Puzzles · Play kitchen · Spinning tops · Fishing · Balloons · Play scarves · Corn blocks · Water guns · Building bricks · Play tents
Puzzles
Bori was working through the car puzzle, pressing each piece down into a space to see whether it would go.
“Help!”
Teacher Yepark did not put it in.
“Is there a smaller space it might fit?”
Then, at the next one: “It's a train, isn't it. So it'll want a really long one.”
Puzzles — all the stories ›Play kitchen
Yesterday it was getting the chopsticks onto their fingers. Today there were pom-poms to move with them.
Chaewon had the chopsticks on right, and could close them round a pom-pom, and could pick it up. It was the carrying that went wrong. Halfway across, the pom-pom was on the floor.
So the other hand came in — pom-pom held up to the chopsticks, chopsticks closed round it — and then it slipped out between them again.
“Ts. Ts. Ts.”
Teacher Yubok went to the kitchen area and came back with the play food.
Those have flat sides. The chopsticks held one.
Play kitchen — all the stories ›Spinning tops
There was a poster up of children playing the old games, and the faces on the children were theirs.
“That's me. I'm doing tops.”
“What am I doing?”
Chaewon was told it was jegi, the one you keep up with your foot.
“I don't know that one.”
A finger moved along to the next square. “That one's hopscotch. We've got that in our room.”
“And this one — do you know what this is?” said Teacher Yubok, pointing at the arrows and the pot.
Nobody did. So the names went round the poster, square by square.
Then two tops came out: the old kind and the new kind.
“Tops!”
The old one has a string you wind on yourself. The winding got shown once, slowly.
“It's not working.”
The new kind they already knew from before. Those they set going themselves, over and over, while the string sat where it had been dropped.
Spinning tops — all the stories ›Fishing
The magnet on the end of the line was for lifting the fish, and Bori could not get one up.
Teacher Yepark showed it once. It went wrong a few more times, and then it stopped going wrong.
Around the room the same rods were being used differently — some lifting fish, some posting them into things.
Then Bori took hold of the line halfway down instead of at the top, which made it short, and moved a hand a little, and the fish came off the floor.
“You've got one, have you? A red one.”
The fish got held out to be taken.
Fishing — all the stories ›Balloons
The balloons went round for blowing up, and the first thing that got discovered was the noise one makes when you let the air out next to your ear.
“It's exactly like a fart.”
Then one got let go instead of tied.
“Rocket! It's taking off!”
After that everybody was blowing them up and letting them go.
One of them could not get any air into theirs at all.
“I want to use the pump thing.”
The pump came over, and it did not go well either.
“It's not working. Can you help?” — and the pump went back.
The one alongside took it.
“I'll do it for you.”
Air went in, the balloon got handed over, and there was a thank you for it.
Then that one let it go across the room.
“Bomb! Run!”
After that the balloons got tied, and written on, and drawn on, and hung up on a line, and they walked along the line hitting each one as they passed.
“Mine's got writing on it.”
“Mine's the green drawing.”
Balloons — all the stories ›Play scarves
Bori was looking at the butterfly picture, so Teacher Yepark sang the butterfly song, and then put the music on.
Instruments came out to go with it. So did the scarves, which got waved.
Teacher Yepark threw one up and caught it coming down.
“I do that too!”
Up it went, and down it came, and the catching part was the part that did not work. It went past the hands and onto the floor.
The second time, the same.
Then Bori held the scarf out to Teacher Yepark.
So Teacher Yepark did the throwing after that, and Bori did the catching.
Play scarves — all the stories ›Play scarves
Tidy-up time, and the scarf Bori had been playing with went down on the floor, spread right out.
Then both hands took hold of it, and it did not fold.
It went flat again. Both hands again. It did not fold again.
“Hold those two corners,” said Teacher Yepark. “Now take them over and give the other corners a kiss.”
The corners kissed, and the scarf was in half.
Bori did it again to check, and then again.
The others saw it and went and got scarves out of the basket to fold. The ones who managed it put theirs in the basket looking pleased with themselves. The ones who could not got a hand with it.
Play scarves — all the stories ›Corn blocks
Teacher Yubok was pushing corn blocks onto a wooden skewer to make a kebab, and Chaewon came over to watch and then to do it.
The first one got gripped too hard on the way on. It went flat.
“Why won't it work?”
The second one went on crooked — through the corner instead of the middle, sticking out sideways.
Chaewon looked at it, and then left.
Somebody else took the place at the table. That one could not get them on either, so the skewer went point-down on the floor to be pushed onto instead, and then it got turned round, and then turned round again.
“One end is sharper than the other end,” said Teacher Yubok.
The sharp end went first after that, and they started going on.
Then one got squeezed too hard again and stuck halfway. They worked at it together, and it did not come good, and it got left there and a new one started.
The new one went on with hardly any grip at all. So did every one after that.
Corn blocks — all the stories ›Water guns
Raincoats on, and out to the puddle that was still there from the morning.
The stamping came first. Then a basket of water to put hands into.
Then the water guns, and Teacher Yepark filling one where everybody could see how it was done.
They worked the rest out themselves — how to hold it, which way to point it, how hard to push.
Except for one, who could not get any water into it at all.
The one alongside stopped to explain.
“Like this. In the water, pull, then push.”
It got copied exactly, and the water went in.
“This is so good!”
“I want to do it again tomorrow!”
Water guns — all the stories ›Play scarves
A blue scarf went round somebody's shoulders.
“It's the sea.”
Two more came over for it. They shook the scarves to make the waves come, and got underneath them, and were in the sea.
Then Bori started collecting the blue cars — all of them, one at a time — and putting them on the sea.
“Tie it up.”
The one next to Bori had a go at tying it and could not do it.
“Teacher, will you do it?”
Bori's hands were working away at the corners meanwhile, doing the shape of tying without any of the tying.
“What would stop the cars falling out?” said Teacher Yepark.
She helped with the part that needed helping and left the rest.
After that the cars got carried about in it. And then it was shaken out flat again and it was the sea.
Play scarves — all the stories ›Puzzles
The vehicle puzzle has knobs on the pieces. Bori took the car one out and held it up.
“Brrm brrm.”
Then it went down into a hole it did not fit, and got pushed at, and rubbed back and forth across the board — hard, and then harder.
“What if you turned it round? Try it that way.”
It got turned. It went in.
Both arms went up.
“I did it!”
Then the whole board got tipped out onto the floor, and it started again.
Puzzles — all the stories ›Building bricks
Bori asked for the bricks and took them over to the table, and what got built there was a car and then a house.
The bricks were the small kind. Two pressed together stay pressed together, and a thumb is not enough to get them apart.
So those went to Teacher Yepark to be pulled apart, held out without anything said.
And some of them were bent. A bent brick does not go on at all, however hard it is pushed.
Teacher Yepark took those out of the pile, and what was left all worked.
Building bricks — all the stories ›Fishing
Bori was going after the fish with a net, one-handed.
The fish stayed where they were.
The net came over to Teacher Yepark.
“It won't.”
So her hand went round Bori's hand on the net, and the two of them went slowly, and a fish came up in it.
Then the fish came out of the net and got pressed into Teacher Yepark's palm, and held there.
“Fish!”
Eyes up to check it had landed.
“That's the fish you caught for me. Thank you.”
A nod, and then back to the water.
Fishing — all the stories ›Play kitchen
The picnic was still going from yesterday, so the lunchboxes came out and got filled — rice rolls, fruit, whatever was on the shelf.
Then the lid.
The lid would not go down. Bori held it out to Teacher Yepark.
“It won't.”
She pressed it shut and handed it back, and it got carried off to be shown to somebody.
Then it got shaken, and there was a noise inside it.
That stopped everything. It got shaken again.
After that every lunchbox in the room was being filled and shut and shaken, and what went in was chosen for the noise it made.
Later one of them carried a piece of food over to the one sitting in the camping chair, who put it into the pocket on the arm of it, and then took it out again to eat.
Play kitchen — all the stories ›Play tents
Teacher Yepark went first. Fill the basket with pompoms, both hands on it, up and over the roof of the plastic tent.
Bori filled it to the top. That part was easy.
Then both hands round it, up on tiptoe, arms straight above — and the pompoms stayed where they were.
Another go. The basket got higher that time, and waved about up there, and came back down still full.
There were other baskets to try. A wider one. One with handles. The arms went up one way and then a different way, and Bori's face after each go said how it had gone.
A few did make it over. Most of them came back down on the floor, which meant picking them up, which meant filling the basket again.
Which they all did, and then went back up on tiptoe.
Play tents — all the stories ›