My Rights My Voice Vignette 3
3. Playful repetition is important for learning
One service chose to ask infants the questions relating to participation: What does it mean to play? What do you enjoy playing the most? What do you not enjoy playing?
The educator showed pictures of different types of play and toys to play with. Infants responded with facial expressions, by pointing, pulling on pages, scrunching the paper and at times putting it in their mouths.
These legitimate responses demonstrated how children can communicate preference, emotion and intensity without words. When the children were not interested in what they saw they were quickly distracted from it or shook their head.
The process was repeated several times using pictures of play areas, pictures of toys and immersive play experiences. After several weeks, the infants were offered a resource catalogue to touch and explore, their educator using simple language to affirm the items they were most drawn to.
The Centre Director was invited to a meeting with the children and their educator. With the now familiar catalogue on show on the floor, the infants were able to move and vocalise their preferences as they requested new items for their room.
The Director made a list of six preferences from the catalogue — puzzles and cup toys, teddies, ingredients for food play and musical instruments. The list has been processed for procurement and the children will soon have the resources for the new play experiences they explored through the feedback process.
Why is this important?
Infant brains are developing rapidly — giving them time to be curious helps them learn how things work. This learning happens through repetition, exploration and experimentation. In this case, repeating the experiences helped the children learn how they were being asked to participate, as well as helping them become familiar with the items they were choosing between. Repetition is also necessary for the observer. Through repetition the observer can validate and verify that they are capturing the ideas others want to communicate more authentically.
Insight
Having abundant opportunities to explore experiment and repeat is necessary for learning. Furthermore, infants learning is at its best when their agency is fostered. Infants remind us about the importance of slowing down, letting go of biases and following our curiosity.
