Creating a rock wall

Building a rock wall takes a great deal of patience, concentration, spacial awareness, mathematics and trial & error.

Child R (4yrs) was overheard expressing a concern to his peers about the amount of sand that was running into the pond through a gap in the rocks that surround the sandpit.

The educator was called away to support another area of play and when she returned roughly 10minutes later child R was observed in the dry creek bed collecting rocks and carrying them back to the gap.  Child R then began sorting        and classifying the rocks into size and shape before laying a row down.

When the first row had been laid, child R collected more rocks and returned to lay another row on top.  Again he sorted the rocks, however this row was proving a little more difficult as rocks needed to balance on top of each other.  The wall fell several times, but child R persevered, calling out for peers to get smaller rocks or bigger rocks from the dry creek bed.

 Once completed, child R showed an enormous amount of pride in his work, explaining to the educator how some of the rocks kept falling "but I just kept trying like a jigsaw".  He then asked if the wall could stay up so he could show his mum when she collected him.


This was one of my favourite experiences to observe last year.  Completely child initiated and carried out.  Child R demonstrated many skills through this project including an appreciation and respect for his environment, classification skills, mathematical concepts and wonderful
                                                                                    communication skills.