Oliver is now 22 months old and spending more and more time playing independently, he likes to explore new things and loves to play with my tins of food from my kitchen cupboard, stacking them up and rolling them around the floor.
Heuristic Play is exploring the properties of real objects as opposed to toys.
I set up a box for Oliver to explore filled with natural manmade objects:
- A metal sieve
- A wooden spoon
- A whisk
- A hairbrush
- A cardboard tube
- A glove
- A rubber cup
- A piece of felt
He sat and played on his won for ages, exploring the tube by looking through it, putting objects into his sieve and stirring it around with the spoon and brushing his hair with the hairbrush.
I observed him for 5 minutes and noted down the things that he did
- Stirring objects around in the sieve with the spoon and then changing to the whisk
- Shouting down the tube
- Putting the fabric on his head
- He put his hand inside the glove, then he put his foot inside it, then he wrapped it around his neck as if it was a scarf
I introduced some pasta twists and a paintbrush half way through
- First He sat and tasted the pasta
- He brushed his face with the paintbrush then started painting the fabric
- He held the paintbrush in one hand and the spoon in the other making circular motions with them on the floor
- He wipes his hands on the felt using it as a towel
- He put everything back into the sieve and mixes them around
I have recently been playing Silly Soup with Oliver and his big brother Joseph, introducing names of things and sounds.
Observing Oliver during his treasure basket play showed me that he has remembered about the silly soup as he done the same actions with the sieve and other objects. He was silent throughout his 5 minutes play but normally he is really loud, talking and singing away to himself.
Oliver has objects stored in a box and he chooses to pick them up and play with them now over his toys, i love watching him explore them. I add new items to the box to keep him interested and each time he plays with them he learns new things to do each time.