Terracycling Robot Guys and Intersubjectivity



The Rainbow and Garden room teachers and I invited a group of 3 and 4 year old boys who love to tinker to think about making something to help with the terracycling in our preschool hallway. If you aren't familiar with Terracycle, it is a program that gives schools cash for refuse, and then upcycles the stuff in creative ways.** We took a look at some videos of recycling robots to get started.
If you pay attention, you can see a wonderful part of the conversation here is an example of a group coming into intersubjectivity, as explained by Robbie.



Then they drew some of their robot, ramp, and machine ideas. 
Neil- "Could you have a pipe?" I think so. "Oh, good. I need a long pipe. You put the thing in the pipe, and it will go down."
Dylan- "We could make a squoosher thing, just like the thing (on the video) that squooshes the cans! 


How could you make a squoosher? What would push the recycling?
Henry- "Oh! How about we put the recycling in there (the round hole in a board) since it's shaped like a ball, it would push it into a ball."


Neil "So the thing will go through the pipe, so it squooshes the stuff, when it squooshes it up. Yeah. Because see how little the pipe is?"


 Robbie "You guys are reminding me of thinking the same thing!"




**Thanks to Henry and Beverly's Mom Gretchen for bringing Terracycle to Sabot and for keeping it going, and to all of the other people who help!



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