The Heuristic Game: Discover, Experiment, Explore
Gambling, as we all know, is an innate and childhood activity. It is during the game that most of the learning takes place and this is how children understand the world around them and themselves. So, in this article, we’re going to talk about the heuristic game.
the heuristic game
According to the child’s evolutionary stage, games change. From 12 to 24 months, children are in the sensorimotor development period. They begin to have greater autonomy in their movements and, little by little, begin to coordinate their movements. Therefore, the possibilities to play and learn multiply.
From 12 to 24 months of age, children have a need to explore and discover how things behave on their own. So they need a wide variety of objects to try on. In early childhood education, we can offer this opportunity through the heuristic game, which favors handling, experimentation and discovery.
The heuristic game is a playful practice and learning approach for children between 12 and 24 months. It was developed by English educator Elinor Goldschmied and put into practice in collaboration with educators from England, Scotland, Italy and Spain.
It consists of offering a group of children, for a certain period of time and in a controlled environment, various objects of different types and materials so that they can play and experiment freely, without the intervention of adults. The child is the protagonist of their own learning, investigating on their own.
What are the characteristics of the heuristic game?
Encourages the child to handle, observe and explore a large number of objects and materials. She interacts and discovers through the look, touch and mouth.
Through the activity of discovering, the child becomes aware of the laws of nature (gravity, balance, speed, etc.) and the properties of objects (dimension, volume, weight, color, texture, etc.).
There are no errors. The actions and relationships that a child makes to objects will be as correct and adequate as those made by another child, since the possibilities are endless and there is nothing to determine what is right or wrong.
Conflicts in games are eliminated as all children have enough material and sharing (still premature for this age) is not required.
What aspects are worked through the heuristic game?
Above all, the pleasure that children find in the materials and their actions, in addition to achieving the following goals:
- Promote concentration.
- Develop hand-eye coordination.
- Coordinate movements with both hands : stacking, fitting, covering, uncovering, etc.
- Learning the cause-effect relationship, concepts such as inside-outside, full-emptiness.
- Sort and differentiate between categories of different objects.
- Learn vocabulary.
- Sensory perception of objects.
What do we need?
- Miscellaneous objects. Even better if they are natural (wood, cardboard, metal, cork, leather…). But recycled materials can also be used. We are going to need a lot and variety: at least 15 different ones, and about 50 units of each of them.
- Cloth bags in which we will store all elements of the same type, called collections. On each bag, the object it contains is written or drawn.
- Containers. They can be baskets, crates or boxes of different sizes in which objects from different collections can be placed. It takes 3 or 4 for each child.
How is a heuristic game session organized?
A game session lasts about 50 minutes. During this period, preparation, game time and saving time are included. A maximum of 8 to 10 children participate in each session.
- Preparation. The educator prepares the playing space, which must be large so that children have freedom of movement. At the same time, it should promote concentration, so games and objects that might create distraction should be removed. 8 game stations will be prepared. Each station with 3 or 4 containers and 7 or 8 pieces from the object collections.
- Game time. Children explore and handle objects freely. They have endless possibilities: fill, empty, open, cover, stack, roll, squeeze…
- Time to save. You need to allow about 15 minutes to organize without rushing. The children, with the help of the educator, collect and classify the material. For them, this act is part of the game. In turn, they develop a new vocabulary, as the educator indicates to the children the name, quantity and place where the objects should be kept.
role of the educator
Your role is that of facilitator and observer. It is necessary to remain attentive and observe how children interact with objects, noting what seems interesting. The educator does not encourage, suggest, praise or direct.
If at any time we notice that the objects are too dispersed in space, we can silently rearrange them so as not to create distractions. We should only intervene if one of the children starts throwing things and disturbs the others. In this case, the ideal is to offer her a container and encourage her to put things in it.
