Post 4 - Balls in a trough

Today, after my lunch break I had to relieve one of the staff members from the Under 2’s area.  C, the teacher that was with the children, says that we would take the children outside for a play.  While outside I noticed that the water trough was empty.  I asked C if she would like me to fill the trough with water.  She replied that she would get some balls as the children love to play with it. At this time I was holding one of the babies, D and I sat with the other babies while C went inside.
C came back with a bag of small coloured balls.  She poured the balls in the trough and later placed two of the babies U and T inside the tough to play with the coloured balls.  I sat near them on the sand box while holding D.  U and T smiled and reached for a ball as they started throwing them out of the trough.  I said to U who started to throw the balls first “U, do you like throwing the ball?.”  D the baby that I was holding was excited too, as he watched them throwing the balls.  I lay D on the grass saying “There Dylan ball, get the ball”.  D smiled and reached out for the ball and I placed the ball closer to him so that he could reach it as mentioned “Infants have often been described as relying on sensorimotor understandings of their world.  The infant who reaches to grasp objects and then places them in the mouth is using the senses of touch and taste to explore those objects” (as cited in Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett & Farmer, 2008, p.79).

Meanwhile, U and T were playing in the trough when DD climbed over the top of them in the trough.  U and T started to cry as DD placed his weight on top of them.  I said to DD “Oh DD wait for your turn”.  I lifted DD off U and T, and U stopped crying and continued to play with the balls but T was not happy he kept crying.  I lifted T out of the trough and said “Okay, T let’s go and see what else we could do”.  I held T and sat him on the large cushion where there were other little toys for T to play with.
 As I lifted T out of the trough DD climbed in.  He happily grabbed hold of some balls and started to throw the balls on the grass. I noticed that DD enjoyed sitting in the trough and playing with the balls. S a 14 months girl climbed into the trough and joined U and DD. This relates to Te Whariki, “Infants have opportunities to watch and join in with other children and to see and hear new things”, (Ministry of Education, 1996, p. 89). The children were exploring the balls and learning to share the trough with one another. DD was able to climb in and out of the trough independently, U could stand and reach for balls if he wanted to and Sina was able to move freely as well as stated "Promoting motor development in toddlers follows the same principles as that of infants. Toddlers need freedom to move and experience a variety of ways of using the skills they possess."(Gonzalez-Mena & Eyer, 2007,p.145).

References

                  Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Dockett, S., Farmer, S., & Death, E. (2008).

                  Programming and planning in early childhood settings (4^th ed.). Victoria

                  Thomson. Ministry of Education. (1996). Te whāriki: He whāriki maatauranga moo ngaa

                  Mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.

      Gonzalez-Mena,.(2008).Foundations of early childhood education:Teaching children in a deverse
      society (4th ed.).Boston, United States of America : McGraw Hill.