University Essay: Designs That Help a Child Learn, Chapter 6

This essay delves into the creation of effective learning environments for children, drawing inspiration from Chapter 6's focus on 'wonder and engagement.' The author highlights the significance of incorporating real-life tools and exploring sounds to stimulate curiosity and mental development. The essay emphasizes the importance of play-based learning, particularly through the use of schemas, such as filling and emptying containers, coloring, and playing with animal replicas. It addresses the question of whether these activities promote mental development and concludes that encouraging children to interact with real-life tools and explore new ideas is crucial. The author also incorporates the assignment brief by reflecting on quotes, big ideas, and images from the chapter, and providing innovative ways to bring elements like real tools, sound, motion, and schemas into a learning environment. The essay underscores the value of creating spaces that inspire imagination and encourage scientific thinking, reflection, and questioning in children's learning experiences.

Running Head: DESIGNS THAT HELP A CHILD LEARN
Designs That Help a Child Learn
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

1DESIGNS THAT HELP A CHILD LEARN
When a child is growing up, the environment around him/her matters a lot, the
environment speaks a lot to the child, the way they grow up depends a lot on the kind of
environment they are interacting with. This will look into the innovative designs that will help
the child grow up and the kind of design they can interact with.
There is a quote which says, “Children have apt attention for adults who want to coach
them to use these tools properly and safely”, by ‘these’ the author means the real life tools that
can be used by the parents to help in the mental development of the child. From this above quote
I think that the best part about growing up is discovering the things that are new, which is a
source of wonder to the kid. I think that when real life tools are incorporated in the play area, the
kids not only enjoy a lot but also they get to learn a lot of new things however, steps have to be
taken to make sure that they are safe, children can often get hurt as they do not understand the
good and the bad way of using things. The second thing that I think is great about the lessons that
are imparted to the children is experimenting with sound and movement. To elaborate, “Objects
that can move using air from fans, straws, balloons, balloon racers and flyers, tire pumps and air
mattresses, provide yet another form of energy for motion and sound exploration.” The objects
that can produce sounds also attract the children as they are newly discovering things and these
novel sounds intrigue them. Anything that makes sound when moved is an attractive thing for the
child. They associate sound with a lot of things and new sounds keep them hooked to the object
and they put a lot of focus on that.
I believe that the two things that can enhance the play environment of the child are
exploring new sounds and playing with real life tools. As mentioned earlier, the children love to
hear new sounds and the moment they hear a new sound they get hooked to it. They put a lot of
attention to the new sound, the place where it comes from, the affect that it has on their brain,

2DESIGNS THAT HELP A CHILD LEARN
they try to recreate the sound through their mouth. Any new sound is always attractive to the
children.
According to me, playing with real life tool is also something that the children enjoy,
they not only love the idea of using things that are not fake but also the fact that they feel
important about the whole thing, that they are being entrusted with so much responsibility and
they like experimenting with the new tools.
I believe that engaging with the schemas is a good idea for the child as they do some
activities repeatedly, filling containers can be a good pastime for the kids, the parents could
encourage them to play with things that they can empty and then fill again. They can color
different things, the walls should be filled with paper so that they can play with the colors all
over the wall. Playing with replicas of animals can be something that they might want to engage
with. Children have a fascination towards the animals and they can be encouraged to play with
them.
A question that I believe can be posed is does these playing activities ensure that the
children are having enough mental development. The answer could be that it is important to
make sure that the children are involved in as much as real life activity, and then they will have
anough mental development as possible.
This essay concludes that exploring new ideas with children is a good idea and the
children should be encouraged to play with real life tools and explore sounds.

3DESIGNS THAT HELP A CHILD LEARN