tirerolling
contests), their potential for testing children’s physical
prowess (e.g., walking along planks), and their potential for
imaginative play (e.g., sitting in tires “pretending [to be] on
some Caribbean cruise”). One teacher directly attributed the
increase in creative play to the opportunities opened up by
the materials’ lack of fixed purpose:
They didn’t seem to know what to do with it at first. It
was sort of just there, and they had to make up what it
was that they would know to do with it . . . so it did, I
believe, fill in their creativity.
Teachers also made several explicit or implied references
to a relationship between developments in children’s creative
use of the materials and an increase in social play. Teachers
reported that children were more likely to discuss the content
of their play as a result of its having become more imaginative
and complex—“there’s actual talking, imaginative games
going on about whether they’re being pirates or whatever
they are. There is actually a story behind what they’re doing.”
Moreover, teachers reported that children who did not usually
play together—for example, children in different age
groups or of differing ability levels—were more likely to do
so given the availability of the materials.