Yes, and... -- Stephanie

Earlier this week, I was sitting at the Keva Blocks during a slow-ish day, when a young boy came running out of the elevator with wide eyes. I had been building a structure like the one pictured. The boy sat next to me and asked if he could help! I said of course and passed some blocks over. Initially, I thought that this might not be a great learning opportunity as I had already built so much… BUT, as he took the blocks, I noticed that it was not so straight forward. He asked where he should put it and I had to take a moment to think, how can I facilitate this without giving him the answer. I asked if he saw a spot where it would be stable/not fall over. After looking at the whole structure for a minute and having a couple of unsuccessful attempts, he found the right spot. I really enjoyed watching his thought process so clearly with each block he placed and being proven wrong about the learning opportunity!

Later in the week, I encountered a girl, around 6 years old, at the Magnetiles. I asked her if she wanted to help me build a castle to which she enthusiastically said yes. As we started building, she told me that she wasn’t good at building towers but she liked to do it anyway! (adorable) Attempting to use the “yes, and” technique, I continued the conversation by asking her what shapes we should try putting together. She built a little cube of square tiles and then continued building up with triangles. She took a step back and said, “These open parts are okay, they can be windows!” When she added a hexagonal piece, it ultimately flopped to the side. She then decided that that would be a slide that you could slide down from the second floor to the outside. I think this interaction involved a lot of improv skills because she kept me on my toes the whole time. I am definitely still working on this skill, but I can see that it is incredibly useful in an environment such as MOXI.