Dances with schemas 1: Transformation

Children fascinated by transformation are often spotted pretending to be different people or animals, they tend to love dressing up and will adopt a particular voice or way of walking to be a particular character. They are expert mess makers and will seldom stay clean. They can be identified at the paint easel: they are the ones with the painted hands and clean paper! They find unconventional ways to use equipment (one transformation child at our Playcentre found a rugby ball and to the consternation of her rugby playing peers took it to the paint easel, painted it and used it to make prints!)
They will probably be interested in the following activities:

Drama: costumes, props, provide costumes appropriate for any story you might be reading. Puppet shows. Give instructions in different accents/ personas eg old woman, baby, wicked witch etc

Side note: drama is a great tool to use for discipline/ expressing emotion and frustration. If you have a child with a natural ‘flair’ for drama cash in on it to diffuse and get out those strong feelings so you can deal with the issues calmly. eg: I can see you feel really angry, I want you to run over and roar at that tree like an angry lion.

Music: try music that expresses different moods, eg Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens. Move the way the music ‘feels’ 

Art:  face painting, bathtub paint, puff paint, finger paint. 

My favourite recipe to use is the following: 

2 cups corn flour
1 cup cold water
4 cups boiling water (a little more if necessary)
¼ cup soap flakes (optional)

Whisk corn flour and cold water in a large bowl until smooth white and shiny. Pour in boiling water while stirring and beat until smooth, thick and translucent. Add the soap flakes if desired and keep stirring. If you use an electric beater you can whip it to a beautiful fluffy consistency. Add food colouring as desired.
The beauty of this recipe is that every stage the ingredients transform completely. In fact the first time you make it you may never get past the first cornflour gloop stage!!! Make sure your transformation child is with you while you make it so they can wow at the process (but careful of the boiling water obviously!!!!)

My children love using this on our big glass sliding doors!

Stories: anything easily acted out! Some favourites from my experience: The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Polar Bear Polar Bear What Do You Hear by Bill Martin Jr /Eric Carle, Goldilocks and the Three Bears (so fun, we went out for a walk and pretended we were Goldilocks coming back to someone elses house – I really felt naughty!!!)

Science: hello youtube!  butterflies emerging from chrysalises (or chrysalides - who knew!), cicadas crawling out of their skin, wasps chewing wood to build nests, tadpoles turning into frogs...lots of fascinating watching for the picking! Plant seeds (sunflowers give awesome bang for buck) plant swan plants so the whole monarch butterfly drama will be played out in your front yard, get a pond for the froggy version!! Potions: know of any simple chemical reactions? Red cabbage indicator liquid. Vinegar and soda ‘volcanoes’ make bread to see the yeast react, hokey pokey, just about any baking really as long as there's some sort of rising involved.

More ideas here.

I personally find this schema a whole lot of fun. These kids will invariably find the most surprising uses for any equipment you provide them, will hijack any carefully thought out activity and turn it into something completely off the wall. They will challenge your comfort zones but remind you that the world is an amazing and fascinating place where miraculous things happen every day!!! If this is your child making special exploratory messes in your own house, you can remind yourself that this is just a stage they’re in now and by next week even they could be exploring something entirely new. And meantime don’t forget to give your washing machine a hug of gratitude before you go to sleep each night!!!