It’s hard to imagine an early learning program without paper. Paper is that incredible, adaptable surface that expectantly awaits children’s transformation.
Rex’s feather painting he described as ‘Dragon’s Dream’
The paper invitation grew out of what I observed:
Within our classroom, various sizes and colours of paper, envelopes, pencils, crayons, scissors and glue sit invitingly on a low shelf awaiting children’s ideas and creativity.
Over the first few weeks of the new school year, I noticed that this beautiful open-ended invitation with paper and a few tools prompted children to similar explorations of paper. For some children, feeling the separation from parents and home, the envelopes prompted picture drawing or ‘notes’ that they then tucked into an envelope for family. Some children snipped or cut paper into smaller pieces to fit into an envelope, or they glued their small pieces onto a larger piece of paper. The paper was always used as a receiver or marks or snips.
The grammar of paper — the properties of paper that cause it to react, change, or be transformed through folding, rolling, bending etc. — seemed to be largely unexplored by the children.
I wondered:
- Would children explore other properties of paper if paper was offered in a novel way?
- What would I need to incorporate into this invitation for children to recognize paper as a strong and active tool, rather than simply a passive material?
Setting up the invitation:
Materials and tools:
- Long strips of paper with contrasting thicknesses and strengths (construction paper and tissue paper)
- Long low plastic containers to hold the strips of paper
- Child safety scissors
Before the children engaged with materials:
- We felt the two types of paper offered in the invitation, noticing the differences in the construction paper’s and tissue paper’s texture, weight, and opaqueness.
- I emphasized that we had two tools to work – scissors and hands. Scissors could snip and cut paper. Our hands could change paper in all kinds of ways by folding, rolling, crumpling and more. I demonstrated what I meant by these words.
During their engagement with paper:
- As children experimented with paper in a variety of ways, I observed each child’s engagement. Some worked with scissors. Others were keen to try rolling, spiralling, or folding the paper.
- The springy movement of paper as it unfurled from their attempts at spiralling or folding surprised and delighted some of the children.
- One child tried creating springiness to her paper by cutting the paper into a spiral shape.
Provocation:
After time for children to explore various methods of working with paper, I asked the children how paper might be able hold up and balance an object off the table (i.e. not simply rest on top of a flat piece of paper lying on the table.)
I offered a few wood cookies for children to use as objects for their experiments with paper.
- They tried standing paper on its edge. (It immediately fell over.)
- They told me they needed tape. (I told them there was only one rule for solving this puzzle– no glue, no tape, no staples. But they could use their hands, scissors and imagination.)
Children began experimenting with their new and growing skills of folding, and spiralling paper.
- We wondered:
- Could spiralled tissue paper hold up an object as well as spiralled construction paper?
- Could many spiralled papers hold up and balance objects that were bigger than a wood cookie?
- Could a strip of paper rolled into a loop hold up a wood cookie?
- How could a strip of paper be made into a loop without glue, tape or staples?
- Could folded paper hold up more than one wood cookie?
What’s next?
This invitation engaged children with a wide range of developmental skills – from those still learning how to rip or squeeze paper into a ball to those who had already developed strong scissor and folding skills. Knowing how to apply these varied skills to problem solving, however, offered challenges for children and adults alike. Because of this, children need repeated opportunities to explore this invitation and provocation.
To create new challenges and novelty over time this invitation could be offered substituting:
- Corrugated paper, waxed paper, differently weighted cardboard etc. for the construction and tissue papers
- Differently weighted, textured, or lengths of objects for the provocation (e.g. stones, seashells, coloured glass beads, small sticks, wide or narrow popsicle sticks, or pieces of fabric)
Our adult explorations and experimentation with paper are as important as the children’s!
Materials like paper can seem so ordinary to us that we overlook its possibilities. By experimenting with materials like paper – before we offer them to children – we open ourselves to new discoveries that inform us about how to prompt new thinking and discoveries among the children in our programs.
My sheet of copy paper transformed into ‘fabric’ through repeated crumpling over 5 minutes.
It has become soft and pliable – ready for new creative possibilities. Try it yourself!
