It was the summer of 1926, when grandma and cousins dug the hole to China. "We are digging a hole to China, for China", sung over and over again. The grandmother is now wondering why began digging at the top of the hill, but their spirits were undaunted.
It was not until the deepest well that the children decided they needed to measure progress. The older girls took turns inserting your legs to the ankles, knees, thigh deep. When the hole was finished, had you inserted a leg and toes stretched too far, too, could have played in China!
Children have always been intrigued by playing with sand. They dig in the sand, sift it, build it, pour, enjoy the feel and smell of it, intending thereby, and explore how it moves. Balke (1997) argues that, "The culture of children is threatened by the media and overproduction of plastic toys that are ready-made and demand nothing of the child" (p. 358). Sand, on the other hand, is well suited to the exploratory and imaginative nature of young children.
Why play in the sand?
There is no right way to use sand. You are invited to participate; which allows children to make and test hypotheses; It stretches the imagination; potentially providing a soothing sensory experience; and is an excellent way for children to learn physical, cognitive and social skills.
Because sand play is open-ended, the child determines the direction and the way of his own work. This freedom then clears the way for the child to develop concepts of development.
According to the constructivist theory (Piaget, 1945), children have an inner drive to build an understanding of their world as they explore and interact with materials. Concepts about how the world works are built gradually and become increasingly complex as the child enters a rich learning environment and exercise their freedom to play.
The sequence of Exploration-Play-Application
When a child is first setting a new game, he or she will behave in a way Vandenberg (1978, 1984) described as the scanning sequence of play-application. According to Vandenberg, a child cautiously explores a new material or piece of equipment before he or she actually plays with him. It has been suggested that this exploration is tentative way to determine if it is safe to start playing (Weisler and McCall, 1976) of a child.
Children who have never had the chance to play in the sand or any other material need time to explore their new environment before starting the game with purpose. As teachers, we plan large blocks of time for children to engage with the materials. During the second, or play part of the sequence, children tend to develop skills that will later be applied to new situations (Sylva, Bruner, and Genova, 1976). In other words, the game is a practice time in which the child useful, physical and social cognitive skills are developed in an environment where mistakes and errors are inconsequential. These skills are then available to the child as a resource for future use.
The teacher's role
It is important that the game is open-ended. Children should feel comfortable asking and answering their own questions. Chaille and Britain (1997) suggest that the teacher's role is to structure a rich environment, observe what the children are doing and thinking, and interact in a non-directive way. Teachers should "encourage problem solving, perspective taking, and / or consideration of the feelings" (Chaille and Britain, 1997, 65). Open-ended game can be promoted through the use of key phrases such as:
How can you change / fix that?
What else can you do?
What would happen if ...?
What do you think / you feel about ...?
How did you do that?
Is there another way to ...?
To ask open questions, the teacher provides a framework that allows children to learn more than they could alone. Vygotsky (1933) called this frame scaffolding. The teacher provides support for learning, then gradually withdraws the support that children become capable of doing more and more in your account. The teacher prepares a difficult first carefully, intriguing environment. She asks, open pointed questions that build a bridge for children to cross the gap between what could be achieved with appropriate scaffolding.
What can children learn to play in the sand?
Sand play promotes physical development. Large muscle skills are developed as children dig, pour, sift scoop and clean brush and dustpan spills. Eye-hand control and coordination of small muscles improve as children learn to manipulate sand accessories.
Sand play also promotes social skills. When children work together in the sand table facing real problems that require sharing, negotiating and compromising. A group can participate in dramatic play, because "cooking", build roads, dig tunnels, or create a rubber zoo animals. As children play roles associated with their dramatic play, they learn important social skills such as empathy and perspective taking.
The teacher can promote cognitive development by preparing an interesting challenge middle atmosphere, playing with sand. This environment can be achieved continually changing and adding interesting accessories for the center.
Mathematical concepts can be developed during the game arena by providing children with measuring spoons and cups, containers in a variety of sizes and shapes, scales, counting or bears. Looking at the game arena of children, use mathematical terms such as more / less; many / few; empty full; heavy light. Then challenge children to count how many scoops it takes to fill a container. Accessories sequence by size.
Develop concepts of science by suspending a pendulum funnel or on the sand table. Provide magnets and buried treasure. Use ropes and pulleys to move sand buckets. Drill holes in a plastic bottle, fill it with sand, and observe. Then try different sizes and locations of holes. What happens? Ask children what they could do with a water wheel / sand, PVC pipes, ramps, strainers, funnels, or rolling pin. Add water, filters, sand or gravel. How does it change?
Encourage children to make signs for use in the game arena and find out what a sieve is to develop language skills. Invite the children to write their names in the sand or tell a story about their game. Move road signs to the center of the block to the sandbox.
Teachers can incorporate the arts in arena game encouraging children to draw a track in the sand; make castings, moldings and prints; and writing a poem arena. As children sift and pour, play background music and encourage them to sing. Try using sand combs and describe the pattern and design.
You will think of many more accessories to change the sand play area to keep it fresh and appealing. Look around for common objects and discards your home that can spark ideas when combined with sand. "A developing brain does not know the difference between an inexpensive set of measuring cups and an expensive set of stackable bought in a toy store" (Newberger, 1997, p. 8). You might even decide to alternative rice, nuts, corn, beans, humus, packing peanuts, aquarium gravel or cornmeal centers to compare with the game arena.
Conclusion
Children have a natural affinity for sand play. Teachers can build on that interest by providing children with support inviting, asking appropriate questions, and scheduling enough time for children to work through their play ideas. While the teacher provides stimulating environment to enhance the development of concepts and skills development, it is important that the playground sand remain free and child-centered so that children can create their own imaginative play schemes.
It is through purposeful play, on its own initiative that children move beyond the world of what is to become the strongest, wisest, most competent and qualified participants in the world of what could be. We have to invite children to explore the natural ingredients proven by game time so they, too, can stretch their toes and playing far China.
We used a combination of blue and gold for this lehanga n for the mirror work we used multi colour threads. First we made a path with the gold tissue cloth as a border for the net cloth for lehanga. Then we used a sequence of mirror work for the lehanga as shown in the picture and a sngle mirror in between the empty space of the lehanga.
