Gifts for intertwining with modern nature

Inspired by Froebel’s Gifts for kindergarten, we propose a new category of gifts for modern preschools. Modern Nature Gifts are meta-manipulatives, inviting deeper exploration of and new uses for the manipulatives already in the Modern Nature environment. We define Modern Nature in terms of urban Nature and personal Nature. We situate this new type of gift among existing preschool practices, and describe four working prototypes (Glowdoodle, Twinkle, Mmmtsss, and Drawdio) as examples of Modern Nature Gifts. Keywords Preschool, nature, inquiry MODRERN NATURE "One of the major characteristics of young children's play is that whatever is in their environment can be used as play materials. For example, the magazine left lying on the floor, the last bites of cereal on the high chair tray, the mud in the yard... can all become play facilitators." - from Doris Burgen's "New Technologies in Early Childhood" [2] What is Modern Nature? We define it to include both...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ACMIDC
• Authors: Jay S. Silver, Eric Rosenbaum
• Keywords: ACMIDC 2010, Human Computer Interaction, Modern Nature, Modern Nature Gifts, Urban Nature