Educating Young Children Volume 1 – Spring 2025 | Page 54

During the initial tube interaction, Andy didn’ t seem to understand that placing materials at the top of the tunnel makes them slide down to the other end. When he showed signs of frustration, I provided responsive caregiving. It is an example of what Jane Lucas and colleagues describe as“ sensitivity to children’ s movements, sounds, and gestures and interpreting and responding appropriately to them” in“ Care for Child Development: An Intervention in Support of Responsive Caregiving and Early Child Development.” While I continued to invite Andy to experiment with objects in the tube, eventually he explored it on his own. I used Andy’ s interest in things that move and in cause and effect to strengthen his cognitive, physical, self-regulation, and relationship skills.

We extended this activity by reading books about objects that roll and move, singing and moving to songs about emotions, and writing a social story about Andy’ s tube exploration for his family. We also provided Andy and the children with different-sized materials to help them differentiate between objects that fit or didn’ t fit into the tube and to build on each of their actions, thereby extending the curricular play and exploration around the beginning stages of classification.

As often happens in emergent curriculum planning for infants and toddlers, we do not expect to create a month’ s curriculum on cause and effect for a whole group of children based on one child’ s interest. Throughout the month, the children rolled balls down an open ramp and through a tunnel ramp; participated in water sensory activities and hit water with their palms, causing the water to splash; created music by shaking rattles and hitting notes on a xylophone; and used a sticky wall to stick materials to it and pull them off. All of these activities were planned in response to observing, interacting, and responding to children’ s exploration and curiosity. We planned extended activities that would integrate