Guns and wands
Now in our fifth year of working with 5x5x5=creativity at Footprints Children’s Centre, at the start of this year’s research we observed that the boys and the girls in the class played separately, with the boys engaged in boisterous superhero play or building whilst the girls played more quietly in the home corner or on other activities.
The children held very strong perceptions about what boys and girls should (or should not) do, which we felt may limit their own play and therefore, their learning.
(In the home corner)
Karen: ’No you can’t come in.’
Richard: ‘Why not?’
Karen: ‘Because it’s only for girls, not
boys – ‘cause no boys come in here,
they go outside.’
We wanted to work in ways which would positively challenge these conventions and to see if the pattern of play stayed the same or not. It felt very important not to decide that this way of playing within the group was wrong or right.
