Containers for Animals and People.
It is our
third day in school and we see children creating zoo-like enclosures
for animals in two areas of the classroom. The simultaneity of these
acts is an invitation for our teachers to observe and listen. The stories
reveal the structures as vehicles for children to order animals into
compartments. As they discuss their zoo George and Paul make clear their
knowledge of animals – that they sleep in the day at times, animals
live in zoos where they are surrounded by fences. They also show an
interest in ordering many items into a small space, using ALL the animals
in a box. Alice is ordering pegs around the animals she has glued onto
her page. When one square is complete she continues to the next. Is
this perhaps because there are still more pegs in the jar? She hasn’t
used them ALL yet!
In her conversation Alice speaks about being in the classroom. She has
just moved into a new classroom – she likes it and she is now four
(bigger than last year when she was in classroom 4). George and Paul
are new to our school and for George, this is his first time in a structured
environment. As teachers we wonder if enclosure is developmentally related
to the process of assimilating to a new environment. Enclosure becoming
a symbol for the house, the class, the self that is evolving.
