A Sponge, a Lacky Band, and a Room Full of Butterflies

Reading time: 3 minutes

The best activities in early learning are almost never the elaborate ones. This week at Sonas Woodbridge the whole morning ran on a kitchen sponge and a rubber band.

Our educator wrapped a lacky band around the middle of a sponge, which pinched it into the shape of a pair of wings. That was the entire piece of equipment. One sponge, one band, and every child had their own butterfly stamp.

How it went

The children dipped their sponge butterflies into different coloured paints and pressed them onto paper. Then came the part they were really there for: lifting the sponge to see what had appeared underneath.

That lift is the moment. There is a small pause, then a butterfly, and it was not there a second ago.

What is going on underneath it

Cause and effect. Press here, lift, and something happens. Repeat, and the same thing happens again. Young children test this over and over, not because they have forgotten the result but because reliability is the interesting part. A world that behaves predictably is a world you can start to act on.

Colour and pattern. What happens if I dip it in blue and then in red without washing it. What if I press twice in the same spot. Nobody has to set these questions. A child with a stamp and three colours sets them without being asked.

Hand control and hand-eye coordination. Gripping a floppy sponge, carrying it loaded with paint without dripping, and landing it where you meant to are all harder than they look at two years old. These are the same muscles and the same aiming that will later go into holding a pencil.

Their own idea of what it should look like. Every child came out with something different, which is the point. There was no correct butterfly to copy from the wall.

Why we do not hand out templates

It would be quicker to give each child a pre-cut butterfly and some paint. It would also teach almost nothing.

When the outcome is decided in advance, a child's job is to match it, and the only thing being measured is how close they got. When the outcome is open, the child is making decisions the whole way through: which colour, how hard to press, what happens if. That is the difference between an activity a child completes and an activity a child thinks in.

Try it at home this weekend

A sponge, a rubber band around its middle, and a couple of colours of paint on a plate. Newspaper underneath, because it will go everywhere and it is meant to.

Then let your child work out what the sponge does on their own rather than showing them. The discovering is most of the value.

Come and see an ordinary morning

Sonas Woodbridge is at 29 Morrison Road, open Monday to Friday from 6:30am to 6pm, and rated Meeting the National Quality Standard by the national regulator.

Book a tour at Sonas Woodbridge or read about our programs and the learning studios each centre runs.