Passionate about play station!

One day when I was walking around the centre I could hear loud car noises and was wondering where they were coming from! I looked around and right in the corner by the computer were three boys playing on the computer. Except, the cover was still over the computer and the boys were holding a disposable camera each sideways. They were facing the computer and pretending that they were playing the play station!!!!
It was such a fantastic thing to see, all the staff were in hysterics because we all thought it was so creative and cute!!!
“Children experience an environment where they discover different ways to be creative and expressive” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p.80).
The children definitely found a way to be creative alright!. I asked the boys what they were doing to see what answer I would get, and M said “were playing gran turismo!”, “Yeah!” S said, “my brother lets me go in his room and watch him but he doesn’t let me play, that’s why were aloud to play at kindy aye Steph?” he said, “Yes of course you can”, then straight away they carried on making loud car noises.
I fostered this learning by taking photos of play station’s off the internet and letting the boys look at them and draw with them, we had a korero about it at mat time, and some of the questions asked were, “who at your whare has a play station?” and “who can play play station”. The response was huge and it started such a big craze which took over the whole centre!. Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett and Farmer (2008) say, "When their interests are incorporated into the curriculum children are more likely to engage in a wide range of experiences" (p. 313).

The boys who were initially involved in the computer/play station, had eventually made a play station out of a cardboard box and placed it on one of the lower working benches, gathered some chairs and cameras (controls) and all the kids played play station.
Many of the other children gained an interest in this craze too.
I wrote stories on this around the centre and some of the parents read them with astonishment!, they couldn’t believe that the children had done this without any teacher involvement or ideas. One of the Dad’s asked me if I would like him to bring in his play station for the children to have a play on. I thought this was a great idea!, so he brought it in the next day and let the children play with it (with his supervision) and they had a ball!, especially the boys. He helped the boys to work the game and go into the right games, and then what buttons to press.
I was amazed about how many children were already able to play the play station and press all the right buttons etc, also at how many children could steer the car on the game perfectly!. "The support of adults and more competent peers provides the necessary assistance or 'scaffold' that enables the child to move to the next level of independent functioning" (NAEYC, 1991, as cited in MacNaughton & Williams, 2004, p. 331).