Crafting Small Worlds

Blue fabric, stones, and some felt sand will round out this ocean small world

Thursday marked three weeks until my partner, Dylan, and I leave the Big Island of Hawaii and head back to Vermont to spend the summer helping my mom work on her house. It’s hard to believe our time here is coming to a close so soon. We have both had such an amazing experience, Dylan with his farm work and me with the farm preschool cooperative and teaching little K. I have learned a lot from her and everyone here on the farm and have immensely appreciated the opportunity to further develop my educational philosophy and build up my curriculum development skills. I have especially enjoyed all the crafting I have been able to do. After the success of our felt finger puppet craft night, I couldn’t wait to see what we’d come up with at our second evening of felting together. I had chosen sea creatures for our theme in an attempt at developing my first “small world” play-set for K and her friends. I was inspired by a lily pad scene I found on Pinterest a while back, but wanted to make something a little more relevant to the kids lives here on the island.

Honu I saw with the kids at Keei down the road from the farm

I’ve seen K and her friends at the beach and all they want to do is search for and pick up any and every living creature they find, including the spikey sea urchins that could easily cause a great deal of pain if mishandled. At our last beach trip with the farm community, we were lucky enough to spot a few humpback whales frolicking in the waves just before sunset and the kids went wild with delight, just as I saw them do the last time we went and saw a beloved honu (sea turtle). I wanted to provide these kids with a way to play with and learn about the creatures of their community that have so deeply captured their interests. So for our last craft night, we once again gathered at sunset to sip wine, share a few appetizers, and wind down our week, chatting as we stitched together a beautiful ocean small world. By the end of the evening, we had collectively created an underwater story waiting to be acted out by tiny hands and voices.

River small world in sensory table (source)

Small worlds are such a fun and effective way for little ones to discover ecosystems, connect with their local environments, imagine life in faraway parts of the globe, and step into the worlds of their favorite creatures. Small worlds allow children to create stories, develop characters, and stretch their imaginations again and again. Unlike dramatic play, where part of the fun is creating stories in motion, and fully stepping into other roles, the focus in small worlds is on characters external from one’s self, even when kids are pretending that they are the critters they control. Small worlds can be both an independent, solitary activity with one child acting out all the parts, or it can be a group endeavor where characters come to life through collaboration. While dramatic play tends to work more large motor skills, small worlds typically utilize fine motor skills. Both kinds of creative play are equally important and beneficial to child development and both can be used as powerful teaching tools in the Reggio classroom (or any other following an emergent/play-based curriculum). 

Yellow Tang fish, the favorite of my felt creations so far

Being an introvert myself, I tended to prefer small world play to dramatic play as a kid, unless of course I was the director and could participate from behind the camera, as I often did being the oldest sibling and cousin in our family. I had a family of fuzzy little bear dolls and a few other critters and I loved to set up homes for them in an imaginary woods with their fellow woodland critters. Many stories were played out in my childhood this way. Small world play is a great way for introverted kids like I was to get involved with drama. The creation of both small world stories and dramatic play games promote literacy, expand vocabulary and communication, and help promote a love of learning, because it’s not just fun and games, a ton of learning happens during this kind of creative play, particularly when teachers engage in the stories. I love using small worlds as teaching tools, not only do the kids get a kick out of it when I join in their games, but I can help them build a better understanding of the world and it’s many systems in a way that is genuinely enjoyable for both of us.

K's friend C reaching for a crab with a particularly beautiful shell

So how exactly does one use small worlds to teach? Well, thanks to another successful craft night, we have put together a collection of ocean critters that the kids see and experience on a regular basis, so their interest in them is already piqued. Kids love to hold things, they want to interact with the other creatures in their world, but as toddlers they do not yet understand why the critters might not be too keen on this idea. K is always asking me, “see me hold it?” when she wants to pick up a gecko, a spider, a bird, you name it. After enough and consistent explanation and a little more experience, she will come to understand. However, having spent the better part of my childhood collecting frogs and salamanders in the pond next to my house, I completely understand the urge to get closer to the fascinating creatures found in nature. Small worlds allow children to get that closeness they crave, to hold their favorite little beings in their hands and interact with them in a safe and respectful way until they are experienced enough to interact with the real things.

Kealakekua Bay, Big Island of Hawaii

Our Kealakekua Bay small world consists of a honu, an octopus, a manta ray, a sea star, a vauna (sea urchin), a dolphin, some seaweed and ocean rocks and shells, a yellow tang fish, and other common critters found in the depths of our tiny pocket of the Pacific. This mini ecosystem, just like the real thing, is comprised of a few mammals, some fish and amphibians, surface creatures, deep sea creatures, and those who prefer the shore. They consist of plant and mineral life, and thus provide an invitation for children to learn about each of these things. Rather than direct instruction and being quizzed on which creatures breathe air vs. water, or how the food chain works, and instead of being lectured on how to care for this environment, small world play allows all of this information to be actively learned, in the context of play. When I join a small world with kids, I take my role as whale or fish seriously and show the kids what they need to know about these sea creatures by being true to my creature’s unique nature. I make sure my whale regularly comes up for air, since that is what he breathes, and I make sure my fish flops around gasping for breath when accidentally beached. Most importantly, I narrate the scene, using a wide vocabulary and detailed (yet concise) descriptions. My role is to pick up on what the kids need to know and help them learn it through our collaborative play.

Elf or Fairy fantasy forest small world in a bucket (source)

Children, particularly preschoolers, are like little sponges, they soak in everything they see and are constantly constructing and adapting their understanding of how the world works and how they fit into it. I remember playing ocean games with my three year olds back at Bella Mente and after only a week or two of small world play, many of the kids could tell you the difference between a mammal and a fish, what these creatures ate, how they interacted with one another, and so much more. They learned all this from diving into their ocean games with each other and with me, their stories becoming both more advanced and accurate as the days went on. I didn’t need to quiz or lecture these kids to get them to learn, I just needed to provoke their interest in the subject by providing them with interesting materials to construct the knowledge for themselves. And when I joined in their play, I didn’t force them to keep their fish underwater or their whales near the surface to breathe, I simply acted my parts and asked them questions about their play, such as, “how can your fish breathe when he is out of water? Fish have different lungs than we do and they need water to breathe.” Sometimes they would tell me their fish had special powers, and sometimes they didn’t have an answer and we kept on playing. Next time we played oceans, however, I noticed that the fish always went back in the water to breathe. 

there are so many ways to make a small world (source)

Small worlds offer so much more than an opportunity to understand habitats and ecosystems, though I would still be satisfied if that was all they did. Small worlds cover nearly every subject imaginable, both academic as well as socio-emotional. Because they do so through contextual and interdisciplinary study that is both fun and highly relevant, small worlds make a highly effective learning tool that can be used with students all the way through elementary school. Since knowledge is continually being constructed, each interaction with a small world means greater depth of understanding and the more complex ideas can come into play. New and more detailed stories evolve, ones that can be written down, drawn, video-recorded, and more characters can be added to aid in continual construction of knowledge. More detailed and accurate environments can be built, these ones by the students themselves, and the ecosystems can serve as the perfect place to begin exploring some of the problems they face, like pollution, clearing of land, and other ways man has negatively impacted specific environments. The more kids understand about how ecosystems work and the relationship between man and earth, the better they will be positioned to seek out harmonious and effective solutions for both.

"V is for vauna" (Shingle Sea Urchin)

At their first introduction, small worlds can serve as a vocabulary builder, allowing kids to practice saying the names of their creatures. K loves naming the creatures and takes it one step further by showing me one creature at a time and telling me what letter it starts with. Sometimes we count the creatures and sometimes we use them as a puzzle and search for the magnet letter that starts the creatures names saying “O for octopus” and “V for vauna.” K and I also like to count the creatures, count the legs on the octopus and turtle, and we even play basic addition and subtraction games. “I have two critters and you have two,” I point out to K adding, “and when I give you my two critters, you now how four.” We count the four critters in her hand see what else we can count together. Since we started doing this, I started to notice K counting things around her without any provocation from me.

ocean and land fabric can set the stage for many a felt small world

Small worlds offer children the chance to play an active role in their learning, explore their interests, learn about the world around them, and just play, which is how they really learn best anyway. As a teacher, I use my small world play as a chance to get to know my students better, to chat and bond and just have fun with them in an authentic way. This kind of play is a serious relationship builder and when it comes to children, especially preschoolers, developing a solid rapport is essential to being successful in this line of work. Now that I have found a beautiful piece of blue fabric to set the stage for ocean small world, it’s time to get to work creating a land-based small world. So far I have completed a mongoose and a cardinal with a gecko, a lizard, a butterfly, and a few others on deck. When I picked up the ocean fabric, I also snagged a yard of green fabric with a nice leaf print and with these two sheets I can create a whole handful of different small worlds. To continue use of the ocean seen, I also plan to put together an arctic wonderland. Since K and I have started watching bits of Blue Planet, one of my favorite nature documentary series, K has been fascinated with polar bears, seals, penguins, and all things arctic. This girl loves to learn and her ever-evolving interests are constantly inviting me to try out new crafts to help facilitate and collaborate with her in the process. For tons of small world ideas, check out my Creative Play board on Pinterest.