can snap together to create structures.

• Puzzles, including jigsaw puzzles, knobbed puzzles, and 3D puzzles, are also a great option for toddlers interested in connection.

• For practical life exploring self dressing including buttons and zippers is great. The Montessori dressing frames are a great place to start there.

• Containers with lids are also perfect for the connection schema.

Enclosure Schema: This play schema involves repeatedly enclosing objects in containers. Children might put objects into boxes, baskets, or bags. Or they might put themselves into boxes or cabinets. They might build fences around a toys. This type of play helps children to understand the concept of containment and develop their fine motor skills.

Activities:

Fort building can be fun during the enclosure schema

• Provide your toddler with boxes or other containers that they can create structures with and contain objects in.

• You can also create a "fort building station" where your toddler can use blankets and pillows to create a cozy fort.

• Get a large cardboard box for them to color inside.

• For practical life involve them in putting groceries or silverware away.

• A coin drop box can also work on fine motor skills while containing or a shape sorter for containment and shape discrimination.

Enveloping Schema: This play schema involves wrapping objects or themselves up. Somewhat similar to the enclosure schema, it is different in that the child or object is fully covered. Children might wrap up toys or other objects, or even wrap themselves up in blankets or towels. This type of play also helps children to understand the concept of containment and develop their fine and gross motor skills.

Activities:

• Provide your toddler with a variety of scarves or pieces of fabric that they can wrap around objects or themselves. Play scarves are perfect for the enveloping schema. You can also create a "burrito station" where your toddler can wrap themselves up like a burrito.

• Forts can also be great here.

• Nesting dolls are also perfect for the enveloping schema.

• For practical life, activities such as making crescent rolls that involve enveloping something in dough are fun.

• For sensory play, a sensory bin where the child can hide objects in the sensory base or toys frozen in ice to unearth are great for the enveloping schema. Play dough and other materials like that such as kinetic sand can also be fun. Those dino eggs you dig out would be perfect.

Transforming Schema: This play schema involves repeatedly changing the form or appearance of objects or materials. Children might fold paper, mold clay, or cut out shapes. This type of play helps children to develop their creativity and problem-solving skills as well as exploring cause and effect.

Activities:

• Provide your toddler with play dough or other materials that they can mold and shape into different forms. Even better- make the play dough together as the dough transforms as you make play dough.

• This is the perfect schema for a lot of cooking, particularly making doughs. We love making tortillas together, for example because it is so easy. It also involves a lot of transforming: from flour to dough to a flat tortilla. Cookies and other doughs are also fun.

• Art activities where your toddler can mix colors are a great option. For sensory play you can create a water play station with food coloring where your toddler can pour water from one container to another and mix colors.

Orientation Schema: the orientation schema involves an interest in seeing objects from different angles. Children might hang upside down, for example, or look under their legs. 

Activities:

• gross motor toys such as a Pikler triangle, swings, and a play couch are a great option here. Depending on the child’s age, monkey bars might be of particular interest.

• Activities such as toddler yoga can be really fun for a toddler exploring orientation.

• You can offer a magnifying glass for another view of the world.

• Try a Michelangelo art project and tape paper under a table for them to paint from below.

Train tracks can be perfect for the connection schema

Understanding play schemas can help parents and caregivers better understand their child's play behaviors and provide appropriate toys and activities to support their learning and development. This is why they are particularly well aligned with Montessori. Understanding them allows us to better prepare the environment for our children and provide activities and materials of interest. It can mean offering specific materials during a specific schema or even taking a break from certain materials during a schema (such as glass during the trajectory schema).

Some of the behaviors children might display while exploring a play schema can be frustrating for a caregiver. For example, throwing food off a high chair can be a difficult part of the trajectory schema. These behaviors though are simply the child exploring the world and learning. Understanding play schemas can help us greet them with more compassion. Providing alternative activities can redirect this energy and allow them to learn.

Play schemas are a natural part of a toddler's development and provide opportunities for exploration, creativity, and learning. By recognizing and supporting play schemas, parents and caregivers can provide appropriate toys and activities to support their child's learning and development. Through play, toddlers can develop their problem-solving skills, creativity, and social skills.

What are the most common play schemas?

While other schemas exist, the following types are most likely to pop up in your Toddler’s play…

1 | Trajectory: 

Exploring how things move Is your child obsessed with throwing balls, bean bags, scarves, or other objects? Do they love running and jumping? Are they fascinated by bubbles, birds, cars, and other things that move in interesting ways?Your toddler might be exploring the trajectory schema!

Here are a few activity ideas to try…

Play chasing games like tagThrow, kick, or roll a ballPush toy cars down a rampToss scarves up in the airBuild block towers and knock them overToss beanbags (or rolled socks) into the laundry hamperChase bubblesSlide down a slidePlay with a ball tracker 

2 | Connecting: 
 

Putting things together Children exploring this schema might enjoy building with LEGOs, connecting train tracks, or even holding hands! You may also notice your child is fascinated by “sticky” materials like tape, stickers, and Velcro.Sometimes this schema also involves taking things apart — think knocking over a block tower or tearing paper. 

Here are a few activity ideas to try…

Build with blocks or LEGOsPlay with fridge magnets or Magna-TilesMake a collage with rip or cut paperPractice using a dressing frameExplore stickers or Washi tapeOpen and close containersExplore locks and keys (or a latch board)

3 | Transporting: 

Moving things from one place to anotherChildren exploring this schema like to move objects around. You may notice your little one filling various containers — like pockets, bags, or baskets — with objects and carrying them around with them wherever they go.(This can be one of the messier schemas, so it rarely goes unnoticed!) 

Here are a few activity ideas to try…

Explore transferring activitiesFill a toy truck with small objects to push aroundHelp carry groceries insidePull toys around in a wagonWater plants, carrying water from plant to plantCollect natural objects in a basketWalk on a tape line while carrying a beanbag or bellTransport dirty laundry to the washing machine

4 | Rotating: 

Spinning things around Is your child fascinated by objects like wheels and gears? Do they frequently twirl around in circles or like to be swung around? Do they love rolling a ball back and forth with you?If your child is exploring this schema, any rotating object is fair game: Toy cars, nuts and bolts, spinning tops, and more.Here are a few activity ideas to try…

5 | Positioning: 
 

Lining up or arranging thingsIf you often catch your child lining up their toys, they might be exploring this schema. They may also love stacking, balancing, sorting, and finding other interesting ways to arrange objects.(This schema is usually pretty easy to identify if you know what you’re looking for!)

Here are a few activity ideas to try…

• Build with blocks

• Play with stacking toys

• Line up natural objects like sticks or rocks

• Set the table

• Arrange pegs on a pegboard

• Match identical objects or picture cards

• Sort buttons (by color, shape, or size)

• Arrange flowers

• Work with a geoboard

Covering or hiding thingsDoes your child love piling on dress-up clothes or bundling up in blankets? Are they obsessed with games like peek-a-boo or hide-and-seek? Do they often hide things around the house, tucked away in odd corners?If so, your little one might be exploring this schema!

Here are a few activity ideas to try…

• Play with nesting cups, bowls, or dolls

• Make a collage

• Explore play silks

• Play hide-and-seek

• Wrap up a baby doll in blankets

• Crawl through a play tunnel

• Paint (or fingerpaint)

• Stack measuring cups or mixing bowls

• Set up a fort or tent

• Play dress-up

Exploring different points of viewChildren exploring this schema want to see the world from every angle. They might hang upside-down, crawl under the table, or climb up high.(Since this is such a physical schema, you probably won’t miss it!)

Here are a few activity ideas to try…

• Practice yoga together

• Climb outdoors: Trees, rocks, & hills

• Play with a Pikler triangle

• Take a gymnastics class

• Paint or color using an easel

• Explore the playground

• Paint like Michelangelo

• Use a magnifying glass or binoculars

• Swing (at home or the playground)
  
  

Containing things inside a defined spaceDoes your child build “fences” around their toys? Do they spend a lot of time filling containers  — water in cups, sand in buckets, toys in baskets? If so, they’re probably exploring this schema.(You may have noticed that enclosing is pretty similar to enveloping. While there is a small difference, your child will likely enjoy both types of play!) 

Here are a few activity ideas to try…

• Build with blocks

• Color inside a cardboard box

• Make a DIY puzzle by tracing familiar objects

• Play hide-and-seek

• Collect objects in an egg carton (or muffin tin)

• Scoop and pour water or sand

• Explore a shape sorter

• Play in a ball pit

• Make a fort with pillows & blankets
  
  

🥰 Keep in mind that play schemas are just another “lens” you can view your child’s development through. So don’t stress about tying every little action to a specific schema, or pushing endless activities. (Schema play comes naturally to children, remember?)As always, keep it simple and follow your little one’s suggestions _if they are safe) 

7 Nature-Inspired Activities Your Toddler Will LoveIn "Learn & Play"

Nature Based  Play Schemas 

Schemas are repeated patterns of behavior that children exhibit in their play.

In this post, I’ll give you a brief overview of each of these 9 schemas. I’ll talk about what they are, and how best to support each with resources and activities.

1.Trajectory

What It Is

Children that display a trajectory schema enjoy movement. They like watching movement or making movement happen.

These children are experimenting with direction, forces, and cause and effect.

You may often observe them throwing objects, and watching them as they land.

This is one of the earliest schemas that is often witnessed in childhood.

Activities To Support It

To support this schema, provide lots of opportunities for children to throw and push objects, but in a safe manner.

Some great ideas include:

• Blowing bubbles, and catching and chasing them

• Playing in puddles, swirling, whisking, and creating movement in the water in a variety of ways

• Using rope and tire swings

• Using gutters, and rolling balls or water down them

• Throwing leaves in the air

• Swinging in hammocks, and enjoying being swung by their friends

• Throwing objects at a target, for example throwing bean-bags into hoops, or throwing natural objects into buckets

• Rolling down hills

• Jumping off objects, such as tree stumps, stacks of crates, or obstacles such as planks

• Throwing and catching scarves and ribbons

• All types of ball games

• Throwing, striking and catching balloons

• Pouring and whisking water in a variety of ways

Hammocks provide the movement to interest children with a trajectory schema

2. Transformation

What It Is

Children with a transformation schema are interested in change. They will be fascinated by objects changing in appearance or substance.

They may also show an interest in their own bodies changing. (Source)

Children are developing an understanding of cause and effect. these children are continually asking, what if?

Activities To Support It

• Using natural paint brushes to paint in mud, send or other malleable substances

• Wellington boots stamping in mud

• Adding water to mud or sand and creating marks

• Japanese happa zome – bashing flowers with hammers to create pictures with the dye

• Clay and mud activities

• Pretty much any activities in a mud kitchen – pouring, wisking, stirring, creating potions

• Bark rubbing

• Using a pistol and mortar to create potions and mix substances

• Making marks with loose parts

• Clay and play Doh activities

• Gloop with loose parts

Creating Happa Zome art, a Japanese art-form of bashing flowers

3.Transporting

What It Is

Children that show a transporting schema are fascinated by carrying objects around a space.

They are learning about where things belong. They are also developing an understanding of distance and mapping an environment.

These children will use all sorts of methods of transporting objects.

Activities To Support It

• Using pulley systems

• Wheelbarrows and moveable containers such as trailers

• Having a variety of differently sized containers around the space, for children to transport mud, water, leaves, and whatever else they find

• A variety of baskets, buckets, cups and jugs

• Lots of natural loose parts to be transported – such as pebbles, flowers, sticks, pinecones etc

• Mud kitchen containers, such as pots and pans

• Small construction toys in builder’s trays

• Bags such as rucksacks, handbags, or ‘superhero bags’

Transporting objects using a wheel-barrow around the outdoor space

4.Rotation

What It Is

Children that show this kind of schema enjoy things that turn or rotate.

They are learning to understand body position balance and coordination. They are developing an understanding of how objects move.

You may notice they have an interest in anything that rotates, in rotating their own bodies, or in rotating objects that they find.

Activities To Support It

• Large wheels

• Tires to roll and spin around inside

• String or wool to wind around objects

• Balls thought they can roll, kick or spin

• Screwdrivers and real tools

• Circle games that involve movement such as duck duck goose

• Salad spinners, spoons and whisks

• Toy windmills that they can blow or that spin on windy days

• Natural mobile’s hung from trees

• Large hoops you lied

• Tires to roll, or tires swings to spin around in

Spinning in tire swings provides the experience of rotation

5.Positioning

What It Is

Children with a positioning schema are interested in placing objects in an alignment of some description.

In the real world, this often manifests as placing toys and objects in a line. Often these children might place a favorite toy in a line repeatedly.

These children are learning about order, and are also interested in sequences and symmetry.

They will repeat patterns of objects on top of one another and alongside also.

Activities To Support It

• threading leaves onto string

• Creating jewellery by threading things like pasta tubes onto string

• Positioning rubber bands on natural geoboards

• Observing reflections in water

• Using hammers, nails and screws

• Placing objects on 10 frames and five frames

• Counting and sorting natural objects

• Playing with small loose parts in trays

• Creating plaques with clay or mud

• Using mirror books with natural objects

(Source)

Mirror books and loose parts are fantastic for positioning schema

6. Orientation

What It Is

An orientation schema is an interest in how objects look from different angles.

These children like to see things from an unusual perspective. They may hang upside down, or look at things through their legs.

They experiment with balance height and weight.

Activities To Support It

• Have ladders of different sizes around your environment so children can look at things from different heights

• Rope swings

• Tree stumps and planks for building walkways

• Allow the children to climb trees if you have any in your learning space

• Rolling down hills

• Building natural obstacle courses with large loose parts

• Bug hunts using binoculars and magnifying glasses

• Cloud gazing

Rope ladders provide the opportunity to see everything from a different perspective

7.Enveloping

What It Is

An enveloping schema is an interest in wrapping up objects or themselves.

Children are developing an understanding of shape, space, and volume. They are experiencing body awareness and a sense of one’s self.

You may see a child wrapping up their toys, covering paintings or drawings in one color, or creating dens to hide in.

Activities To Support It

• Provide hammocks which create that feeling of being enclosed

• Provide lots of den-making materials, such as large sticks, tarpaulin, string, clothespins, sheets, and camouflage nets

• Have small world areas with lots of natural resource is to help children in enclose play figures

• Burying their toes in the sand or mud

• Blankets and other large material to wrap things in

• Large boxes

• Dressing up clothes

Dens provide that sensation of being enveloped

8.Enclosure

What It Is

Children with an enclosure schema are interested in creating borders to contain objects.

They construct fences and walls around items. They also construct borders in the objects that they interact with.

They are also interested in enclosing their own bodies and will wrap themselves up or hide in different spaces.

Activities To Support It

• Playing hide and seek

• Hiding inside large cardboard boxes

• Creating walls and borders as part of block play

• Creating dens using a range of resources

• Crawling through tubes and tunnels

• Placing objects in containers and putting lids on

Large sticks can be made into borders or structures to hide inside

9.Connection

What It Is

Children with a connexion schema are discovering how things join, fasten and separate.

They are learning about shape and matching forces of push and pull.

these children will be observed connecting and disconnecting objects,

Activities To Support It

• Make worry dolls from sticks using string

• Create journey sticks, connecting objects they find on a journey to sticks using string

• Use real tools to connect materials

• Stacking stones and other natural loose parts

• Den building

• Tying string around trees

• Daisy chains

• Paper dolls

• Using construction toys

Using real tools such as screwdrivers is an excellent way of supporting a connecting schema

Supporting Schema Play

It makes a lot of sense to support the schemas that you see, as this has a range of benefits.

Schemas help deepen and intensify children’s play. By encouraging their schemas, you will get children that are wholly involved in what they are doing.

Schemas help children flourish, and think independently.

They can also help them make more accelerated progress. Good luck spotting and supporting schemas!

UNDERSTANDING YOUR CHILD THROUGH PLAY SCHEMAS

We’ve all been there: Your 12 month old is in a highchair and continues to drop her bowl to the floor over and over again. You wouldn’t be alone in thinking, “Just quit it already!” What you might not realize is that you’re asking your infant to go against a very deep urge she is having, and it is only an uphill battle trying to change it. What she’s experiencing is a play schema.

“Play schema” refers to the urges children have while they play. Child development researcher Jean Piaget identified play schemas as part of the stages of development that children go through. Play schemas are one of the ways children test and re-test their theories about the world. Think about the child that just can’t resist throwing a toy across the room or the child that is climbing on top of the table—they’re experiencing specific schemas that are influencing how they want to engage with the world around them.

Play schemas are one of the ways children test and re-test their theories about the world.

Cluing into the types of schemas your child is having can help you plan their play in really meaningful ways, while also harnessing their energy safely. It also can help you avoid those frustrating situations where it feels like your child just absolutely refuses to listen. If you can identify the urge they’re having you can provide a safe situation for them to fulfill it in, for example, going outside to climb a tree rather than climb on the coffee table, or providing them with a soft beanbag they can throw, rather than a block.

Here are play schemas you might recognize in your child and ways to engage them in that schema.

Orientation is all about changing your point of view.

• What it might look like:

• Hanging upside down

• Climbing under a table or chairs

• Climbing on top of a piece of furniture

New idea to try:

• Tape a large piece of paper to the underside of a table and invite your child to draw on it

Positioning is all about arranging things in a specific way.

What it might look like:

• Lining up cars, animals, or other toys

• Stacking objects

• Straightening rows of shoes

New idea to try:

• Use painters tape to create different shapes on the table or floor and provide different blocks or toys that can be arranged along the tape

Connection is all about joining materials together and taking them apart.

What it might look like:

• Connecting train or car tracks

• Connecting legos pieces

• Attaching things with a string

New idea to try:

• Playing with magnets on the fridge

Trajectory is all about moving objects around.

What it might look like:

• Knocking down blocks

• Dropping things

• Throwing things

• Fake explosions

New idea to try:

• Make paper airplanes and throw them from different heights

Enclosure is all about filling space with objects or materials.

What it might look like:

• Filling cups with water, sand, or other materials

• Climbing into boxes

• Squeezing into tight spaces

• Building walls/fences around toy animals or people

New idea to try:

• Save cardboard boxes from deliveries to use to build forts, tunnels, cars, whatever your child decides

Transporting is all about the urge to carry many things from one place to another, whether in your hands or in a bucket.

What it might look like:

• Filling a bucket or basket to carry

• Filling and dumping pockets

• Filling dump trucks, wagons, or other wheeled device

New idea to try:

• Bring a basket or wagon to the park for your child to fill and move around

Enveloping is all about wrapping yourself or others up in paper, fabric, or something else.

What it might look like:

• Wearing a sheet or other fabric over your head

• Wrapping toys in paper or tape

• Burying items in the sand

• Building a fort

• Hide and seek

New idea to try:

• Provide your child with loose fabrics of different sizes so they can wrap themselves, dolls, or stuffed animals up

Rotation is about anything that goes around in a circle—wheels, knobs, tops, etc.

What it might look like:

• Watching the washing machine

• Spinning around in a circle

• Using a water wheel with sand or water

New idea to try:

• Bring cars or balls to the park with you and send them down the slide

Transformation is all about watching how things change and testing out cause and effect.

What it might look like:

• Mixing paint or other colorful materials

• Combining water and sand

• Playing with the food on your plate

• Dressing and undressing baby dolls

New idea to try:

• Using different materials to mix potions (for example: soap, water, food coloring, sand, etc.)

For anyone that spends time with young children, a familiarity with play schemas is an awesome tool to have in your toolbelt. It’s not an enjoyable experience for anyone to continuously say “no” or be told “no”. Play schemas allow you to recognize the need a child is having and try to brainstorm a better way for them to satisfy it. You and your child will both have more fun.

Find a high-quality play-based child care or preschool program near you.

SCHEMAS - HOW TO SPOT & SUPPORT THEM

A schema is a pattern of actions or thoughts that are used to understand types of information and the relationships between them. Schemas help children experiment and explore the world around them to best understand how they can interact and live within it. Schemas usually emerge in early toddlerhood and continue to around 5 or 6 years old.

If you can learn about schemas you can learn to identify them in your child's behaviour and use them as a better way to connect with and understand your child. We all engage in schemas and us them in our lives but young children do it in a much more obvious, visible way. And we can use these hints they're giving us to support their interests. This in turn helps us provide toys/activities/resources that support these interests.

Below we've put together a simple list of the main 9 schemas children exhibit, how to spot them and then how to support them. This video also has a quick run through!

 Trajectory

This is all about exploring how objects move through space!

How to spot: Your child will be loving balls, throwing/dropping toys, and jumping off things.

How to support: Drop objects into containers, roll balls along a surface or drop them, throwing soft objects at a target, pouring from one container to another, babies can explore how their arms and legs move different directions by waving and kicking

Balls are the perfect toy to explore trajectory. You can roll them, throw them or  bounce them! These Papoose ones are great for young kids because they're large and soft.

Sensory play is a great way to expand the trajectory schema. Tipping and pouring is perfect for studying how trajectory works.

Sarah's Silks can also be great for when a child is in the trajectory schema. The float slowly down and can be throw vigorously without causing damage.

Ball runs, coin drops and all games similar are a fantastic way to explore during the trajectory schema for older kids. Photo by @today.our.children.

For younger kids, posting activities are a great way to explore the dropping aspect of the trajectory schema. Photo by @ashchidlow

Enclosing

This is all about joining lines and creating enclosures around objects!

How to spot: Your child will be loving building fences around toys, drawing borders around artwork and running in circles around objects.

How to support: Use fences or blocks to make a zoo or farm with enclosures for animals, create artwork and provide something to create a fun border, use loose parts to create outlines around a group of objects, build houses and put people or other objects in them

 Fence building is the classic enclosure activity. You can make a farm or a zoo, and remember anything can be used as fences - blocks, sticks, string you don't need to buy speciality toy fences.

 Here's a fabulous zoo Big Sis building with her Small Counting Blocks and Collect A figurines. 

Enclosing can also present itself as drawing borders around things or like the above outline other objects with loose parts. It's a great way to explore the shape or something and negative space.

Transporting

This is all about transporting, moving and exploring objects!

How to spot: Your child will be loving moving objects from place to play using their hands, bags or trolleys.

How to support: Provide vehicles, particularly ones with a space to carry animals, people or loose parts, use a wheelbarrow, trolley or toy pram to transport objects to different rooms, get a small bag and let them pack it to carry things around, pouring with water/sensory bases

 The transporting schema can be a messy one! But it's worth taking a moment to stop and ask your kids what they're doing and before panicking. This day my girls were doing imaginative play packing toys to take to their friend's house that didn't have any toys.

Train sets are perfect for the transporting schema! Especially good is any open carriages where they can store little goodies to transport along the railway.

Transporting can take the form of transferring things from one tray or bowl to another or carrying things to another room and making a pile. You can offer opportunities for this with bowls and loose parts or even set up a basket in another room to encourage transporting a toy to that space. Photo by @acraftyliving

Enveloping

This is all about hiding and wrapping objects or themselves!

How to spot: Your child will be covering themselves or objects with different materials such as building forts, wrapping objects, dressing up, putting things in a bag or painting their hands.

How to support: Build pillow forts or tent with blankets, recycle some big boxes to play in, dress ups (particularly gloves or socks), do some painting in the bath and allow them to paint their bodies, wrap presents with paper or playsilks (pretend or real!), posting activity with balls/loose parts

Something like this Montessori Lockbox with lots of compartments and doors is great for supporting the enveloping schema. They can hide small objects in there and explore how to get them and how to hide them.

An important thing to note for the enveloping schema is it often takes the form of the child trying to envelope their own body. In this situation tent, cubbies and play silks can be ideal for play.

A great fine motor activity that works well in the enveloping (and transporting) schema is transferring pompoms from one container into another. Use scoops or tongs to practice dexterity and strengthen those little hands.

Rotation

This is all about twisting, spinning and rolling objects or themselves!

How to spot: Your child will be loving spinning tops, twisting ribbons, rolling down hills, and spinning in circles.

How to support: Roll down a hill or spin around in circles, play with spinning tops,  riding bikes, particularly in a circle, lock and key games, ribbons to twist and spin, trucks, trains, buses, trolleys, cars - anything with wheels!

Spinning tops are perfect for exploring the rotational schema. We love Mader spinning tops and while they're not necessary we find the boards make top spinning a lot easier for little hands.

Cars, trucks, trains... anything with wheels is great for exploring when your child is in the rotational schema!

Positioning

This is all about positioning, ordering and arranging!

How to spot: Your child will be loving positioning objects in a line or be very specific about where everything should be placed.

How to support: Make mandalas or lines on washi tape with loose parts, line up objects from smallest to biggest, real-life tasks like setting the table or putting away laundry, puzzles or stacking game, sorting objects in categories - colour, shape or size

Mandalas are a great way to explore the positioning schema, especially for older children because you can get a good grasp of spacial awareness and pattern making in a 2-dimensional way. Photo by @_walkinginthewild_

Lining items up is a great sign that they're in the positioning schema. You can support this by supplying loose parts and maybe setting up an invitation to play like this with washi tape.

 Puzzle are excellent for exploring the positional schema. Ravensburger are the gold standard in puzzles and have been for many decades. They come in themed sets, 1:1 scale pictures to help little ones and are self-correcting because none of the pieces can be placed in the wrong spot.

Egg cartoons and trays with sections can be great for the positional schema. Set out an invitation with loose parts and an egg carton and you can either play together and spark their imagination or see what they come up with themselves.

Connecting

This is all about joining or linking objects together!

How to spot: Your child will be loving forming chains, linking, buckling and even tying objects together.

How to support: Art activities involving glueing, build with magnetic tiles or blocks, threading activities or bracelet making, fine motor play with clips, snaps, buckles or other fasteners, make paper chains, tie objects onto a ribbon

Flockmen are a great toy to explore the connecting schema. They link together in a variety of ways and can be played flat on the floor or stacked like this.

 Connecting Way to Play roads is a great exercise for small hands and great way to explore how things connect and how they come apart.

Montessori lock boards are fantastic for exploring different types of fastening and how things can connect in a multitude of ways.

Grapat Rings are fantastic for threading onto all sorts of items and this is a really great way to explore the connection schema. In the above photo we used our Grapat Rings on our Sarah's Silk but you can use rope or any play fabric you have.

This natural building kit is great for exploring connection. Little ones can build their own tree and add branches, leaves and flowers. Photo by @through_our_days 

Orientation

This is all about looking at things from different perspectives!

How to spot: Your child will be loving looking at things upside down or through their legs, they may even climb to get a look from above.

How to support: Get down on the floor together and discuss what something looks like, then stand up and talk about how it looks different (try this in different positions), move objects around (up/down/near/far) and talk about how they look different even when you stay still, lie on your back/look through your legs and discuss how the world looks

Yoga is an excellent way to explore the orientation schema. Looking at the world from a different perspective is fun for children and this can be a great way to encourage it.

Wobbel boards are excellent for vestibular input and they encourage playing in different positions and levels which is perfect for the orientation schema. 

We hope this blog helps you understand what schema your child may be exploring and how best to support their play

Trajectory

This is all about exploring how objects move through space!

How to spot: Your child will be loving balls, throwing/dropping toys, and jumping off things.

How to support: Drop objects into containers, roll balls along a surface or drop them, throwing soft objects at a target, pouring from one container to another, babies can explore how their arms and legs move different directions by waving and kicking

Balls are the perfect toy to explore trajectory. You can roll them, throw them or  bounce them! These Papoose ones are great for young kids because they're large and soft.

Sensory play is a great way to expand the trajectory schema. Tipping and pouring is perfect for studying how trajectory works.

Sarah's Silks can also be great for when a child is in the trajectory schema. The float slowly down and can be throw vigorously without causing damage.

Ball runs, coin drops and all games similar are a fantastic way to explore during the trajectory schema for older kids. Photo by @today.our.children.

For younger kids, posting activities are a great way to explore the dropping aspect of the trajectory schema. Photo by @ashchidlow

Enclosing

This is all about joining lines and creating enclosures around objects!

How to spot: Your child will be loving building fences around toys, drawing borders around artwork and running in circles around objects.

How to support: Use fences or blocks to make a zoo or farm with enclosures for animals, create artwork and provide something to create a fun border, use loose parts to create outlines around a group of objects, build houses and put people or other objects in them

 Fence building is the classic enclosure activity. You can make a farm or a zoo, and remember anything can be used as fences - blocks, sticks, string you don't need to buy speciality toy fences.

 Here's a fabulous zoo Big Sis building with her Small Counting Blocks and CollectA figurines. 

Enclosing can also present itself as drawing borders around things or like the above outline other objects with loose parts. It's a great way to explore the shape or something and negative space. 

Transporting

This is all about transporting, moving and exploring objects!

How to spot: Your child will be loving moving objects from place to play using their hands, bags or trolleys.

How to support: Provide vehicles, particularly ones with a space to carry animals, people or loose parts, use a wheelbarrow, trolley or toy pram to transport objects to different rooms, get a small bag and let them pack it to carry things around, pouring with water/sensory bases

 The transporting schema can be a messy one! But it's worth taking a moment to stop and ask your kids what they're doing and before panicking. This day my girls were doing imaginative play packing toys to take to their friend's house that didn't have any toys.

Train sets are perfect for the transporting schema! Especially good is any open carriages where they can store little goodies to transport along the railway.

Transporting can take the form of transferring things from one tray or bowl to another or carrying things to another room and making a pile. You can offer opportunities for this with bowls and loose parts or even set up a basket in another room to encourage transporting a toy to that space. Photo by @acraftyliving

Enveloping

This is all about hiding and wrapping objects or themselves!

How to spot: Your child will be covering themselves or objects with different materials such as building forts, wrapping objects, dressing up, putting things in a bag or painting their hands.

How to support: Build pillow forts or tent with blankets, recycle some big boxes to play in, dress ups (particularly gloves or socks), do some painting in the bath and allow them to paint their bodies, wrap presents with paper or playsilks (pretend or real!), posting activity with balls/loose parts

Something like this Montessori Lockbox with lots of compartments and doors is great for supporting the enveloping schema. They can hide small objects in there and explore how to get them and how to hide them.

An important thing to note for the enveloping schema is it often takes the form of the child trying to envelope their own body. In this situation tent, cubbies and play silks can be ideal for play.

A great fine motor activity that works well in the enveloping (and transporting) schema is transferring pompoms from one container into another. Use scoops or tongs to practice dexterity and strengthen those little hands.

Rotation

This is all about twisting, spinning and rolling objects or themselves!

How to spot: Your child will be loving spinning tops, twisting ribbons, rolling down hills, and spinning in circles.

How to support: Roll down a hill or spin around in circles, play with spinning tops,  riding bikes, particularly in a circle, lock and key games, ribbons to twist and spin, trucks, trains, buses, trolleys, cars - anything with wheels!

Spinning tops are perfect for exploring the rotational schema. We love Mader spinning tops and while they're not necessary we find the boards make top spinning a lot easier for little hands.

Cars, trucks, trains... anything with wheels is great for exploring when your child is in the rotational schema!

Positioning

This is all about positioning, ordering and arranging!

How to spot: Your child will be loving positioning objects in a line or be very specific about where everything should be placed.

How to support: Make mandalas or lines on washi tape with loose parts, line up objects from smallest to biggest, real-life tasks like setting the table or putting away laundry, puzzles or stacking game, sorting objects in categories - colour, shape or size

Mandalas are a great way to explore the positioning schema, especially for older children because you can get a good grasp of spacial awareness and pattern making in a 2-dimensional way. Photo by @_walkinginthewild_

Lining items up is a great sign that they're in the positioning schema. You can support this by supplying loose parts and maybe setting up an invitation to play like this with washi tape.

Puzzle are excellent for exploring the positional schema. Ravensburger are the gold standard in puzzles and have been for many decades. They come in themed sets, 1:1 scale pictures to help little ones and are self-correcting because none of the pieces can be placed in the wrong spot.

Egg cartoons and trays with sections can be great for the positional schema. Set out an invitation with loose parts and an egg carton and you can either play together and spark their imagination or see what they come up with themselves. 

Connecting

This is all about joining or linking objects together!

How to spot: Your child will be loving forming chains, linking, buckling and even tying objects together.

How to support: Art activities involving glueing, build with magnetic tiles or blocks, threading activities or bracelet making, fine motor play with clips, snaps, buckles or other fasteners, make paper chains, tie objects onto a ribbon

Flockmen are a great toy to explore the connecting schema. They link together in a variety of ways and can be played flat on the floor or stacked like this.

 Connecting Way to Play roads is a great exercise for small hands and great way to explore how things connect and how they come apart.

Montessori lock boards are fantastic for exploring different types of fastening and how things can connect in a multitude of ways.

Grapat Rings are fantastic for threading onto all sorts of items and this is a really great way to explore the connection schema. In the above photo we used our Grapat Rings on our Sarah's Silk but you can use rope or any play fabric you have.

This natural building kit is great for exploring connection. Little ones can build their own tree and add branches, leaves and flowers. Photo by @through_our_days

Orientation

This is all about looking at things from different perspectives!

How to spot: Your child will be loving looking at things upside down or through their legs, they may even climb to get a look from above.

How to support: Get down on the floor together and discuss what something looks like, then stand up and talk about how it looks different (try this in different positions), move objects around (up/down/near/far) and talk about how they look different even when you stay still, lie on your back/look through your legs and discuss how the world looks

Yoga is an excellent way to explore the orientation schema. Looking at the world from a different perspective is fun for children and this can be a great way to encourage it.

Wobbel boards are excellent for vestibular input and they encourage playing in different positions and levels which is perfect for the orientation schema.

We hope this blog helps you understand what schema your child may be exploring and how best to support their play. 

THE TRAJECTORY SCHEMA

The trajectory schema is all about movement. If you have children in your classroom throwing things, fascinated with moving objects or force and motion, you probably have children developing their trajectory schema.

This blog post will explain exactly what this play schema is and give you a number of playful hands-on activities you can easily use in your classroom to support children developing their trajectory schema.

WHAT IS A PLAY SCHEMA?

Schemas are repeated patterns of behaviour. You will be observing play schemas whenever you notice children in your class doing certain behaviours over and over when they play. There are nine schemas most commonly observed in young children.

This blog post is about one of those nine schemas – the trajectory play schema. If you are interested in learning about any of the other play schemas, check out this blog post: A Guide to Play Schemas in Early Childhood Education

Schematic play is about how a child plays and explores the learning resources and environment. It isn’t a specific type of play like dramatic play or sensory play. You can observe play schemas in all areas of the classroom.

You might observe a child demonstrating the trajectory play schema at block construction when they spin, slide and throw blocks around the area. You might see them making paper planes to throw around the room at the Makerspace. This would be another example of a child using the trajectory schema.

Sometimes you might not make a connection between these observations because they seem like different forms of play in different scenarios, but the play schema in these examples remains the same.

Once you’ve observed a child displaying a specific play schema, you will often notice that child repeating the same action schematically using a range of different objects or even their own bodies.

WHY ARE PLAY SCHEMAS IMPORTANT IN A PLAY-BASED CLASSROOM?

Understanding play schemas and being able to pinpoint the ones your students are developing is critical to the success of your early childhood classroom. When you become aware of the play schemas your students are developing you will:

• Understand your students and their developmental needs.

• Deepen your understanding of how children learn.

• Be able to tap into your student’s interests.

• Increase engagement.

• Know how to encourage your students to be more curious.

• Extend the learning and the intensity of your student’s play.

• Make the right observations to inform your planning.

• Be able to easily differentiate the learning experiences you offer.

When you understand play schemas, you can use this knowledge to help you make informed observations. You’ll be able to document what and why the children are demonstrating certain behaviours during investigative playtime. Understanding play schemas will help you gain insights into your children’s passions and interests. You will be armed with the information you need to adapt the curriculum and plan for appropriate engaging and purposeful learning experiences.

Understanding play schemas can also help you understand what can sometimes be seen as an undesirable classroom behaviour. For example, you might have a child constantly flipping or spinning objects at dramatic play. This would certainly be quite annoying for you and all the other children trying to play there. This behaviour might be seen as undesirable, but when you understand that this behaviour is coming from a child exploring the trajectory schema, you can set up a learning invitation to accommodate this schema and turn the undesirable behaviour into a desirable one.

When you understand why certain behaviours are happening, you come to realise children do not simply misbehave. There’s always a reason for desirable and undesirable behaviours and sometimes play schemas can be that reason.

Being able to recognise and use play schemas is crucial to the success of any play-based classroom.

WHAT IS THE TRAJECTORY SCHEMA?

Children building the trajectory schema enjoy movement. They will love experimenting with direction, force and motion, and cause and effect. They are attracted to observing and creating movement, as well as being moved and moving their own bodies.

These children are fascinated by how things move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. They like to investigate what happens when objects are thrown or pushed. During schematic play, you will notice them knocking things over, running fast, or making objects to fly through the air.

Exploring movement and the Science unit on How Things Move is going to grab the attention of children developing their trajectory schema. This schema is all about movement.

Developmentally, this schema is one of the earliest and most common schemas that young children explore. I have had many children still interested in this schema in preschool or kindergarten and even in first grade. They benefit from activities involving toy cars, paper planes, spinning objects, marble runs, and anything to do with balls.

Because the trajectory schema involves a lot of throwing and pushing, it is one of the play schemas that requires a lot of support in the classroom. As educators of children developing the trajectory schema, we need to help these children express this schema in a safe way.

WHAT ARE CHILDREN LEARNING?

Children exploring the trajectory play schema are consistently experimenting, observing, and learning. With every drop or throw, they are learning.

Not only are they learning cause and effect, but they are discovering how different things can fall at different speeds. They notice how objects make different sounds when they land on different surfaces. How the different forces used when dropping or throwing things changes the result and even how objects feel different in their hands when they are dropped or thrown.

Children developing their trajectory schema are also developing their gross motor skills. They will be fine-tuning their visual tracking skills and growing in their body awareness. These children will also be working on scientific skills like observing, and predicting.

As children mature and develop their trajectory schema further, you might notice them beginning to explore their spatial awareness and developing their positional language.

They become interested in shapes and grids. They use their understandings of horizontal and vertical lines to explore open and closed lines, corners, and curves. Shapes like rectangles, squares, and triangles become interesting to them. These children will start to make marks in the forms of crosses, ladders, and grids.

An interest in lines and grids will naturally lead these children into explorations of number lines and arrays.

Children naturally develop mathematical concepts through their exploration of the trajectory schema. They will deepen and extend their understandings of measurement concepts like length, height, and distance.

WHAT VOCABULARY SUPPORTS THE TRAJECTORY SCHEMA?

Fly, spin, twirl

Glide, float, drop

Bounce, high, low

Heavy, light

Land, target, take off, launch

Swing, pendulum, pulley

Up, down, fast, slow, high, low

If you are interested in supporting your student’s oral language through their interest in the trajectory schema, you will love my illustrated movement vocab cards. Add them to any investigation area to act as provocations that will stimulate new learning explorations and language development.

Movement Vocabulary Cards

$3.00

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HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT A TRAJECTORY SCHEMA IN THE PLAY-BASED CLASSROOM

Because children exploring the trajectory schema will be fascinated with movement, there are numerous hands-on learning experiences you will have the opportunity to offer your students. Supporting this schema in a play-based classroom is easy!

In kindergarten and first grade, children should have access to a wide variety of resources that foster their experimentation of movements.

It is important that educators consider how and where these resources are offered too. Exploration of the trajectory schema is often related to risky play so it’s very important to understand and always follow your health and safety guidelines.

How Things Move Science Unit

The foundation stage science unit on force and motion or how things move is going to be of particular interest to children exploring their trajectory schema. This science unit is all about the way objects move and how movement depends on a variety of factors, including their size and shape.

In this science unit, students observe and describe movement. They will also consider terms for describing movement and focus on the movement of objects and their own bodies. Any students interested in movement will love this unit.

I have designed 10 PowerPoint Science lessons and a corresponding Student Journal for this unit. If you are teaching this ACARA Science unit, you might be interested in checking it out. It has everything you need to teach the Australian Curriculum Physical Sciences Unit on Movement for the Foundation Stage.

ACARA Foundation Stage Science MOVEMENT Lessons and Journal BUNDLE

The lessons and the journal activities in this bundle have been carefully aligned to ACARA and all the content descriptors from the Foundation Physical Sciences strand are covered. Each page in the student journal corresponds with each of the 10 PowerPoint lessons.

Your students will be able to use the journal to record and represent their knowledge and understandings and it could also be used as evidence of learning and to inform assessment grades too if you want.

Exploring the Trajectory Schema through Block Play

Block play provides many opportunities for your students to explore the trajectory schema. How you do that has everything to do with the supplementary resources you offer in this space.

Cars and road mats are always popular with children interested in the trajectory schema. Trains and train tracks are another good resource to add. Head to your math resources and find some wooden 3D shapes that roll – cylinders, spheres and cones.

You can always set up some ramps using the blocks in your block play area if you want to encourage children to explore their trajectory schema. They will love exploring ramps.

One of our favourite investigations at block play is when we investigate force and motion in science. We make a little pendulum wrecking ball by putting a tennis ball into a stocking hung from the ceiling. The children love exploring simple physics laws with this simple tool.

The Trajectory Schema in the Makerspace and Art Area

To support the trajectory schema in a makerspace or through art and craft experiences, you need to think about adding resources to encourage children to experiment with movement. Here are some ideas you might like to try:

• Blowing paint with straws.

• Adding eye droppers and coloured water to the area.

• Supply spray bottles filled with watered-down paint.

• Add paint to squeezy bottles for children to experiment with dropping paint.

• Provide upright painting surfaces like easels and runny paint.

• Introduce Marble Rolling Painting. Children can make marks by rolling paint-covered marbles in a tray lined with paper.

• Making tracks and marks with car wheels that have driven through paint puddles.

• Constructing frisbees, paper planes and boomerangs.

• Supply a variety of wood and cardboard circles, plastic bottle tops, rubber bands, and split pins for children to make moving toys.

• Tie a length of string to a paintbrush for children to paint with a pendulum action.

• Supply glue in large syringes so children can explore the way the glue is moved through the syringe.

Dramatic Play and the Trajectory Schema

Offering your students opportunities to develop their interest in the trajectory schema at your dramatic play spaces is not that difficult when you remember movement is at the centre of this play schema.

Think about all the authentic moving objects and any objects that create movement when you are wanting to support the trajectory play schema at this investigation area. Prams, toy clocks, toasters, whisks, bowls and stirrers, egg timers, lava lamps, mobiles and flags are just a few that come to mind.

Setting up a Doctors to explore how our bodies move is another great learning experience that will attract children exploring the trajectory schema.

Dramatic play includes many small-world play setups too. City small worlds that include trains and tracks or roads and cars are the perfect learning provocations for the trajectory schema.

Supporting the Trajectory Schema through Sensory Play

Sensory play is very important in early childhood education. When you combine movement and sensory play, optimal learning always occurs.

If you are looking for sensory play activities that incorporate movement, you might like to try some of these:

• Bubble blowing. So much fun chasing and catching them too!

• Playing with water pipes, funnels and water pumps. Children exploring the trajectory schema love interacting with things that are already moving, like putting their hands under running water.

• Water and sand play. Add jugs and cups for pouring. This is a great activity for developing volume conservation concepts too.

• At the playdough table, add moving tools like rolling pins and pizza cutters.

• Water wheels and sand wheels are must-have toys to add to your sensory play setups.

Tinkering and the Trajectory Schema

Children will naturally investigate the trajectory schema at a tinkering table. This investigation area easily supports the exploration of how things move.

Using the Trajectory Schema to Teach Maths

The trajectory schema encompasses so many math concepts it makes sense to include activities to support this schema in your math instruction.

Teaching students to use measuring tapes and rulers will give them the skills needed to measure the trajectory of items like cars, planes, and boats. Including measurement tools in your learning provocations will encourage your students to practice using these tools and add another level to their play.

Bee-bots are an excellent tool to use in your math instruction. These moving robots teach problem-solving skills, position and location concepts, basic coding and develop mathematical thinking skills. I haven’t met a child developing their trajectory schema that doesn’t love working with bee-bots.

Creatively adding movement to any math instruction or activity will motivate your students to get involved. For example, instead of a standard talk-and-teach lesson on number recognition, try incorporating some movement by writing numerals on the concrete in chalk. The children can then throw wet sponges at a given number. You can modify this for more capable students by asking them to hit the number that is 4 add 2, or to hit the numbers less than 8.

Adapt this activity to any target-type game. You can purchase target games or make your own by drawing circles and other shapes onto heavy cardboard. Place them on the ground or prop them up onto walls and fences. Your students can throw soft toys, balls, or small bean-bags to hit the targets. This is a great activity to incorporate the trajectory schema into your instruction, It is also a wonderful way for your students to work on their gross motor skills and get those throwing urges out of their system.

Using the Trajectory Schema to Teach Literacy

Incorporating movement into your literacy lessons and activities will be just as engaging for students developing their trajectory schema. If you are teaching phonics, write letters on the concrete and direct children to hit certain sounds. Write CVC words on the concrete and provide students with matching pictures or use this activity to practice sight words. You’ll be surprised at how many skills can be practiced with this type of movement game.

There are many ways to harness your student’s interest in movement. Consider activities involving small bean-bags and balls or driving little cars along letters to blend words. Write letters on small stones with a permanent marker and use little diggers to select the stones to make words. Set up a matching learning provocation so your students can practice making words during investigation time.

Use your student’s interest in the trajectory schema to get them up and moving their bodies. Add letters, pictures, or CVC words to hopscotch spaces, hoops on the floor, or obstacle courses. The ways to incorporate movement into your lessons are endless!

Wind and the Weather Science Unit

A major part of the Weather Science Unit in the ACARA foundation stage involves learning about the wind and how it influences movement. Children interested in the trajectory play schema will love experimenting with wind and movement.

As part of this unit, we set up a wind tunnel at an investigation area. We placed a desk fan on a table and suspended the tunnel from the ceiling. You can make the tunnel with a large piece of laminate. We got ours from the library. They have a big laminating machine to laminate posters. This activity prompted numerous valuable conversations and encouraged various problem-solving strategies as children found and made items to go up the tunnel.

If you are studying this unit, kites, flags, bunting, wind ornaments, pinwheels, streamers, balloons, mobiles, parachutes, feathers, tissue paper and ping pong balls are just some of the resources you might like to consider adding to your investigation areas if you are looking to harness your student’s interest in the trajectory play schema.

The Trajectory Schema and Outdoor Play

Any observations of your students out in the playground will confirm how popular the trajectory schema is. Outdoor play will provide numerous opportunities for you to support this play schema.

Here’s a list of resources to help you: trampolines, golf sets, soccer balls and nets, t-ball equipment, footballs, netballs, bowling or skittles, coits, stilts, skipping ropes, bouncing hoppers, slippery slides, swings, planks, tyres, hoops, platforms at a variety of levels to jump from, crates, ladders, monkey bars, playground equipment to climb, and any types of obstacle courses requiring various body movements.

RESOURCES TO SUPPORT THE TRAJECTORY SCHEMA

Effectively supporting the trajectory schema in your young learners has everything to do with the resources you offer them. This is an extensive list, but I’m sure you will find other ones to add. Once you observe your children and become more familiar with the trajectory schema, you will see the hidden potential in many of the resources you already have.

• Lego and construction sets like knex, mobilo, gears sets, and marble runs

• Toy cars, trucks, planes, helicopters, rockets, and boats

• Frisbees

• Sheets and panels with different-shaped holes for the children to throw balls and other items into.

• Rebound nets

• Pulleys

• Target games

• Platforms and crates to climb and drop things from

• A slinky

• Fidget toys

• Pendulums

• Toy parachutes

• Ribbons on rulers and scarves for dancing and moving to music

• Hoops and tyres

• Tubing, gutters, and pipes. Drain pipes or a piece of plastic guttering can be fun for use with water and vehicles. Poster tubes are a good indoor option and have excellent indoor play potential.

• Ramps. Pool noodles cut in half lengthwise make wonderful safe ramps for small balls and cars at indoor play spaces.

• Hammocks

• Elastic

• Spinning toys

• Pompoms, cotton balls, feathers, and sponges

• Small bean bags

• Yo-yos

• Moving toys like wind-up ones, pull-back vehicles, and battery-operated vehicles

• Paper aeroplanes

• Garden windmills and chimes

• Flags

• Kites

• Sand and water timers

• Bubbles and bubble-blowing wands

• Water and sand troughs, bowls, jugs, scales, and water wheels

• Sprinklers

• Bikes and buggies

• Wheelbarrows

• Mazes with magnets.

• Dominoes to stand up in rows and then knock down

• Lift the flap books and books with tabs to operate moving parts

• Lava lamps

Trajectory schemas are one of the first schemas you will witness in a child. Think about a baby dropping a toy repeatedly from their high chair! This engaging play schema continues to develop throughout childhood and will definitely be evident in your early childhood classroom.

Are you ready to harness this play schema? Now you know how to identify and support the trajectory schema, you will be able to effectively plan and deliver lessons and activities that help your students express their interests in this play schema safely and educationally.

The Orientation Schema

The orientation schema is all about how objects look from different angles and perspectives. Children developing this schema will enjoy moving their bodies into different positions so they can observe objects from different viewpoints.

If you have children in the playground climbing equipment to get different viewpoints, hanging upside down, or turning objects over to see what they look like underneath, you might have children developing their orientating schema.

In this blog post, you will learn all about the orientation schema and why it needs to be supported in your classroom. You’ll also discover several hands-on playful activities that will help you to support this interesting play schema.

What Is a Play Schema?

You will regularly notice children demonstrating play schemas in your classroom and also out in the playground. They are the repeated patterns of behaviour children use to explore and learn about their world.

Young children are constantly using their play schemas to investigate and make sense of the world around them. If you want to support students in developing their orientation schema, offering hands-on play-based learning experiences is your best strategy.

Children’s play schemas will change over time and become more and more sophisticated.  Through repeated schematic play, children will use their existing knowledge to build new understandings and develop their schemas.

There are nine commonly observed types of schemas in play. The orientation schema is one of these nine along with connecting, transforming, trajectory, rotation, enveloping, enclosing, positioning, and transporting schemas.

In education, schemas are recognised as a vital part of children’s cognitive growth and learning. An understanding of play schemas is very important for any early childhood educator. If you would like to learn more about play schemas and schematic theory, you should check out this blog post: A Guide to Play Schemas in Early Childhood Education

The  Guide to Play Schemas in Early Childhood Education blog post is a general guide to the nine play schemas. It explains in detail exactly what play schemas are and how you can use play-based learning to effectively support the ones your students will be exploring.

Schematic play relates to how a child is playing and exploring the learning resources and environment. It isn’t a specific type of play like dramatic play or sensory play. You will observe early childhood schemas of play happening in all areas of your classroom.

For example, you might notice children demonstrating the orientation play schema at the blocks area. They will be the students driving cars forwards, backwards, through spaces, around corners and over ramps and bridges. You might also notice these children gravitate towards rocking and spinning playground equipment or climbing ladders and forts so they can view their environment from different perspectives.

While these may seem like different forms of play in very different scenarios, they are in fact examples of the same play schema. Once you’ve observed a child displaying a specific play schema, you will very often notice the child repeating that same action schematically using a range of different objects and very often, their own bodies.

Why Are Play Schemas Important in a Play Based Classroom?

Understanding play schemas and being able to pinpoint the ones your students are developing is critical to the success of your early childhood classroom. When you become aware of the play schemas your students are developing you will:

• Understand your students and their developmental needs.

• Better understand how children learn.

• Be able to tap into your student’s interests.

• Increase engagement.

• Know how to encourage your students to be more curious.

• Deepen the learning and the intensity of your student’s playful learning.

• Make the right observations to inform your planning.

• Be able to easily differentiate the learning experiences you offer.

When you understand play schemas, you can use this knowledge to better observe and document what the children in your class are doing during investigative play time. You will not only gain insights into your children’s passions and interests, but you’ll be armed with the information you need to be able to adapt the curriculum and plan for appropriate and engaging learning experiences.

Understanding play schemas can also help you understand what can sometimes be seen as undesirable classroom behaviours. For example, you might have a child constantly crawling around on the floor. This would be a bit annoying for you and the other children trying to work there. This behaviour could be seen as undesirable but when you understand this behaviour is coming from a child exploring their orientation schema, you can set up a learning invitation to accommodate this schema.

When you understand why certain behaviours are happening, you come to realise children do not simply misbehave. There’s always a reason for desirable and undesirable behaviours and sometimes play schemas can be that reason. 

Being able to recognise and use play schemas is crucial to the success of any play-based classroom.

What is The Orientation Schema?

Children building their orientation schema are interested in how objects look from different angles and perspectives. I have found this play schema is most obvious out in the playground. There’s one advantage to playground duty I guess!

If you notice your children hanging upside down in the playground or bending over to see things through their legs, they are developing their orientation schema. You might also observe them doing somersaults, cartwheels, and handstands. It’s all about how things look from different positions and angles.

Children exploring this schema will be interested in playing on rocking and spinning play equipment. See-saws are another favourite. They will be climbing the playground fort and scaling ladders, trees, and monkey bars to get a new vantage point.

Sometimes you might even notice them turning objects over to look at them from a new angle. Climbing under classroom furniture or lying on the floor are other behaviours children exhibit when they are interested in looking at things from different angles.

The orientation schema is linked to the positioning and rotating play schemas. It is quite common for children to be exploring two or three play schemas at any one time.

Because children developing the orientation schema specifically enjoy seeing things from different viewpoints, they will enjoy experimenting with magnifying glasses, binoculars, mirrors, and reflections. Sometimes these children will even show an interest in balancing objects or exploring height and weight.

Students developing this schema will be in their element when you study map making and how to view places using a bird’s eye view in Geography.

What Are Children Using the Orientating Schema Learning?

Children exploring their orientation schema will be examining different positions and viewpoints. As they do this they will be:

• Developing gross motor and fine motor skills.

• Stimulating the sensory and vestibular systems.

• Developing spatial awareness.

• Learning positional language vocabulary.

• Using their senses to make scientific observations.

• Developing creative and critical thinking skills.

• Building science and math skills like predicting, estimating, problem solving, and measuring. 

What Vocabulary Supports the Orientation Schema?

turn, twist, spin, roll, rock

forwards, backwards, inside-out, direction

over, under, below, above, underneath, birds-eye-view

reflection, position, angle, view

How to Support an Orientation Schema in the Play-Based Classroom

Because children exploring their orientation schema will be fascinated with looking at objects from different angles and perspectives, there are many opportunities to offer hands-on learning invitations to support this schema in any play-based classroom.

Most kindergarten and first grade classrooms will already have a supply of hands-on playful resources children can use to explore this play schema. The children just need to be given the opportunity and permission to explore these resources from different angles and perspectives.

Educators do need to consider how and where these resources will be offered. When planning and implementing activities for the orientation schema, it is important to understand and follow your health and safety guidelines as well as thinking about how flexible the learning spaces you provide are.  

Mirrors

Mirrors are the ultimate learning resource for children exploring their orientation schema. Mirrors of all shapes and sizes can be placed at various angles and levels to help children explore objects from different perspectives.

I’m always on the lookout for different types of mirrors. Magnifying mirrors like those found in the cosmetics section of a store, small mirror tiles, large mirrors which can be used on tabletops, mirrored shapes, hinged mirrors, and framed mirrors are all wonderful to add to any learning area.

Children love it when you place mirrors in unusual places like on the floor or the ceiling. It creates a sense of wonder and will delight those students developing their orientating schema.

Mirrors enhance any learning invitation so if you find yourself with an empty corner or are looking for a resource to take your investigations to the next level, add a mirror.

Reflective Surfaces

Like mirrors, reflective surfaces give children another way to explore reflections and perspectives. There are many different types of materials and objects you can use to reflect light.

Think about adding metal sheets or aluminium foil to your blocks area and even the art area. Painting on pieces of aluminium foil or metal trays is an activity your students will be excited to explore.

There are even learning resources with reflective surfaces available from educational suppliers. They have been specially designed to capture the attention of children exploring the orientation play schema.

These resources can be a bit expensive, so we made our own cheaper version by covering some blocks, balls, and stones in aluminium foil. They were not as reflective as those available from specialty stores but they gave the students another opportunity to investigate reflections.

Water

The reflections in water are valuable explorations for children developing the orientating schema. Set up a shallow tray of water next to a light source like a window and your children will enjoy investigating the different reflections made in the water and on nearby surfaces.

Clear jars and small fish tanks of water will provide your students with opportunities to view objects from different perspectives and experiment with water and light refraction.

Here’s a Fun Experiment: Draw an arrow on a piece of card. Place the card behind a jar of water so you can see the arrow when looking through the glass. Your students will think it’s magic how the arrow appears to change direction. Encourage your students to write numbers and words on pieces of card to extend their experiments.

Light and Shadow

Using a projector or similar light source to shine onto a wall or the ceiling will no doubt encourage your students to investigate and experiment with light and shadows. Children learning about the orientation schema will be intrigued by these investigations.

You can change it up and extend their explorations by changing the colour of the light source. Just place some coloured cellophane over the light. Another engaging variation is to project a variety of pictures and patterns onto the wall or the ceiling.

Light tables are another light source that can help children to view things from a different perspective. Children can view both transparent and opaque resources in a new way when they are placed on a light table.

Supply your students with a small light source like a torch and provide them with a variety of glass or acrylic shapes to experiment further with the refraction of light. Check out the science resources in your school and you might be lucky enough to find a set of prisms that have been made specifically for these types of explorations.

Magnifying Glasses

Young children are fascinated with magnifying glasses. So much so, I add them to all sorts of investigation areas. Don’t just limit them to your science or nature table.

A magnifying glass can be added to any investigation area. At block play, in the dramatic play space, in the library and writing areas, at the tinkering table, and even the art area.

You will be surprised at all the different ways your children will use a magnifying glass and you can be sure those children obsessed with this resource will be the ones developing their orientation schema. 

Binoculars

You can purchase children’s binoculars or make your own play ones from cardboard tubes. Like magnifying glasses, binoculars can be added to any investigation area. They are also the perfect toy to add to your playground equipment.

Binoculars are particularly suited to small world setups and dramatic play spaces. We always use them whenever we go on field trips or when we are studying living things or the weather in Science.

However, you don’t need to be learning about the day sky or the weather to include some mindful cloud gazing in your school day. Watching the clouds float by is a wonderful activity for any child developing an orientation schema. Get your students to lie on their backs and gaze at the clouds. Talk about what shapes or pictures you can see. You can even use this activity as a stimulus for poetry and creative writing.

Once again, the good old cellophane comes in handy for extending schematic explorations with binoculars. Cover the lens of your purchased or homemade binoculars with some coloured cellophane to help your students see things in a new way. 

Peep-Holes

Peep-holes are so much fun for children developing their orientation schema because they create a new way for children to view their world. You can create peep-holes by cutting shapes from large sheets of cardboard or fabric and then using these as barriers to divide your investigation areas or learning spaces.

You can also create peep-holes by leaving gaps between the walls of your learning area spaces or by using open weave curtains or lattice as dividers.

When we study the day sky in science, I like to create peep-holes on the windows. I use empty picture frames to create a viewing focus. The children love using these little peep-holes to view and discuss the day sky.

Obstacle Courses

The orientation play schema is easily observed in the playground. You will notice some children love climbing so they can view the world from a higher perspective. You will also notice children crawling, rolling, or lying on the ground to gain a lower viewing perspective. These children are exploring their orientation schema.

There are many opportunities to support this play schema in the playground.

• Provide playground equipment like forts, ladders, planks, crates and trees for children to climb.

• Create obstacle courses at various heights. Don’t forget to include the fort and other permanent playground climbing structures in your obstacle courses.

• Add tumbling mats for children to safely explore their world from different angles.

• Swings, forts, monkey bars, and slippery slides are all important for children to develop their core strength and gross motor skills but are also important tools children use when they are developing their orientation play schema.

Out on playground duty, you have probably observed some children that like to go down the slippery slide the same way each and every time. Then there are always the ones that love to experiment with pretty much any possible position going up and down the slide. These children are no doubt exploring their orientation schema. Don’t be afraid to allow your children to navigate their way up the slippery side of the slippery slide. This maneuver is quite difficult and requires a good amount of core strength and balance

Allowing risky play is important for this play schema but you will always need to follow your school’s playground rules. If your school allows it, children should be given the opportunity to explore their world from different viewpoints. Climbing things, hanging upside down from trees and other playground equipment, and walking along rock walls are all activities that support this play schema.

Art Easels

Easels are great for giving children the opportunity to explore mark-making on an upright or slanted surface. This new perspective of viewing their work will delight children developing an orientating play schema.

Don’t just offer art easels to children in the art area. They make good additions to a literacy area or any area where you would like children to write or draw. Art easels are wonderful additions to any investigation area where children with an orientation schema may be working because they give children opportunities to paint, draw and write vertically and at different angles.

Michelangelo painting is another fun activity you might like to offer the children exploring their orientation play schema. Just tape paper to the underside of a couple of desks so the children can lie on their backs and draw, write or paint while laying down. They will love this novel approach to exploring their orientating schema.

Yoga and Gymnastics

Yoga poses and maneuvers in gymnastics give children experiences in viewing the world around them from different perspectives. Children developing the orientating play schema can often be observed lying on the floor or looking through their legs to get a different viewing perspective so yoga and gymnastics will appeal to these children.

You might like to create a safe space in your classroom where children can experiment with different body poses and develop their understandings related to their orientation schema. Supply yoga mats, yoga cards, and posters or books to create an interactive and peaceful investigation area.

Yoga positions really encourage children to get into unusual positions with their bodies and will help them to see things from different angles and perspectives. Young children will find the most success with these poses if they can copy an illustrated position or a familiar animal pose.

Some of the easier yoga positions can be related to familiar animal poses to help children understand and relate to them:

The Turtle - For this position, the children sit with their legs stretched straight out in front and then slide their feet closer up to their bodies. Their knees then fall open and they slide their hands under their ankles. The children then lean forward into their turtle shells.

The Giraffe - For a giraffe pose, the children begin on their hands and knees. Then they line-up their hands under their shoulders, and their knees under their hips. Keeping one hand on the mat, they reach the other hand up to the sky.

Downward Facing Dog - This is a classic yoga pose and appealing to children with an orientation schema. They begin on their hands and knees. Keeping their hands on the mat, they lift their hips up to the sky and straighten their knees. They need to try to keep their heads between their arms and create an inverted v body shape.

The Cobra - The children begin by laying on their tummies with their hands flat on the floor under their shoulders. They straighten their arms and lift their upper bodies off the mat. They then bend their knees so their toes touch the top of their heads.

Flexible Seating and Furniture

Flexible seating provides many health and learning benefits for the students in your class and will also encourage them to explore the orientation play schema.  

When considering flexible learning spaces, think about setting up learning invitations on different levels. Offer learning invitations on the floor, on platforms, at a coffee table, as well as at traditional desks and tables or standing desks.

Adding sheer curtains around and over learning invitations will give children a different viewing perspective too.

Very often, the orientation schema will be explored naturally when you allow children to work in flexible learning spaces. Allow your children to lie on the floor while they play and work. Have you noticed children lying on the floor with their heads on the ground as they play with cars or other learning resources? These children are seeking a new perspective. and a different visual angle.

They may be exploring the rotation schema if they are interested in things that rotate like the wheels on a car but very often children are developing many schemas at any one time so you can’t rule out the possibility that they are working on their orientation schema too.

Soft lighting is very often a design feature in flexible learning spaces. I love soft lights because they also help to create an inviting learning space. Lighting from lamps and fairy lights can provide children the opportunity to view resources in a different way.

You can easily support the orientation schema in your classroom by simply providing the right resources and changing the way you allow children to work. Try not to stop children from sitting in weird positions or lying down as they play. This is helping them learn!

THE TRANSFORMING SCHEMA

The transforming schema is all about change and how things transform in substance or appearance. Children interested in this schema will be fascinated with combining and changing materials. If you have children constantly mixing sand with water or drawing and painting on their bodies, you might have children developing their transformation schema.

In this blog post, you will discover exactly what the transformation schema is, why it needs to be supported in your classroom, and then explore a number of activities that will help you to do this through hands-on playful investigations.

WHAT IS A PLAY SCHEMA?

Play schemas are the repeated patterns of behaviour children use to explore and learn more about their world. Young children are constantly trying to make sense of their world and they do this by using their play schemas to explore and investigate the world around them. If you are looking to support students to develop their transforming schema, offering hands-on play based learning experiences is your best strategy.

Children’s play schemas will change over time. Their schemas become more and more sophisticated each time they face a new learning experience. Through repeated schematic play, children will use their existing knowledge to build new understandings and develop their schemas.

There are nine commonly observed types of schemas in play. The transforming schema is one of these nine along with connecting, orientation, trajectory, rotation, enveloping, enclosing, positioning and transporting schemas.

In education, schemas are recognised as a vital part of children’s cognitive growth and learning. Understanding play schemas is vital for any early childhood educator. If you would like to learn more about play schemas and schematic theory, you should check out this blog post: A Guide to Play Schemas in Early Childhood Education

The  Guide to Play Schemas in Early Childhood Education is a general guide to play schemas in early childhood education and explains in detail what play schemas are. It also explains how you can use play-based learning to effectively support the nine play schemas the children in your class will be exploring.

Schematic play relates to how a child is playing and exploring the learning resources and environment. It isn’t a specific type of play like dramatic play or sensory play. You will observe early childhood schemas of play happening in all areas of your classroom.

For example, you might notice children demonstrating the transforming play schema in your art area. They will be the ones mixing all the paint colours together. You might also notice these children gravitate toward messy play and have a keen interest in making potions or playing at a mud kitchen. These types of activities are all extremely engaging activities for children developing their transforming schema.

While these may seem like different forms of play in very different scenarios, they are in fact examples of the same schema. Once you’ve observed a child displaying a specific play schema, you will very often notice the child repeating that same action schematically using a range of different objects and sometimes even their own bodies.

WHY ARE PLAY SCHEMAS IMPORTANT IN A PLAY-BASED CLASSROOM?

Understanding play schemas and being able to pinpoint the ones your students are developing is critical to the success of your early childhood classroom. When you become aware of the play schemas your students are developing you will:

• Understand your students and their developmental needs.

• Better understand how children learn.

• Be able to tap into your student’s interests.

• Increase engagement.

• Know how to encourage your students to be more curious.

• Deepen the learning and the intensity of your student’s play.

• Make the right observations to inform your planning.

• Be able to easily differentiate the learning experiences you offer.

When you understand play schemas and use them to help you observe and document what the children in your class are doing during investigative play time, you will not only gain insights into your children’s passions and interests but you’ll be armed with the information you need to be able to adapt the curriculum and plan for appropriate engaging and purposeful learning experiences.

Understanding play schemas can also help you understand what can sometimes be seen as undesirable classroom behaviour. For example, you might have a child constantly painting their hands instead of the paper you have so thoughtfully provided in your art area. This would be a bit annoying for you and the other children trying to work there. This behaviour might be seen as undesirable but when you understand this behaviour is coming from a child exploring the transforming schema, you can set up a learning invitation to accommodate this schema.

When you understand why certain behaviours are happening, you come to realise children do not simply misbehave. There’s always a reason for desirable and undesirable behaviours and sometimes play schemas can be that reason. 

Being able to recognise and use play schemas is crucial to the success of any play-based classroom.

WHAT IS THE TRANSFORMING SCHEMA?

Children building their transformation schema are interested in change. They will be keen to explore any objects changing in appearance or substance. Children exploring this schema enjoy mixing different materials and substances together to see if they can change an object’s colour, shape, or consistency. Sometimes these children might be interested in lifecycles and how living things transform or change too.

These children are developing an understanding of cause and effect. Sensory play, play dough, and mixing paint or mud kitchen ingredients will be highly engaging activities for these students. Most of the science experiments you do, especially in Chemistry, are going to be perfect for children developing the transformation schema.

What Are Children Using the Transforming Schema Learning?

Children exploring their transforming schema will be examining the properties of materials and how materials change. As they do this they will be:

• Developing fine motor skills

• Learning about cause and effect

• Using their senses to make scientific observations

• Developing creative and critical thinking skills

• Building science and math skills like predicting, estimating, problem-solving and measuring. 

What Vocabulary Supports the Transformation Schema?

Change, Transform, Material, Object, Appearance

Mix, Stir, Combine

Size, Position, Shape, Texture, Property

Absorbent, Waterproof, Liquid, Solid, Gas

26 Hands-on Activities to Support a Transforming Schema in the Play-Based Classroom

Because children exploring their transformation schema will be fascinated with mixing and combining materials, there are many opportunities to offer hands-on learning through play invitations to support this schema in a play-based classroom.

In kindergarten and first grade, children should have access to a variety of sensory play experiences and be offered a wide variety of materials that can be changed and transformed.

Educators need to consider how and where these resources are offered too. It is important to understand and follow your health and safety guidelines as well as think about how the learning spaces will be cleaned and re-set when planning and implementing activities for the transformation schema.

Cooking

Cooking is a valuable math activity. Lots of measuring and counting happen when children are given the opportunity to cook at school. Children exploring the transforming schema will love mixing the ingredients and noticing how they transform into something they can eat.

Material World Science Unit

The foundation stage science unit on materials and their properties is going to be of particular interest to children exploring their transformation schema. This science unit is all about observing materials and learning how they can be physically changed in a variety of ways.

In this unit, students will identify familiar objects and the materials they are made from, describe the properties of the materials, and share ideas about how water and wind affect materials in different ways. Any students interested in change and how materials can be transformed will love this unit.

I have designed 10 PowerPoint Science lessons and a corresponding Student Journal for this unit. If you are teaching this ACARA Science unit you might be interested in checking it out. It has everything you need to teach the Australian Curriculum Materials Unit for the Foundation Stage.

ACARA Material World Science Unit

The lessons and the journal activities in this bundle have been carefully aligned to ACARA and all the content descriptors from the Foundation Chemical Sciences strand are covered. Each page in the student journal corresponds with each of the 10 PowerPoint lessons.

Your students will be able to use the journal to record and represent their knowledge and understandings and it could also be used as evidence of learning and to inform assessment grades too if you want.

Sensory Play

Most transforming activities happen in sensory play. Children learn everything about their world through their senses so it’s no wonder sensory play is so popular in early childhood education.

It can sometimes be a messy play experience, but any children interested in the transformation schema will benefit immensely from sensory play. In fact, sensory play is a common type of learning activity found in nearly all of the nine play schemas.

Here are some of the sensory play activities we have used in our classroom to support the transforming schema:

Green Goop

The children with a transformation schema just love playing with goop. It’s easy to make. Just add a little water to cornflour. Colour the water green with a few drops of food colouring if you want to make green goop.

We always make green goop when we are learning the /g/ sound.

Goop is fascinating to explore because it is continually transforming from runny to hard. It’s so much fun to manipulate and the children attracted to changing materials will especially enjoy this activity.

Cloud Dough

Cloud dough is another favourite with children exploring the transforming schema. To get the full transformation benefit, include the children in the making process.

To make this soft no-cook dough you only need two ingredients – cornflour and hair conditioner. The more conditioner you add, the more dough like your mixture will be. Adding half a cup of conditioner to each cup of cornflour will give you a dough similar in consistency to play dough.

Adding about a quarter of a cup of conditioner to each cup of cornflour will give you a super soft and light powdery mixture that clumps together when squeezed but will fall apart easily too.

To add another transforming aspect to the experience, you can colour the dough by adding a few drops of food colouring to the mixture.

Water Beads

Water Beads start out as small hard beads but slowly transform and expand into large soft balls when you add them to water. They come in a variety of colours and are quite magical to play with.

About 10 grams of beads will make around 1 litre of expanded beads. They are jelly-like and children with the transformation schema will love squashing them all up just as much as they like making them.

For an added sensory experience and to alter their appearance, try adding some glow sticks or battery-operated fairy lights under the beads. Your students will love it.

Playdough

Playdough is another sensory play activity but I think it’s so important, it deserves a dedicated section in this blog post. 😊 I’m a big fan of playdough. You can use any malleable substance like clay or plasticine and still get similar educational benefits. These malleable substances are the ultimate fine motor activities and are always very popular with young learners.

Playdough is such a versatile learning tool, we always have a dedicated playdough table in our classroom. Here are some of the ways we have used play dough to stimulate learning through the transformation schema:

Playdough Prints

To support children with a transforming schema, add loose parts like corks, buttons, stamps, or toy plastic animals to your playdough area. The children will enjoy using items to make marks in the dough transforming its appearance.

To link this activity to number concepts in maths, you might be interested in my Animal Tracks Ten Frames. You can display these with playdough to encourage children to count and record the number of footprints the different animals make. This is a great way to include some skip counting and number pattern learning opportunities.

Ten Frames with Animal Legs

Properties of Playdough

The grade one Chemical Sciences unit on materials and their properties requires students to explore how everyday materials can be physically changed in a variety of ways according to their properties. This unit is all about physically changing materials so it is a highly engaging unit for children working on their transformation schema.

A playdough table is a great place for students to learn about actions to physically change materials so I created a set of illustrated vocabulary cards for my students to help them better understand all the ways we can physically change playdough. Just click this pic 👇 if you would like this set for your classroom too.

Play Dough or Clay Technique Cards

Making Playdough – Procedural Texts

Allowing children to make their own playdough is a fantastic opportunity for them to learn more about their transformation schema. If you add a recipe for them to follow, you will be helping them to learn about procedural texts and developing important measuring skills needed for maths learning too.

Loose Parts Play with Playdough

Adding loose parts to playdough will not only give your students numerous opportunities to transform the playdough but it will promote creative thinking, counting, sorting, and pattern making too.

To encourage this type of learning, some of the loose parts you might like to add are candles, popsticks, matchsticks, glass gems, buttons, Mr Potato Head pieces, feathers, or counters.

Loose Parts Play

Don’t limit your loose parts play to just the playdough area. Loose parts can and should be added to all your investigation areas

Children interested in the transformation schema will creatively transform loose parts into familiar everyday objects. Wood slices and counters can become food in the home corner. A block of wood can transform into a phone or a camera.

When you notice the children in your class transforming loose parts into familiar everyday objects, you can be sure these children are exploring the transformation schema.

If you are interested in discovering more about loose parts play, I have quite a few blog posts on this topic. Are you new to loose parts play? This blog post - Loose parts play is a good one you might like to check out.

 If you would like to discover how to set up Inspiring Loose Parts Provocations and learn about other ways you can use them in your play-based learning areas, you might like to check out this blog post - Loose Parts Invitation to Play - How to Set up an Inspiring Loose Parts Invitation to Play

In the free resources library, I also have a list of over 150 different loose parts you can collect and use in your investigation areas. You can grab this list for free HERE.

Mud Kitchens

Mud kitchens are a must if you have children developing a transformation schema. If you are interested in observing children with this schema, head to the mud kitchen!

Our permanent mud kitchen is a bench in the sand pit out in the playground. Mud kitchens promote messy play and so you certainly don’t want one set up in a hard-to-clean area like your carpet space. If you are lucky enough to have a verandah or courtyard as part of your classroom, these would be great places to set up a mud kitchen.

The usual materials offered at a mud kitchen include sand, soil, bark chips, plant cuttings, stones or gravel, and of course water! Add a variety of tools and utensils for the children to mix, stir and pretend to cook with. Old saucepans, cups, bowls, spoons, muffin and pizza trays, whisks, and scissors are some good utensils to start with. Think about your own kitchen. Any utensils you use whenever you are cooking are also going to be great additions to a mud kitchen.

By the way, a mortar and pestle is a great addition to a mud kitchen. The children will love grinding up leaves and bark to transform them into a fine powdery mix. This is a fantastic activity for developing fine motor skills too.

Potions and Kitchen Science

An extension to the mud kitchen concept and an area that you can set up inside your classroom is a potion-making or kitchen science table. These learning experiences can easily be linked to the Science unit on the Properties of Materials.

These two learning experiences are highly engaging and will help your students to really explore how transformation works.

Perfume Making

Perfume making was inspired by an episode of Peppa Pig I happened to watch with my grandkids. You can read all about this engaging learning provocation here: Perfume Provocation. Basically, I provided some scented flowers, herbs, oil, rubbing alcohol, and water for the students to mix and transform into their very own perfume.

I created a little procedural text chart or the students to follow and a recipe sheet so they could record their perfume creations. You can download all the Perfume provocation printables for free HERE in the FREE Resources Library.

Kitchen Science Chemistry Lab

Well, this investigation area is so popular we have to use a booking sheet to ensure every student gets a chance to work there.

It’s quite easy to set up and very, very messy. I quickly discovered it was essential to put some strict cleaning-up rules in place. To set up this investigation area, I provided ingredients from the pantry for students to measure, mix and observe. Each week I added new ingredients to sustain interest and provoke new investigations. When our sound focus was /d/, I added detergent and for /m/, I added milk.

You can see some other photos of the setup and read more about it here on this blog post: Kitchen Science Chemistry Lab

Bicarbonate of soda and vinegar are the star ingredients in this chemistry lab. You’ll hear screams of delight when these two ingredients are added together. Chalk is another good material to offer. It can be turned from a solid chunk into powder with the help of a mortar and pestle or sandpaper. Experiment with adding different amounts of water to transform the chalk dust into putty or chalk paint.

Making Sensory Bottles

Making sensory bottles is another great transformation activity and closely related to kitchen science. Provide water and clear glue, hair gel, or oil for the children to mix and add to a tall clear bottle. You can use food colouring to colour the water and an oil-based colouring like one used to colour chocolate to colour the oil. Adding tiny materials like glitter, small beads or pompoms will create another way to transform the materials.

 These calming bottles can adorn a classroom calm-down area when they have been finished. This way the transforming process continues. Whenever the bottle is shaken, the colours and contents will combine, but then separate again as they settle. Your students will love to shake up the sensory bottles and watch the materials mix and float around.

Mixing Colours

Mixing colours, whether it is done with paint, coloured water, or pieces of cellophane, is of great interest to children exploring their transformation play schema.

A light table will take this exploration to the next level. The light shining through the coloured materials highlights the transformation process. If you are opting for the coloured water mixing, supply pipettes for the students to transfer the water. This will cut down on the amount of water you need to supply and is also good for developing fine motor skills.

Mixing paint is very appealing to children interested in this play schema. Consider offering various types of paint – watercolours, acrylics, and powder paints can all be mixed and will give different results. I like to store our acrylic paints in small sauce bottles. These bottles give the children more control over the amount of paint they use and the squeezing strengthens hand muscles needed for pencil control.

Handprints

Children with a transforming play schema will very often like to paint and draw on themselves. This isn’t usually encouraged at school but at the start of the school year when we are learning All About Me – handprints are a traditional art activity in our classroom.

We start the school year reading a book called The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. This story is about a raccoon that uses a kissing hand to remind and reassure him of his mother’s love while he settles into school. Children starting school love this relatable story. To extend the kissing hand message, we make handprints on a printable Kissing Hand Poem Worksheet. If you are interested in downloading this worksheet, you can get it HERE in the Free Resources Library.

You can check out all of the activities we do in the first week of school in both kindergarten or prep, and for grade one here at this blog post: Planning For the First Week of School

Hapa Zome Flower Printing

This is a traditional Japanese printing technique. Place some fresh flower petals onto a wooden board or a log slice. Then gently cover the petals with a piece of white cotton fabric. Then you will need a hammer to repeatedly hit the cloth so the dye from the petals transfers into the fabric. You can create some really beautiful prints.

Planting Seeds

Planting seeds is a science activity offered to children when we are learning about plants in the Living Things science unit. The children enjoy the transformation process as they observe the seed growing into a seedling and then into a plant. This is a much slower transformation than others in this blog post but still very engaging for children developing their transforming schema.

We will often plant seeds again later in the year for the Geography unit when we are learning about special places. There’s no place quite so special as a garden. Even the act of weeding, digging, and watering a garden has transformational aspects the children will enjoy observing.

Life Cycles

Another slower-paced transformation activity is the observation of life cycles. Again, this is part of our content in the Living Things science unit. It’s important to choose living things with relatively quick life cycles for young students to observe. Some of the life cycles we have enjoyed are frogs, silkworms, crickets, and mealworms.

Dress-up Clothes in Home Corner

Dressing up is a great way for children to learn about transforming themselves. We don’t have a lot of dress-up clothes out at any one time. We have had more success with offering a small box of items and changing them around regularly.

Don’t just think about clothing for your dress-up options. Include hats, masks, scarves, bags jewellery, and glasses. Providing a mirror for the children to observe their transformations is also beneficial for those interested in the transforming schema.

Literacy, Art, and Mark Making

The transforming play schema can be explored by any type of mark-making.  Mark making is the creation of different patterns, lines, textures, and shapes onto any material or medium. Don’t confine mark-making to just pencils and paper. Children can make marks using a variety of tools and on numerous surfaces.

Fingers, sticks, paintbrushes, and even loose parts are all tools children can use to make marks. They can make marks on traditional paper and card in all types of sizes, textures, and colours, but they can also make marks in clay and playdough, in sensory tray bases, on concrete, on blackboards and whiteboards, in fact, any surface can provide an opportunity to explore mark making.

Butterfly Squish Paintings

Butterfly paintings are a kindergarten favourite and that’s because it has its foundation in the transformation play schema. To make a butterfly with this squish painting technique, fold a piece of paper in half and then drop small blobs of paint over one side of the unfolded paper. To transform these paint blobs into a butterfly, fold the paper back in half and squish the wet paint around inside the folded paper. Then carefully unfold the paper to reveal a beautiful symmetrical pattern. When the paint has dried, you can draw and cut out your butterfly.

We like to do this activity when we are learning the /b/ sound, exploring symmetry in art and maths, or when we are studying butterflies as part of the science Living Things unit.

Rubbings

Rubbings are another magical transformation activity. This activity is great for integrating maths and art with the transforming schema. We make rubbings of coins in maths and rubbings of textured surfaces in art.

A rubbing is an impression of the surface texture of a material. To create a rubbing, you simply place a piece of paper over the surface and rub it with a soft pencil or crayon. The surface texture is magically transferred to the paper.

Well I thought The Connection Schema blog post was a long one but this blog post has turned out to be even longer! There are so many possible learning experiences involving the transforming schema. Now you know a little more about it, you will notice it popping up regularly in your classroom.

The transformation schema is a typical kindergarten and first grade play schema. That’s why many of our curriculum lessons and activities already support and use this highly engaging and educational play schema.

If you enjoyed this blog post on The Transforming Schema and found some useful ideas here, please consider sharing it.

The Rotation Schema

The rotation schema is one of the nine play schemas you will observe in young children. When young children explore and interact with the world around them, they naturally engage in play schemas that help them develop essential cognitive, social, and emotional skills.

If you notice your little ones spinning, twirling, and turning objects or themselves, they will no doubt be exploring the rotation play schema. This type of play can be observed in children as young as eight months old and will continue into the early childhood classroom.

This blog post explores the rotation play schema in detail and gives you 46 engaging activities you can use to support this play schema in your classroom.

What Are Play Schemas?

Play schemas are repeated patterns of behaviour that children do when they play. There are nine play schemas commonly observed in young children.

1. The Connecting Play Schema

2. Transforming Schema

3. Orientation Schema

4. Trajectory Play Schema

5. Rotation Schema

6. Enveloping Schema

7. Enclosing Play Schema

8. Positioning Schema

9. Transporting Play Schema

When we talk about schema play, we are referring to observable repeated play patterns evident when a child plays and explores learning resources or their environment. It isn’t a specific type of play like dramatic play or sensory play. You will observe play schemas happening in all areas of your classroom.

For example, you might notice a child exploring the rotation play schema at block play when they experiment with ways the blocks can roll or spin. You might also see this same child mark-making in a circular motion at the writing table.

While these may seem like different forms of play in very different scenarios, overall, the play schema remains the same.

Once you’ve observed a child displaying a specific play schema, you will often notice them repeating that same action schematically using various objects or even their own bodies.

If you want to learn more about the nine play schemas, you might like to check out my Guide to Play Schemas in Early Childhood Education.

This comprehensive blog post is about the nine play schemas and how you can use them to effectively teach the children in your class.

Why Are Play Schemas Important in a Play-Based Classroom?

Jean Piaget introduced the theory of play schemas over 50 years ago. In recent years, other researchers like Chris Athey, Tina Bruce, and Cathy Nutbrown have explored play schemas and their importance in modern early childhood education.

The more recent research around brain development supports the idea that early childhood teachers need to understand play schemas and use their knowledge and observations of play schemas to deliver age-appropriate and purposeful learning experiences.

Play schemas are the building blocks to all future learning, so understanding them and being able to support them is critical to the success of your early childhood classroom. When you know the play schemas your students are developing, you will:

• Understand your students and their developmental needs.

• Deepen your understanding of how children learn.

• Be able to tap into your student’s interests.

• Increase engagement.

• Know how to encourage your students to be more curious.

• Extend the learning and the intensity of your student’s play.

• Make the right observations to inform your planning.

• Be able to quickly differentiate the learning experiences you offer.

Being able to recognise and use play schemas is crucial to the success of any play-based classroom.

When you understand play schemas, you can use this knowledge to help you make informed observations. You’ll be able to document what and why the children are demonstrating certain behaviours during investigative playtime.

Understanding play schemas will also help you gain insights into your children’s passions and interests.

You will be armed with the necessary information to adapt the curriculum and plan for appropriate, engaging, and purposeful learning experiences.

Understanding play schemas can also help you understand what can sometimes be seen as undesirable classroom behaviours. For example, you might have a child constantly spinning themselves or objects in the dramatic play area. This behaviour might be seen as undesirable as it would be pretty annoying for you and all the other children trying to play there. When you understand that this behaviour comes from a child exploring the rotation schema, you can set up a learning invitation to accommodate this schema and turn the undesirable behaviour into a desirable one.

When you understand why certain behaviours happen, you realise children do not simply misbehave. There’s always a reason for desirable and undesirable behaviours; sometimes, play schemas can be that reason.

What is The Rotation Schema?

The rotation play schema is closely related to the trajectory schema. Both of these play schemas are about how things move.

Children will often be interested in multiple play schemas at any one time. This combination is often referred to as a schema cluster or the co-ordination of a set of schemas. It is common for early childhood students to be interested in the trajectory and rotation schemas simultaneously.

While young children can sometimes be observed paying attention to a particular schema, older children’s learning involves co-ordination of schemas. Co-ordination and connection mark significant progression in learning at all stages where combinations and co-ordinations of schemas develop into higher-order concepts. Cathy Nutbrown

The trajectory schema concerns direction, force and motion, and cause and effect. Children exploring the trajectory schema are attracted to observing and creating movement and being moved and moving their own bodies. They are fascinated by how things move horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, and they like to investigate what happens when objects are thrown or pushed.

The rotation schema is focused on movement too, but it is more about children exploring how objects or their bodies turn, spin, or rotate. Children interested in the rotation schema will also love to explore circles and curved lines.

Often children exploring the rotation schema will be those rotating objects or themselves. You might see them

• playing at the taps turning them on and off.

• rolling themselves around on the floor.

• interested in things that spin, twist, or turn.

• spinning around in circles to make themselves dizzy.

• winding and unwinding string.

• chasing hoops around the playground.

• twisting up the swings, so they spin around.

The rotational play schema is at the core of these popular childhood behaviours.

Young children developing this play schema often ask questions about the function of turning and twisting tools and machines. They will be interested in how geared objects work and will benefit from tinkering learning invitations where they can pull apart and re-assemble simple machines.

The rotation schema is a play schema commonly observed in the early years classroom. It can be supported through so many different play-based learning invitations.

Read on to discover some tried and tested rotation schema activities you can use to support children interested in rotation.

What are Children Learning?

When children explore the rotation play schema, they are learning about how objects and themselves move and developing an understanding of cause-and-effect relationships.

These inquisitive learners will notice how force and motion affects objects and even how objects look different and feel different in their hands when they are spinning or being rotated.

Children developing the rotation schema are also developing their fine and gross motor skills. They fine-tune their visual tracking skills and grow in their body awareness too. These children will also be working on scientific skills like observing and predicting.

As children mature and develop their rotation schema further, you might notice them beginning to explore their spatial awareness and extending their positional language.

They become interested in shapes like circles and ovals. They use their understandings of curved lines to explore open and closed shapes, position and location, and paths.

These children will also start to record their thinking through mark-making and drawing. You will notice them making rotational marks in the form of circles, ovals, and round scribbles.

As their understandings mature, children will begin to understand the infinity inherent in circles. They will start to build concepts needed to understand everything from rotational symmetry in mathematics to rotating magnetic fields in high school physics.

Their developing understandings of the rotation play schema will assist them in performing dance moves at the school disco and playing circle games like pass the parcel at a birthday party.

What Vocabulary Supports the Rotation Schema?

Fly, spin, twirl, twist

Round, circle, oval, curved, spiral

Faster, dizzy

46 Rotation Schema Activities for a Play-Based Classroom

3 Block Play Activities for the Rotation Schema

1. Add toy vehicles with wheels to your block play area. Think about toy cars, trucks, and trains. You will be able to recognise the children interested in the rotation play schema because they are the ones…  

• lying down at the level of the wheels so they can see them turning.

• experimenting with rolling the vehicles over different surfaces.

• making ramps for the vehicles to roll down.

• spinning the wheels with their hands, just to watch them spin!

2. Add ramps to encourage children to investigate rolling objects. Ramps can be made from wooden planks, sturdy cardboard, plastic guttering, large cardboard tubes, or pool noodles cut in half lengthwise.

3. Add round and rolling loose parts. Things like small balls, 3D wooden shapes like cylinders & spheres, cotton reels, corks, marbles, and cardboard tubes.

3 Rotation Schema Ideas for Dramatic Play

1. Add bandages to a doctor or vets dramatic play setup. Children with a rotating play schema love wrapping things around objects, so they will enjoy putting bandages on toy animals and dolls. You can see how to make some easy play bandages here: DIY Play Bandages.

2. Add bangles and bracelets to your dress-ups.

3. Add rolling props like prams and strollers to a home corner dramatic play area or small shopping carts to a little grocery store.

5 Ideas for Supporting the Rotation Schema at the Tinkering Table

1. Construction toy sets like mobilo, constructa-straws, gear sets, or duplo contain rotating parts children exploring their rotation schema will enjoy investigating and building with.

2. Keep the rotating schema in mind when choosing items for children to dismantle at your tinkering table. A lot of electrical items have rotating parts that children will enjoy investigating. We have found sewing machines, microwaves, record players, CD, and DVD players are good options.

3. Add an old pushbike or scooter to your tinkering area. The children developing their rotation play schema can explore the big wheels, cogs, and chains.

4. One of our most popular tinkering activities is this locks and keys setup. The children love the challenge of finding which key unlocks each lock. It’s a great fine motor activity too.

5. Include tools that require twisting and turning. Children with the rotating schema will love to work with spanners, screwdrivers, and hand drills.

Tinkering Investigation Area Display Pack

ADD TO CART

If you want to set up an amazing Tinkering area in your classroom, you will want to check out my Tinkering Display Pack.

This Tinkering Display Pack includes:

• a large Tinkering banner sign

• information poster for parents and educators

• 28 vocab cards illustrated with real life images

• safety glasses signs

• under construction signs

• Tinkering word clouds

• 2 illustrated Tinkering quotes

• 12 Tinkering prompt cards

Tinkering is a valuable learning experience for children. It isn’t just for children exploring the rotation play schema. Tinkering has benefits for ALL the children in your class. Children learn through doing and tinkering develops fine motor skills, teaches problem solving skills and encourages peer relationships. 

Give your children the hands-on experience of tinkering so they can explore and invent as they manipulate authentic tools. Watch them develop a trial-and-error-based process where persistence and resourcefulness are rewarded and critical and creative thinking skills are nurtured.

These printables will help your children engage in open-ended experiences that allow them to question, design, collaborate, and construct knowledge as they go. Tinkering promotes deep engagement in scientific and engineering practices. It gives the learner an opportunity to take part in multiple cycles of design and discovery.

Can you tell how much I love Tinkering? It really is a valuable classroom learning area. Grab these printables HERE if you want to set up a Tinkering space where your students will be equipped with lifelong skills that can be used in all areas of learning.

13 Rotation Schema Activities for the Makerspace and Art Area

1. The children with a rotation play schema will naturally make spiral or circle patterns in the art area. Just supply a variety of mark-making tools for them to experiment with. Some of our favourites are crayons, chalk, markers, or paint.

2. Adding a salad spinner to the art area will delight any child developing their rotating play schema. Place the salad spinner on a large sheet of paper and drop in some dobs of paint. Then start spinning. Your children will be fascinated with the spattering and spinning paint effects. Don’t limit this rotation tool to just the art area either. You can add salad spinners to a mud kitchen, the dramatic play space, and even to the blocks area. Children exploring the rotation schema will love investigating salad spinners!

3. Painting with rolling objects like marbles or cars is always a favourite for children developing their rotation play schema. Put some small rolling objects (marbles, ping pong balls, or toy cars) in a tray lined with paper. Add some paint so the children can explore making marks with the rolling objects.

4. Add paint rollers and paint if you want to encourage children to explore the rotation schema in your makerspace or art area. Paint rollers come in all different sizes and textures. They are the perfect rotating tool for this learning area.

5. You can easily make textured rolling pins to add to your painting area. Just wrap a rolling pin in bubble wrap or corrugated cardboard so your children can create paint patterns by rolling it through blobs of paint. Textured rolling pins are also a great addition to your playdough table.

6. Set up a learning invitation for children to make paper helicopters. Paperclip helicopters are always a favourite in our classroom.

7. Another popular learning invitation we often set up when learning about force and motion for the Movement Science Unit is a floating pop stick boat. This simple boat has a rotating paddle. Check out this YouTube clip for some inspiration.

 8. Make an engaging learning invitation by inviting children to make simple paper windmills or pinwheels. If you add a bead to hold the pinwheel off the straw, the pinwheel will spin freely. Put the bead on the pushpin between the wood skewer and the paper.

9. Providing cardboard circles, bottlecaps, old CDs, round lids, and split pins for the children to use in your makerspace will have them constructing all manner of rolling toys.

10. This is a fun activity for children exploring the rotation play schema. Tape markers to the backs of toy cars. Your students will have so much fun making marks as they drive them around on large sheets of paper.

11. Children developing the rotation play schema love wrapping objects in string. Invite your students to make some magic wands from sticks collected in the playground. Supply wool, yarn, ribbons, string, or pipe cleaners for the children to wrap around and around and around the sticks. They will love it, and it’s a great fine motor activity too. 

12. Here’s another wrapping activity for the rotation play schema. Make worry dolls by winding yarn around sticks or wooden pegs. Worry dolls are a Guatemalan tradition. Children tell their worries to their dolls and place them under their pillows when they go to bed that night. The tradition has the worry doll taking the child’s worries away while they sleep.

13. Invite children to explore the rotation schema to make their own pompoms. You will be surprised at how engaging this activity is. Your students will develop their fine motor skills and explore their rotation play schema as they wind the wool around a cardboard pompom template. The pompoms can be added to the collage trolley or adorn pencil cases and school bags.

Classroom Makerspace Display Pack

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Whether you call it a Makerspace, Collage Area, Box Construction or even the Creation Station, this pack has EVERYTHING you need to set up a hands-on, play based learning center in your classroom where children can combine boxes and other collage materials together into creative projects.

There are many beneficial learning outcomes for children in the early years education setting if you give them the opportunity to use cardboard boxes and classroom collage supplies to build and create with. The Makerspace is not just for children with the rotation play schema. Every child needs this creative opportunity so they can…

• Enhance their Creative Thinking Skills

• Learn Social Skills

• Build Problem-solving Skills and Resilience

• Strengthen their Self-esteem

• Develop Gross and Fine Motor Skills

• Reinforce Sustainability Practices

• Consolidate Literacy and Numeracy Skills

 THIS MAKERSPACE PACK CONTAINS:

• Makerspace Banner Sign

• Comprehensive list of materials for your Makerspace

• EDITABLE Letter to send home asking for boxes and other useful recyclables

• Large Box construction sign

• Planning worksheet

• 68 illustrated Makerspace vocabulary cards illustrated with photo images—tile print these cards to make a Word Wall and turn them into resource labels to keep your area tidy and organised.

• 4 EDITABLE Makerspace vocabulary cards

• Large Work in Progress Label

• 2 Small Work in Progress signs

• Information Poster for parents and educators

• 8 inspirational Poster quotes

• 16 Makerspace prompt cards

Check out ALL the Makerspace printables HERE

5 Sensory Play Ideas for the Rotation Schema

1. To make frothy, bubbly water, use hand mixers and rotary whisks with detergent or bubble bath mixed with water. Add a few drops of food colouring and essential oils to enhance the sensory aspect. Children exploring the rotation schema love mixing and stirring. The old egg-beater style whisks are great for children with a rotating play schema so if you ever see one at the shops, make sure to grab one!

2. Mixing and stirring with spoons, whisks, and other kitchen utensils can also be an activity for water play, the sand pit, or the mud kitchen. Children with a rotation play schema will learn a lot by investigating different sized bowls and various stirring utensils.

3. Those spinning water and sand wheels will captivate the interest of children with a rotation play schema too. These spinning toys can be added to water or sand trays for young children to explore and learn about cause and effect.

4. Adding rolling pins and pizza cutters to your playdough table is another idea you might like if you want to support those students with a rotation play schema.

5. Add stamping or cutting circle shapes to kinetic sand, clay, or playdough. It’s surprising how many circular items you will find already in your classroom. Think about paper towel rolls, circular lids of all sizes, tree branch cookies, cups, corks, and straws.

4 Activities Using the Rotation Schema to Teach Science

1. It is common for young children to be interested in how things move. The rotation play schema can be observed in most early years classrooms, and that’s why the physical science units on movement or force and motion are so incredibly engaging. Add wind-up toys, spinning tops, rotating and spinning tools and utensils, and things like music boxes and pulleys to a science inquiry table in your play-based classroom. These items will make excellent additions to a science table where the focus is on machines and toys that move. Items with rotating parts are fascinating to children exploring the rotation schema.

ACARA Foundation Stage Science MOVEMENT Lessons and Journal BUNDLE

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Grab this HOW THINGS MOVE UNIT BUNDLE and have everything you need to teach the ACARA Movement Unit for the Foundation Stage Physical Sciences Curriculum. 

There are 10 highly engaging lessons and a matching student journal with all the lessons and activities carefully aligned to the ACARA—Foundation Stage Physical Sciences strand. ALL the content descriptors are covered.

Rest easy knowing you can confidently teach the science unit and keep your students highly engaged as they learn all about HOW THINGS MOVE. Click HERE if you want a closer look.

2. The Science Weather Unit also has opportunities to harness the students’ interests in movement and rotating objects by investigating spinning and turning weather ornaments like windmills and wind socks. Encourage your children to make some for outside your classroom or to decorate your playground. Children exploring the rotation play schema will not only enjoy making them but will also learn a lot by observing and interacting with them.

ACARA Foundation Stage Science WEATHER Lessons and Journal BUNDLE

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This WEATHER BUNDLE includes 10 PowerPoint lessons with quality real life photos and interactive aspects perfect for large screen display and interactive panels.

There’s also a corresponding student Journal so you will have everything you need to teach the ACARA Weather Unit for the Foundation Stage Earth and Space Sciences strand.

All the content descriptors from the Foundation strand are covered and listed at the bottom of each journal page. Take the worry out of teaching Science with these high quality lessons and activities. Click HERE if you want a closer look at this educational unit.

3. Adding circular and spiral objects from nature will interest children with the rotation play schema. Consider adding objects like spiral shells, snails, wood cookies, bamboo pieces, helicopter leaves (winged leaves like those on the Rosewood tree), pinecones, acorns, and round pebbles to your classroom nature table.

4. Children with the rotation schema are also fascinated with kaleidoscopes, so if you can get your hands on any, they are well worth grabbing. Add them to your Science interest table to visually delight any children with the rotating play schema.

2 Rotation Schema Ideas to Teach Literacy

1. Circular mark-making is often observed in children ready to start formal writing. Pre-writers need many experiences exploring the rotation play schema to understand the directionality necessary to form the letters of the alphabet. Beginning writers will make squiggles and circular marks and lots and lots of dots as they explore. Make sure to provide various writing tools and different writing surfaces to encourage children to explore the rotation schema through mark-making.

2. There are many circle literacy games children with the rotation play schema will enjoy. One of our favourites is Pass the Sound. This phonics game is a bit like Pass the Parcel, but you pass around a letter instead of the parcel. Play music as you pass a letter card or magnetic letter around the circle. When the music stops, whoever is holding the letter has to say a word starting with that sound.

4 Ideas for Using the Rotation Schema to Teach Maths

1. Measurement tools like clocks and scales with hands and winders will be of interest to children with a rotating play schema. Including these math resources in a few investigation areas will encourage children to explore them further and can lead to some productive math discussions.

2. Add some loose parts to printed or drawn loose parts mats to encourage counting, sorting, and pattern making. Ensure the mats include spirals, circles, and ovals if you want to support children with the rotation play schema.

3. An abacus and bead strings are other math resources that interest children exploring the rotating schema. They will love spinning and rotating the beads as they count.

4. I like to add 3D wooden shapes like cylinders and spheres to the block play area. Children with the rotation schema enjoy experimenting with rolling and spinning them down ramps. Make sure to include all different types of 3D shapes (cubes and prisms too), so your students begin to understand the properties a shape needs to roll or slide. 3D shapes can be included in other investigation areas. You will be surprised at how your students explore them if you offer them in other learning areas.

• Add a basket of 3D shapes to your library area with a book on shapes.

• Encourage children to stamp with them at the playdough table.

• Children will enjoy tracing around the faces of 3D shapes at the writing table.

• Use them as storytelling props in a small-world setup.

The Rotation Schema and 7 Outdoor Play Activities

1. Attach ribbons or streamers to sticks (we use rulers) to make twirling sticks. Children with the rotation play schema will enjoy making big circles in the air and watching them twirl around in the wind.

2. Add a game of quoits to your outdoor play space. Children with the rotating play schema will probably enjoy rolling the quoits along the ground more than playing the game the correct way though.

3. Ensure you offer large hoops, tyres, balls, and cable reels for children with the rotating schema to roll around the playground.

4. Hang spinning objects from the trees in your playground. Children exploring the rotating schema find it just as fascinating to watch spinning objects as it is to make them spin.

5. You can pinpoint the children with a rotational play schema in the playground. They are often the ones twisting the swing to spin around instead of swinging in the traditional back-and-forth motion. Adding different types of swings will delight these children. See if you can suspend an old tyre from a sturdy branch for swinging and spinning on.

6. Slippery slides can be used as large ramps to roll balls down for children exploring the rotation play schema.

7. Circle games involving running and moving around in a circle are great activities to support the rotational play schema. Some of our favourites are Duck-Duck-Goose, Ring-a-ring-a-roses, and Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush.  

Resources to Support the Rotation Schema

Loose Parts: corks, beads, bamboo pieces, wood cookies, marbles, bangles, hoops, wheels, tubes, nuts & bolts, washers, spools, circular blocks, bobbins, baubles, hair rollers, circular containers with lids.

Natural Loose Parts: wood cookies, bamboo pieces, helicopter leaves (winged leaves like those on the Rosewood tree), pinecones, acorns, round pebbles,

Large Loose Parts: cable reels, wheels, tyres, tree stumps, hose reels, wooden planks & guttering to make ramps, barrels, tunnels, hoops, swings, and pendulums.

Toys: Balls in all different shapes, textures, weights, and sizes, spinning tops, toys with wheels, wind ornaments, wind-up toys, frisbees, yo-yos.

Other Resources: paint rollers, rolling pins, rolling cutters – like pizza cutters, round paper plates, whisks, spoons & bowls, lazy susans, pottery wheels, spirographs.

Tinkering Resources: clocks, fans, record players, CD and DVD players, bikes, Turning tools like screwdrivers, spanners, drills, locks, and keys.

Children exploring the rotation schema don’t just need hands-on activities. Try adding spinning objects like disco balls or mobiles to a learning space. Children interested in the rotation play schema will be visually attracted to the space and will be fascinated by how the object moves and the changing light reflections.

Purposeful teacher observations are the key to supporting the rotation play schema in your classroom. When you observe all the different types of rotational play experiences in your classroom, you will be able to support and extend the students and their learning. For example, if you notice children consistently mixing loose parts in a bowl at dramatic play, they will also enjoy mixing paint in the art area or sand and water in a mud kitchen. Add different types of utensils like whisks and beaters to these areas too.

The rotation play schema begins in babies when they first notice a dropped object rolling away and continues to fascinate them and develop throughout childhood. This engaging play schema will definitely be evident in your early childhood classroom.

So now you know how to identify and support the rotation play schema, you can effectively plan and deliver lessons and activities that developmentally support your students in an age-appropriate way.