Category: Early Learning

Early Childhood Education, Early Learning, Illinois Early Learning Project, Parenting

The Power of Open-Ended Questions

Rebecca Swartz

When talking with young children, it can be easy to fall into the trap of asking questions that encourage a “yes” or “no”or very specific type ofanswer. We ask these questions throughout the day with young children. “Do you want an apple or a banana? Do you like the book? Yes or no?”

These types of questions are part of typical conversations we have with people in daily life and represent an important opportunity for children to express their preferences and make choices. However, when adults pay special attention to asking questions or prompting children to express their ideas with open-ended questions, they give children the opportunity to build expressive language skills.

Open-ended questions and phrases allow children to provide a full and meaningful answer that conveys their thoughts and feelings. These questions and phrases can be used throughout the day. Play time, meal time, and times in transit are all opportunities for children to observe their world and share their growing knowledge of how the world works.

Sometimes, it takes adults a little time to get used to waiting quietly for an answer. Children are often thinking quietly as they observe their world. Caregivers and teachers also need to provide time for children to think and formulate a response. The reward of hearing children share their ideas and emotions will make the wait worthwhile. In time, adults and children will become comfortable with the natural pace of these conversations.

Adults create powerful early learning opportunities by changing the type of questions they ask. Rich conversations build background knowledge that will support children’s language and cognitive skills. These skills provide a foundation for success in early literacy learning. Starting a conversation with phrases such as “Tell me about …,” “What do you think about …” and “How can we …” encourages children to express their thoughts and feelings.

Let’s consider a typical time when adults and children can have longer conversations. A closed-ended question about the macaroni and cheese at lunch might be, “Do you like the macaroni and cheese?”Children might answer “yes” or “no.” The conversation would not provide much of an opportunity for children to express complex ideas and feelings.

However, if the adults change the formulation of their question, it changes the kind of response children might provide. Instead of asking a simple question such as “Do you like the macaroni and cheese?” at meal time, an adult might say: Tell me about your favorite foods. What do you think we could add to the macaroni to make it tastier? How do you think the macaroni and cheese got to your plate?

An open-ended phrase such as “tell me what you know about macaroni and cheese” could lead the conversation in many different directions. Children might talk about the shape of the noodles, the color of the cheese, or how the meal was prepared. There might be an opportunity for children and adults to talk about how the cheese is made of milk, which comes from cows, and the noodles are made of wheat, which grows in the ground.

Where will your next question to a young child take you? Try out an open-ended question or phrase and see what you discover.

Blog post written for the Illinois Early Learning Project: https://illinoisearlylearning.org/blogs/growing/open-questions/

Early Childhood Education, Early Learning, Illinois Early Learning Project

Five Things Children Gain from Puzzle Play

Rebecca Swartz

Puzzles are a classic toy for young children. They come in a variety of types, materials, and levels of difficulty. Even infants may explore simple puzzles that involve fitting two pieces together. Puzzles are available with increasing complexity to challenge children as they grow. There are many life tasks that we do daily that are similar to puzzles. For example, fitting items into a box or bag is similar to fitting puzzle pieces into a puzzle form.

Puzzle play is a great time to build cognitive and fine motor skills, but it can also be a time to build social, emotional, and language skills when caregivers use time with puzzles thoughtfully. Here are five things children learn through puzzle play:

  • Spatial vocabulary: Use words such as turn, flip, and rotate when you are coaching children to fit puzzle pieces together. Children also learn words such as above, below, and beside when they describe the position of puzzle pieces in relation to each other.
  • Sequencing: There are some puzzles in which the sequence the pieces are put together is important. Children hear and learn ordinal numbers and words that indicate relative position in a sequence, such as first, second, third, and last. Children can also be encouraged to retell the sequence in which they put the pieces together to further develop their understanding of sequencing.
  • Problem-solving: Children learn to work through a problem and reach a solution as they fit the pieces together. They may need to learn to set aside the piece they hope to put in the puzzle while searching for one that fits in the spot they need. They also may learn there are multiple paths to the puzzle’s completion as they do a puzzle over and over. When they work on puzzles with peers, they also describe their strategies to one another and work through difficulties collaboratively.
  • Task completion and persistence: The process of putting together a puzzle has a finite end when the puzzle is solved. Children encounter frustration when they cannot easily solve a puzzle, and when they work through these emotions, they enjoy the success of task completion. Working through these feelings helps children develop persistence, or the ability to keep going in the face of difficulty.
  • Fine motor and hand-eye coordination: Children refine their fine motor and hand-eye coordination skills as they manipulate puzzle pieces to put the puzzle together. They develop the small muscles in their hand that allow them to grasp and move puzzle pieces with precision.

Older infants and young toddlers may enjoy knobbed puzzles that are easy to grasp. First, children may find success with puzzles that have one piece for each image. For example, a puzzle of animals might have cat, dog, and bird pieces that each fit in their own spot. Then, as toddlers and preschoolers become more skillful, they may try “tray puzzles” with multiple pieces fitting together to make a single picture. As toddlers and preschoolers grow, they may start to enjoy trying jigsaw puzzles and more complex tray puzzles. Three-dimensional puzzles, such as stacking rings or a nesting cup, also challenge their skills and thinking.

Young children need access to puzzles that are the correct level of difficulty for their current developmental stage to benefit from puzzle play. They should have access to puzzles that they can do independently. This allows children the chance to build their small muscles, hand-eye coordination, and problem-solving strategies through repeated practice. They enjoy the feeling of accomplishing a task on their own as they put the puzzles together and take them apart. It is helpful to keep these puzzles in a place where children can access and clean them up independently. Rotating the selection of puzzles will help maintain their interest.

Children should also have access to puzzles that are a little bit challenging. Working on puzzles that are a little too hard to complete independently is a great time for young children to work with peers and caregivers to build new strategies for solving puzzles. Puzzles that are much too difficult may be a source of frustration for children and their caregivers. Young children may dump the pieces and mix multiple puzzles together because they have a difficult time engaging with puzzles that are too hard. Caregivers and teachers may wish to keep the majority of these more challenging puzzles in a location where children can access them with assistance and a smaller, rotating selection available so children are encouraged to build their skills with assistance.

Written for the Illinois Early Learning Project: https://illinoisearlylearning.org/blogs/growing/puzzle-play/

 

Early Childhood Education, Early Learning, Illinois Early Learning Project

Busy with Blocks

Rebecca Swartz

Children learn many things by playing with blocks. Spatial and mathematical thinking are important understandings that children build through block play. As children build, they gain hands-on experience with concepts of proportions and balance. They explore shapes. As they talk about the blocks they are handling, they learn about the two-dimensional shapes on the surfaces of blocks and the three-dimensional forms that blocks represent, such as cylinders, prisms, and cubes. As they build, they learn to organize things by relative size, color, weight, and form.

Natural and human-built structures fill the world. Young children notice the shapes and designs of these built structures all around them. Perhaps you have been on a walk or car ride and heard a preschooler commenting on very tall built structures such as a skyscraper, a spikey fence, or a twisty slide on a playground. Children notice bird nests, hills, lakes, rivers, and other natural structures. Then, you may have seen that child attempting to re-create that structure with wooden blocks, plastic bricks, or even rocks on the playground. Blocks are a valuable tool that allow children to represent their world and share their understandings with peers and caregivers.

Block play also is an opportunity for children to develop skills across developmental domains, prompting them to use their language, social, and emotional skills. During block play, children have opportunities to communicate and collaborate with peers. Children can share ideas and work together to build large structures. Children negotiate sharing resources. They may work out exchanges of various shapes or problem solve how to build their structure when a certain shape is in short supply. A child may need to manage her emotions and frustration when another child knocks down her structure.

Do you want to keep your young learners busy with blocks? Here are some ideas to help make block play a richer and more inclusive opportunity for diverse learners.

  • Organize your space: Provide a variety of types of building blocks and add picture and word labels to help children find and put away blocks in an organized manner. This will help them find the shapes of blocks they need for their structures as well as learn the vocabulary to talk about structures such as arch, pillar, unit, and double unit.
  • Add loose parts: Adding other items to blocks inspires children to play with blocks in new ways. Scarves can become canopies, tissue boxes can become beds, twigs might encourage children to create a small forest. Small pieces of paper and tape can be used to create signs and symbols to enhance block creations. (Be sure to choose objects appropriate for the age of the children in your setting to avoid choking hazards.)
  • Encourage dramatic play: Adding toy animals, people, or vehicles to your block play can encourage children to create stories. Clothespins and cardboard can be used to make simple stand-up people. You might also tape the photos of the children in your classroom or people in your family to blocks so they can become characters your block play.
  • Allow structures to remain standing: If your space allows, let children keep their structures standing instead of putting them away immediately. You might encourage children to write a sign with the word “save” by their structure so they can continue to work on it later.
  • Incorporate technology: Help children use a video camera, digital camera, or other recording device to document their creations. You can interview the children and ask them to describe their structures. Try rebuilding a previous creation or creating a diagram that shows the design of a structure you built.

Build, break down, and build again! For more ideas and information to help you get your young learners busy with blocks, check out the resources from the Illinois Early Learning Project website.

(Originally written for the Illinois Early Learning Project https://illinoisearlylearning.org/blogs/growing/busy-blocks/)