Of the three children who are using the turkey basters as a tool to move the water, none of them are using it the way it is intended.  Since we don’t know the background of the children we can’t assume that they have had or have not had experience using turkey basters or observing others using them.  This may be their first opportunity to play with them in the water table. They appear to understand that somehow the liquid is supposed to go into the tube and the rounded end is for squeezing.  They do not know that the rounded end is also key to getting the water up and into the tube. They are using the basters pretty successfully as tools for stirring the water.

The water table is rich with mathematical experiences for children.  Not only are they estimating and measuring, they are also problem-solving .  In this scenario, we can also see the children motor planning**.  They have to figure out how to use both of their hands simultaneously to hold the cups, pour the water, make the water wheel spin, and hold the baster. Both the turkey basters and the making the water wheel turn require a sequence of coordinated movements to make them work.

Now watch the next video.  In this one, one of the teacher has come over and is providing scaffolding around the use of the turkey basters.  What do you think?

How would you support these children? How specific would you be in offering instruction?  How do you know when to provide exact directions for problem-solving and when to encourage independent problem solving?  When do you “teach” and when do you “scaffold?”

One of the things I consider when deciding which technique to choose is whether or not, through observation and experience, and trial and error, a child could figure how to do something (in this case-manipulate a turkey baster) on his/her own.

In the video, the teacher explains the required sequence of manipulations for the basters to work.  She explains to the child that he needs to squeeze the rubber end, put it into the water, release the end so the water will be sucked in, and then squeeze the rubber end to move the water out.  I don’t know about you, but I think this is a very complicated tool to learn how to use. To be honest, I’ve seen many a grown-up fail to use a turkey baster correctly come Thanksgiving time.

You have to follow the sequence exactly or it won’t work.  For young children, especially those under three, following these multi-step directions is very difficult.  As they focus on one part of the problem, they can’t (or find it extremely difficult) to pay attention to the other details at the same time. They may be able to squeeze the rubber end and put it into the water, but then remembering to release it and let the water rise is probably too many things to expect a very young child to be able to do.  You can see that even after the teacher has explained it a few times, the boy continues to struggle while he little girl uses the baster to scoop the water out of the cup.

In the case of a complicated tool, I would show children the steps to make it work.  However, I would focus on the first step, until the children are successful before moving on to the subsequent steps.  I would also play alongside the children and model using the tool.  Remember to encourage the children to follow the steps by explicitly saying, “First squeeze.  Then put the tip in the water.  Then release and watch the water go up.”  Keep repeating this sequence until the children are able to complete the sequence themselves.  They will be so thrilled when they master this tool.

**Motor planning is the ability to conceive, plan, and carry out a skilled, non-habitual motor act in the correct sequence from beginning to end. 

https://nspt4kids.com/healthtopics-and-conditions-database/motor-planning/

The cold presents a lot of possibilities for teachable moments with young children.  Discussing the weather in meaningful ways is a good idea.  Discussing the weather in rote and meaningless ways is not such a good idea. Usually, when I observe a classroom doing “the calendar” or “the weather” it is pretty boring.  It is removed from the children’s lives and is generally repetitive and disconnected.  However, bringing the snow in to the water table is interesting and is a much better way to discuss “the winter” or “the cold” than having a child walk over to the window to report, “It is snowing outside.”

Anytime you can discuss relative concepts with children, you are doing math.  Have the children touch the snow and ask, “How cold is it?”  “Is it colder than the water in the drinking fountain?” or “Is it colder than an ice cube?” Let the snow melt and find out how it changes.  Discuss this with the kids.  Have extra mittens in the classroom so they can play for a while in the water table with the snow.  Have children make snowballs and then arrange them from biggest to smallest.  Observe how they melt.  Have the children observe the differences between the melting of the small snowballs versus the large snowballs. Find out what they think about those differences.  Do they have their own ideas about why snowballs melt in this way.  Let them describe those ideas and then experiment again on another day, to see if their hypotheses hold true.

This is one simple way to talk about the cold that may be a bit more interesting to young children.  Try it and let us know what you think.