How Does That Work?

Even at such a young age, your child has seen so many objects during his four years of life.  A milestone for your child is for her to be able to state the primary function of the object.  Choose some objects your child is familiar with and see if she knows what it does.  For example, point out a car and see how your child describes its function.  Your child may say something such as, “It gets us from here to there.” or “It goes fast.”  If you show her a picture of a vacuum cleaner will she realize that it is used for cleaning the carpet?  When you child gives you the correct function of any object, refer it to a familiar event.  For example, if your child says, “That’s a blender and it mixes things.” Then you can reply with, “Yes, just like when we made smoothies with Grandma!”  If your child isn’t sure what an object does, follow up with a discussion so you can increase her understanding.

Have you ever seen a child encounter a new object ?  What does she do?  I enjoy teaching at the college level training new teachers and one of my favorite activities is to have the students see how a child learns about new objects by giving them a hands on experience through the eyes of a child.  I give each group of students a “new object.”  I ask them to figure out what it is and how it is used.  The first thing I see them doing is using prior knowledge to figure out what it is.  For example, one of the items I give them is a metal paint can opener.  As I watch my students, I see them touching the object and mimicking how it might work.  I hear them saying things like, “I have a bottle opener that works like this and this looks like it might open something.” Or “It’s metal and keys are metal so it must open something.”  This is exactly what young children do when they encounter a new object.  They make use of their five senses and their prior knowledge to figure out what the item could be by making predictions and trying out their hypothesis.