Mason and Brendan are working at the magnet table together. There are magnet tiles, bugs, and an assortment of small wooden blocks for them to work with. They choose the magnet tiles and bugs. They join all the square magnet tiles together and create a train for the bugs. Brendan is holding a black fly and Mason has put a spider and two other bugs on the train.
Brendan: “Look it’s a fly!”
Mason: “No it’s a bee.”
Brendan: “No it’s a fly!”
Mason: “No it’s a bee.”
While going back and forth, Brendan was getting louder and closer to Mason. Brendan notices that there is a bee on the table. He picks it up, shows it to Mason, and says:
Brendan: “This is a bee!”
Mason: “No, that’s a bee.”
Brendan looks in the direction in which Mason is pointing. He looks down at the spider on the train.
Brendan: “That one?”
Mason: “No that’s a spider.”
Brendan looks down and points at the bee.
Brendan: “This one is a bee?”
Mason: “Yes that’s a bee.”
Brendan stops and thinks about something, and shows Mason the fly in his hand.
Brendan: “Yes this is a fly right?”
Mason: “Yes, that’s a fly.”
They go back and continue playing with the bugs on the train.
As a teacher it can be hard sometimes to know when to intervene in what seems to be a heated discussion. As I observed these two boys working together, I wondered how this would play out. It was hard not to stop them but like we say to them every day, they are capable, and I believed they would find a way to work things out. It amazes me how brilliant they are at finding ways to solve their problems. Brendan’s frustration level was clearly rising every time Mason disagreed with him. And Mason really thought he had a bee. It wasn’t until Brendan gave him options that Mason was able to compare and realize oh yeah that is a bee. Children begin to classify objects very early they tend to do this according to size, color, and in this case species. It is through this classification that they begin to gain further knowledge in other mathematical concepts like patterns, and one to one correspondence. In this captured moment, these children solved a problem without help from an adult (social emotional development), classified an object (cognitive development), and built a train out of magnet blocks (fine motor development).