Childhood Schemas: Containment Schema
CONTAINMENT SCHEMA
Do you notice your little one putting one thing inside another or trying to hold many items all at once? This might even include your child putting himSELF into spaces! If so, your little buddy may be in the containment schema!
Schemas are repeated patterns of behavior which allow children to explore and experience their environment in ways that inform their understanding of the world and the ways that things work.
The containment schema help our children to learn about proportion, volume, and dimension.
Usually, when a child is in a schema, he will naturally find ways to accommodate his interests but it can be fun to provide ways to support this phase too!
If you’re looking for a few activities to support your child in this schema here are few things you can provide:
Practice language to correspond with their actions. In and out, inside and outside, full and empty.
Boxes— keep a cardboard box out for your child to explore with. Keep a variety of sizes if you can so they can experiment!
A range of containers and loose parts so they can put smaller objects into larger ones!
Shape sorter to practice placing shapes through corresponding holes. Here’s a great DIY to make your own!
Forts and tunnels help them to understand their size in comparison to other objects and spaces. Even using a scarf or blanket to lay over a chair or table is great!
Provide a filler— sand, pebbles, dried pasta, water, etc so that child can scoop and fill a container.
Bruce has been in this schema for a couple of weeks, often wanting to be enclosed in a small space, enjoying putting things inside containers, and holding as many things in his arms as he can. It’s been pretty fun to watch— I’m enjoying it much more than the trajectory schema, when he was throwing everything!
Do you think your child could be in the containment schema? What have you noticed?