Children\'s Mathematics

Figure 8.8 Jessica’s sign

Both Louisa and Scarlett had moved from purely representing their objects to cutting

them out so that they became objects with which to play. In Pahl’s words they were

making them ‘more real’ (1999a, p. 35). Kress highlights the significance of cutting

out: ‘there is then a continuum for the child, between things on the page – one kind

of distanced, intangible reality; and things here and now, another kind of reality, not

distanced but tangible. The two kinds of realism are linked through the actions of

the child’ (Kress, 1997, p. 27).

When children wrote lists, made books and filled in forms they had no need to

cut them out since these things were already objects which were symbols in their

own right.

In the graphics area, Louisa, 4:9, made what appeared at first glance to be a clock

face, but which she intended to use for a different purpose (see Figure 8.9,

overleaf). In this class the children in each group had certain options for play from

which they could choose each day.When she explained how to use her dial, she

assigned an activity to the numerals 1–5: bricks, puzzles, role-play, reading and

painting. She paused with her finger on ‘6’, unable to think of other possibilities:

then smiling, explained ‘then you have a sleep’. As she moved the hand of the dial

she stopped at the letters ‘fo’ (off) and pointed out that this was ‘where you turn

it off’. Louisa had related what she knew about analogue clocks to that of her

classroom culture: perhaps she was making links with her home culture too,

where after finishing playing at the end of each day, she goes to sleep.

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