Transcript

Text on screen: Building Bridges (18–36 months).

Logo: Count, play, explore—for early education.

On screen: Lily Vang, toddler educator, sits with a book in a hallway. As she speaks, Lily is shown with the book in her hand, kneeling next to a child with toys and blocks.

Lily Vang: This was a book in particular that I’ve introduced to the children. It’s called This Car Needs a Bridge and throughout the book, it basically just shows the children pictures of blocks and how to connect blocks together to help cars go from one side of an area to the other side. It definitely provided a lot of guidance for the children to imagine and also recreate that idea and also encouraging them to build a bridge from one ramp side to the other ramp side.

On screen: A page of the book shows a toy truck on an incomplete wooden block bridge, unable to cross over. The text reads “Ah. That ramp is just too short. Can you give it some support?” Lily kneels next to a child surrounded by toys and blocks, standing next to a shelf with the book open on it. Lily helps the child reference pictures in the book to find the blocks they need on the floor, trying different blocks to find the right fit.

Corbin: This.

Lily: Is it the same? Yeah, that’s the block, just like this one. Is it the same?

Corbin: Look, it’s the same …

Lily: Mm-hmm.

Corbin: ... as this one.

Lily: We can try to make it.

Corbin: Look at this one. They go up, up, up, up they go.

Lily: We’re making a bridge for the cars to go up, up, up and down, down, down. It goes up, up, up, and it goes under. We have one slide. Where can we put the other slide? Put the other slide right there? Now we have two slides.

I think it really comes down to how learning through play or play through learning is important. I’m there to help support them, to help guide them, to provide them with insight, to provide them with open-ended questions that allow the children to continue building onto their problem-solving skills as well as growing their creativity, their imagination.

On screen: Lily kneels next to two children as they attempt to combine blocks to build a ramp.

Lily: How about this part? Where can we put this one?

On screen: The block bridge gets longer as the children place another block down.

Child 1: That one, I want to put here.

Corbin: Vroom.

Lily: Corbin’s making the bridge longer. Corbin put a block near the slide.

Text on screen: A special thanks to the children, families, and staff of the Office of the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools’ Lighthouse for Children Child Development Center, without whose help these videos would not have been possible. 

Logo: Count, play, explore—for early education.