What Does it Mean to be Two? by Jennie Lindon

Author:Jennie Lindon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: EYFS, two, parents, development, guidance, babies, practitioners, school, education, learning
ISBN: 9781907241789
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

One afternoon in a nursery I watched a toddler spend a lot of time looking through her own legs. That day she seemed fascinated by how the world looked upside down. But observation over more than one day would be needed to decide whether she was exploring a schema around relative position and orientation. A single afternoon was not enough to know.

When you observe a persistent pattern of playful exploration for an individual child it is described as a schema. Their current schema shapes what they do with resources, including their own body, over a period of time. There is flexibility in their play – schemas do not indicate rigid repetition – but twos who are fascinated by rotation or connection, for example, can be persistent. A schema does not dominate all playful interaction. Two-year-olds, who are currently intrigued by enclosure, will spend time building cotton-reel fences for the dinosaurs or experiment with lines and borders to enclose some of their paintings. But they will play in other ways as well.

Adult awareness of schemas is a practical way to focus on what children are actually doing in their play and the ways in which their chosen exploration is most likely driving their own learning – often of an early mathematical or scientific nature. Practitioners who watch children’s own variations around their personal ‘theme’ can feel strengthened in trusting a well-resourced and accessible learning environment – resisting the temptation to think that mathematical learning can only happen within adult-initiated and adult-led activities. Two-year-olds – and threes and fours – need to spread out and have access to flexible play resources. Open conversation with parents needs to highlight how their young children, currently absorbed by a schema of connection, can link items together using glue or string, connect items by using building blocks or choose from generous mark-making materials to connect on paper or card.

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