A 'schema' is the word used to describe the way in which children focus on one aspect of play and use it repeatedly in a variety of contexts. Active involvement in revisiting a particular source of interest enables children to learn significant skills related to it. For example, a schema that inspires most babies and toddlers is wrapping things up.
Some of the most recent research on schemas has concentrated on three- and four-year-olds, because they are thought to be gaining greater control and can express preferences more coherently about what they want to do.
However, babies and toddlers enjoy the repetitive nature of schemas and these are the principal ways in which they learn.
For example, babies enjoy repeatedly clutching and letting go of toys, and then seeing how adults rush to pick them up. They are learning about the power they can have over adults, making them interact in a predictable way.
Developing their fine motor skills also gives them confidence and a sense of independence. They investigate the range of responses to their behaviour and learn to express their frustration when they fail to prompt the adult into taking notice. The schema has helped them make connections within the sequence of events that gains the attention of adults, and develop the understanding that objects can be used in a variety of ways for play and attention.
Early years practitioners working with babies and young children should create environments that make schemas easily possible. This is achieved by organising spaces that encourage specific activities and have a particular focus that allows them to be returned to time and again. The participants should have repeated use of specific equipment, tools and objects.
A book corner where children enjoy their favourite stories and rhymes lets them practise newly acquired language and memory skills. Access to home-corner furniture and equipment allows them to re-enact experiences of being a member of a family.
This way of learning is fully endorsed in the four aspects of development in the Birth to Three Matters framework and is assessed in the Ofsted inspection process.
Observe how children react to schemas and the way in which they develop skills associated with them, and this will help you plan a programme of activity for them. Take, for example, children's love of wrapping things up. From the earliest age children love covering up things and then revealing them suddenly. This activity stimulates skills in both recognition and memory. Wrapping and unwrapping objects are physical operations that also develop social and emotional skills when practised in groups.
Babies: 3-9 months
Babies love to feel part of a busy family and to observe the hustle and bustle of the nursery. Arranging children in family groups is positive for babies, because there will always be someone who wants to interact with them. Babies who are placed in bouncy chairs should always have a direct view of what is going on around them. Introduce games that adults and children can play to keep the babies occupied and interested.
* Play games with a basket of hats. Make babies laugh by trying on different hats as you sit in front of them. Try pulling a hat over your face, then revealing it and saying, 'I see you'. Watch babies' expressions and acknowledge their efforts to communicate their interest.
* Use scarves to hide familiar objects, and ask them where the object has gone and then reveal it by pulling off the scarf. The sense of excitement this creates in babies is enough to make them smile and kick about furiously in their bouncy chair. They are entering with you into a fun game and want to repeat this pleasurable sensation.
* Use mirrors in a similar way, slowly unveiling the baby's image in the mirror in front of them. While you do it, describe what part of the face they can see bit by bit in the reflection.
Babies: 9-18 months
By this age, babies are developing a sense of self and have gained various useful gross and fine motor skills. They have also developed the cognitive ability to remember a sequence of events that they have seen.
* Place a baby on your lap in front of a table. Choose a familiar object and two small cloth squares. Show the baby the object and remind him what it is. Cover up the object with one of the cloths and place the other cloth close by on the table. Ask the baby to find the missing object. They should go to pick up the cloth with the object underneath, having watched you hide it and developed an idea of the shape of the object. Praise the baby for retrieving the object.
* Try a similar game with two familiar objects hidden this time - one under each cloth. Again, the baby will have watched you place the objects under the cloth and will be making judgements about which object is under which cloth. Praise the baby for finding the object.
Use such games in a variety of contexts once you have ascertained that the baby likes the challenge of finding and uncovering objects. For example, cover up objects to find in the sand tray. Place toys under and inside baskets and boxes to be discovered. Always emphasise how clever the babies are at searching and recovering the objects. Promoting this sense of success at the game will make them want to engage in it on their own, hiding and finding their own favourite objects.
Toddlers: 18-26 months
By this age toddlers have become a great deal more purposeful about what they want to do. They are also more independent and able to copy the behaviour and mannerisms of family members, other adults and children.
Infants of this age can express their interest and concern for others and re-enact the aspects of care that are familiar to them. Wrapping up toys is a way they can show off this social and emotional development.
* The home corner is particularly important at this age, because toddlers love wrapping dolls or animals in blankets and putting them to bed or taking them for a walk outdoors. Make lots of small blankets, beds and pushchairs available, as well as a selection of dolls to play these games.
Help children express their feelings of love and the significance of caring for these familiar toys. Talk to them about the caring adults in their lives.
* Toddlers also like the physical experience of playing with adults and other children. They love rolling around on the grass and using blankets to wrap themselves in and then to uncover themselves. Join in these explicitly physical games, letting children take the lead in wrapping you up and uncovering you. This will give them a real sense of empowerment as they enjoy placing adults in this seemingly vulnerable position of being covered up.
Children: 26 months to three years old
Young children of this age have usually developed the self-confidence to make choices and to express their preferences for the sorts of play they enjoy. Adults need to be guided by children and to follow the development of their interests in a purposeful way. Wrapping up objects becomes increasingly sophisticated as they grow, but children still enjoy similar feelings of anticipation and excitement when they take part. Adults must ensure the challenges and responses meet the expectations of the children.
* Ask three children to select ten familiar objects. Tell them to wrap up the objects in newspaper and use sticky tape to keep the wrapping in place.
Ask the children to place the packages in a cardboard box. Invite each child in turn to select a parcel from the box and guess which object it is from its shape and texture. They can each handle and squeeze it, but not open it, until they have all had a go. Then invite one of them to open it to see who described it correctly. Line up the uncovered objects and encourage them to make deductions about identifying the remaining covered objects.
* Children love to hide in boxes and pop out to surprise everyone. Collect a selection of different packing boxes which they can decorate outdoors using large brushes and paint. The boxes can be used indoors and outdoors until they fall apart. Initiate physical activities with children climbing in and out of the boxes, using the flaps to close each other inside.
Provide musical instruments for children to perform accompaniments as they pop out of the boxes. This game helps them learn to play co-operatively and to use the equipment in imaginative ways.
Understanding the importance of schemas helps practitioners to focus on how children learn and what they enjoy. In this way, reflective childcare workers can provide the correct foundations for learning that ensure children's cognitive and social skills are developed from the earliest age.
