Studying Outer Space in the Puzzle Primes (3 year-olds)
Outer space has proven to be a captivating framework for the Puzzle Primes to explore complex topics. Particularly in the children's dramatic play, we've noticed the emergence of themes such as fear, death, uncertainty, climate change, and relationships. Recognizing the opportunity for deeper exploration, Elendë and I began a storytelling exercise to delve into these themes.
The Puzzle Primes at play: They are astronauts and the climber is the ISS. They are working together to destroy an asteroid that's trying to "crash their ship."
Gathered around the lunch table, the children take turns constructing collaborative stories set in outer space. The Puzzle Primes’ imaginative and humorous narratives contain the complex and nuanced ideas with which they’re grappling. While identifying with the astronaut protagonists, the children play out scenarios that involve, for example, fear or danger. It’s been very interesting to listen to how they use the imagery of space to navigate challenging emotions and ideas within a safe and exploratory framework.
This story, titled “That Poor Astronaut,” is an example of one of our lunchtime storytelling exercises. In it, the Puzzle Primes experiment with the concept of danger.
Frances: One day an alien walked into an asteroid and got hit by a fireball.
Nora: One day there was an astronaut walking on Mercury. He fell into a black hole. When he came out he was dead.
Kestrel: One time an asteroid blew into a shooting star and then a rocket ship came along and the rocket ship landed on earth and all the people burned up and they had to go live in the sea.
Neff: One day an astronaut fell into an asteroid and burned up.
Quincy: One time on Saturn, a chainsaw came and cut up a black hole.
Rohman: One time an astronaut fell into a blackhole that was cut by a chainsaw. And the hole was very dirty and a backpack bonked him in the head.
Helen: Once there was an astronaut who drank water. He fell in space and got hurt in space. That poor astronaut.
The Puzzle Primes’ stories about astronauts encountering scary situations provides a structured and controlled environment for them to investigate their fears. They can experiment with different scenarios and outcomes and investigate nuanced emotions.
We sought to expand upon their narratives by translating them into drawings. The process of translating the story into drawings offered the Puzzle Primes a multimodal means of expression and communication. As they visualized the narrative through drawings, the children had the opportunity to represent abstract ideas, emotions, and sensory experiences in concrete and tangible forms. They used colors, shapes, and lines to convey mood, perspective, and symbolism, adding layers of complexity to their interpretations.
While illustrating a story about an astronaut who became “lost in space,” the children considered what it feels like to be lost. Several of the Puzzle Primes expressed this through carefully drawn facial expressions, while another used a crayon to scribble over and conceal the figure they’d drawn.
The process of drawing inspired the Puzzle Primes to expand upon the original stories. One of the children depicted the astronauts in her drawing as a husband and a wife. They were drawn with matching helmets and were “so nice to one another.” Another student, while adding watercolor to a line drawing, became interested in loading his brush with paint and water and saturating the paper. He explained, “there’s lava and lava and lava spilling from Mars.”
"There was an astronaut who was afraid that he would get hurt on Jupiter. He took a nap on Jupiter but then he fell into the Great Red Spot." -Enzo
"There’s a big robot in outer space and then it goes to the planet with lots of volcanoes and then the robot goes into the volcanoes and then the scientists of earth are so impressed with the robot."-Kestrel
Through collaborative dialogue and peer interaction, preschoolers share their drawings, discuss their choices, and negotiate meaning with one another.