Last week we
were balancing on the balance beam in the classroom so we could see what kinds
of strategies the children were using to keep their bodies on the beam. It was very difficult for the children to do
this so we wanted to see what would happen if the beam was next to the
wall. This way, the children would still
be able to use their strategies to balance but would have that comfort and
support of the wall there to use if they needed to do so.
We
noticed that the children were still using several types of strategies to cross
the beam. Some of the children who were
very comfortable balancing would minimally use the wall for support and would
walk forward, one foot in front of the other.
Other children who were less comfortable would walk sideways across the
beam and use the wall as constant support.
A couple of the children would use one foot on the beam and the other
foot on the floor so that it was like walking along a constant step across the
beam. One of the children started to go
across on his stomach because he wanted to cross in a different way. We thought this was interesting and wanted to
try to think of a way to expand on this for a future investigation.
