I have a question. Two questions, actually.

[conuly]

1. The other day, I watched Evangeline carefully set out two cups and a bowl, fill the bowl by trekking back and forth to the bathroom with the cups, and then spend a happy half an hour scooping water back into the cups and pouring from one cup to the other.

Now, I know that this is a fine learning activity. It builds fine motor skills (and some life skills as well), it teaches an intuitive grasp of measurement and basic physics, you learn a lot by pouring water back and forth. And so I let her do it. (She cleaned up afterwards, another learning activity.)

But the question is - I know how useful this is for her development, but how the heck does she know it? Who told her? Children the world over enjoy pouring water from one cup to another, but who the heck tells them it's a good idea? HOW DO THEY KNOW THEY SHOULD DO THIS?

2. Evangeline and I talk about nutrition sometimes when we eat our lunch. I've tried to impress upon her the simple rule that we should eat a variety of colors in our daily diet. (Natural colors, thanks!) This is a rule that's easy for even very young children to grasp, and you can express it in a fairly poetic way, too.

I know that a variety of foods is good for my body. Does the same hold true for the compost? Like, if I compost a little bit of mango and a bit of eggshells and a bit of coffee grounds and a bit of wilted lettuce, is it going to make richer dirt (and therefore healthier, more nutritious fruits and vegetables) than if my compost is made primarily of, say, orange and banana peels?

Comments

[cesy]

In response to 2, I think so, yes. I'm not sure which bits matter, but I do know that a variety of ingredients will tend to make better compost than just one.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

But the question is - I know how useful this is for her development, but how the heck does she know it? Who told her? Children the world over enjoy pouring water from one cup to another, but who the heck tells them it's a good idea? HOW DO THEY KNOW THEY SHOULD DO THIS?

Why should they have to know they "should do this"? What's wrong with "because it's fun" being the only reason they're doing something?

[conuly]

But she finds it fun because it's teaching her something.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

Does she? Have you asked her that?

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

Because kids are naturally curious and WANT to learn.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

children seek "affordances" (I think that's the word my textbook used)-- basically, experiences involving all the senses and skills that the human body and mind are capable of. Activity, physical or mental, is rewarding at a neurochemical level-- for adults as well as children (why else play video games, read books, dance, sing, anything?)

What's amazing isn't that she's "sought out" an activity that helps her learn, but rather that almost anything she does at this age-- running, playing, chattering-- are all learning experiences, strengthening pathways in her brain. Wild, huh?

[leora.livejournal.com]

Why does she find it fun? Perhaps she finds it fun because she's curious what will happen or because she sees adults doing it or because she likes being good at pouring. Any of these reasons would lead her to like to do an activity that is good for her.

[conuly]

I don't think she's ever seen an adult thoughtfully pouring water from one container to another and back again for half an hour. That'd be pretty unusual.

[leora.livejournal.com]

No, but she's probably seen adults pouring liquids from one thing to another.

Play mimics, but it doesn't mimic exactly. This is why some kids might make mud pies and then pretend to eat them to mimic cooking and eating rather than actually eating them. But they've likely seen adults making real food and possibly real pies.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

See if you can find a book called Maminka's Children. It's by Elizabeth Orton Jones. Look up the story of Bidushka. That's what you made me think of with that compost question (to which, by the way, the answer's yes).

[fjorab-teke.livejournal.com]

The compost answer is yes. It produces more nutrients for the soil which can in turn provide more nutrients to the plants. My parents compost things like egg shells, fruit/vegetable/bread waste, horse manure, pet fur, and of course yay for coffee grounds.

[azurelunatic]

I remember playing pouring water games when small.

I found it fun in part because of the games I made up to go with the pouring. It wasn't just water that I was pouring. It was flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and all sorts of other things that go into baking. I was measuring it most carefully, but the fun part was pouring, so I mostly did that.

Sometimes I was watching to see what happened, toying with the physical limits of the water (water and air and cups and bottles) with the same experimental glee that I would later use in testing to see if I could reproduce some weird behavior in the wild in LiveJournal. I didn't know how these things would behave if I experimented with them. So, I experimented with them for the sheer joy of finding out what would happen. Scientific inquiry comes naturally, and my parents never squelched it in me. When you don't know the parameters, the world is a giant playground.

Sometimes it was just for the fun of playing with water. It sparkles when you pour it. Its weight is aesthetically pleasing. It feels good against the skin. It makes fascinating noises. You can make shapes with the stream of water when you pour it -- make it wide and flat, slender, drippy, have it arc more or less. You can lose yourself for a while, if you're not careful.

[conuly]

That's the stimmiest answer I never expected to get.

[velvetchamber.livejournal.com]

Fun is the answer to number one. And you don't have to be a kid to find it fun. I also like playing with water like that, although I rarely do, because as I have grown older, I have found more and more things that are also fun.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Odd. I don't find it particularly fun and cannot remember a time when I ever did. I doubt I spent much time in childhood doing that.

However, one of my early pre-first grade schools had buckets of water and paintbrushes and we were allowed to "paint" the wooden playground equipment with them. I liked that, but I remember part of that was that the wood changes color when it's wet.

Also, looking back at that, I am somewhat amazed that we never threw buckets of water at each other. We always used that the way we were allowed to. It's one of the things I remember being very popular and thus in shorter supply at a school. The other thing (which may or may not have been the same school) were tricycles. We had a small number of them and everyone would race to try to get one. But it's not surprising that young kids like tricycles. I think most people assume young kids like vehicles they're allowed to drive.

[siderea]

Children the world over enjoy pouring water from one cup to another, but who the heck tells them it's a good idea? HOW DO THEY KNOW THEY SHOULD DO THIS?

Learning is intrinsically pleasurable (it's being taught which is so unpleasant). Like sex and eating, learning feels good because it's so very useful to us at a raw, biological level. She didn't need a person to tell her that it was a good thing to do, because she has a part of her brain, as do we all, that rewards her with delight for doing such useful, developmentally stimulating things.

Really, if you haven't read Holt, you might want to.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

*laughs* OK, you just said what I did, only much clearer and shorter. Can I learn from you?