Urges or schema are often a teacher’s secret window into what’s happening in students’ brains. While most ECE teachers are familiar with these terms, they tend to be mentioned only briefly in primary training and quickly fade from memories as they aren’t generally put into practice. But integrating the concept of urges and schema into your teaching can provide invaluable insights into how your students are learning and developing.
In this post, we’ll briefly explain what urges and schema are, emphasise the importance of observing them in action, share how you can easily spot them during loose parts play, and give examples of how they can inform your planning.
So, what are urges and schema, and why do they have two names?
Urges and schema refer to patterns of behaviour that reflect a child’s developmental needs. Although the two terms are often used interchangeably, “schema” tends to be the more scientific term, while “urges” is a bit more everyday. Whether you use one or the other might just depend on how sophisticated you want to sound.
The concept of schema was developed by Jean Piaget to explain how children build knowledge. I like to think of urges as a window into brain development—you’re literally seeing neural pathways being created and strengthened through repetitive behaviors. As Stella Louis puts it, “Every time a child repeats an action, they strengthen the neural pathways in the brain, making connections that support future learning.”
While not all children experience every schema, many common ones are prevalent in early childhood. For instance, when you see a baby repeatedly trying to post shapes into holes, that’s a posting schema in action. This article by Stella Louis goes deeper into how urges evolve at different developmental stages.
It’s crucial to note that urges aren’t limited to early brain development—they’re present throughout life. In fact, if you were to review a list of common urges, you’d likely recognize one in yourself. Personally, I have a strong transformation urge—I love dressing up for costume parties and creating craft projects.
How do we spot them?
The first step in tapping into urges and schema is ensuring your environment enables play. I recommend gathering a variety of loose parts, giving students ample time to engage with them, and setting clear, simple expectations to ensure the space is safe. (Check out our Health and Safety blog post for tips on how to cover these bases.)
Once your environment is ready, it’s time to step back and observe. As Pennie Brownlee wisely states, “When we observe children, we can see their instincts, their urges, their needs, and we can create environments that honour and support those natural behaviours.”
Below are small examples of how you may see some urges in action while students play with loose parts. We’ve used Pennie Brownlee’s list of urges, as i find them easy to follow:
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- Trajectory Schema: throwing ropes over branches to make a swing, or making marble runs with pipes and golf balls.
- Transporting Schema: Filling up wheelie bins or suitcases with items and moving hem from place to place.
- Enveloping Schema: Building shelters with sheets and crates, and hiding inside them.
- Rotation Schema: watching tyres roll down hills, or spinning a hose reel repeatedly.
- Running and Chasing: Pulling kids down hills on sleds
- Construction: Building huts, forts, homes, robots, and other contraptions.
- Transformation: dressing up with helmets, capes, lifejackets, and what ever else they can find
How can recognising urges inform our teaching?
You may have heard of the teaching practice NOTICE – RECOGNISE – RESPOND, which emerged from our beautiful Early Childhood Education (ECE) curriculum, Te Whāriki, and the development of Learning Stories. It’s a reflective teaching approach that aligns perfectly with play-based learning because it centres on the child and their interests.
So, you’ve set up an environment rich in loose parts, and you’ve made time for observations—this is the NOTICING phase. Reflecting on those observations allows you to highlight the urges you’re seeing in the children’s play—this is the RECOGNISING phase. Now, you have some extremely valuable information. Remember, you’ve gained insight into what’s happening in a student’s brain, and you can use this knowledge to inform how you RESPOND to their needs.
Let’s break it down with an example:
- Notice: Students are building a car out of loose parts—pipes, tyres, crates, and rope. You overhear them say, “The tyres won’t spin if we tie them on with rope.”
- Recognise: You observe a construction urge, and possibly a rotation urge with their fascination in spinning tyres. You may also recognize an interest in cars and mechanics, although we’re focusing on urges here.
- Respond: To extend their learning, you might show them a diagram of the different parts of a car so they can understand axles and shafts. You could also provide more loose parts that support rotation and construction, such as wheels, rope, milk crates, hose reels, and seats. (Check HERE for a full list of loose parts that support specific urges.)
In the example above, we explored Responding with the intention of extending or deepening the behaviours and interests emerging from the child’s play. But this approach is also invaluable when students aren’t intrinsically motivated by a particular topic.
Here’s how you can respond when engagement is low:
- Respond (for Engagement): Let’s say you’re teaching a maths lesson on multiplication. Knowing that a student has a construction urge, you could offer them materials like Unifix blocks or Cuisenaire rods to build shops or buildings. Once their structures are built, you can weave in mathematical problems around multiplication—such as calculating costs or quantities for their shop.
By planning with urges in mind, you can use them as a way to hook or engage students in learning. This approach meets students where they are developmentally, while still guiding them towards your learning objectives.
Where to from here?
I recommend starting by printing out Pennie Brownlee’s Urges list and carrying it with you while observing students play with loose parts. As you walk around, make notes of what you see and hear, and you’ll quickly begin to recognize urges unfolding all around you. If you’re having trouble identifying an urge, don’t hesitate to collaborate with other kaiako, make observations in different environments, or post your observation on our community Facebook page for other playful kaiako to offer suggestions.
Understanding Urges and Schema has been an untapped resource in the primary sector. Thanks to the mahi from people like Dr Sarah Aiono at Longworth Education these concepts are becoming more widely used in play-based practice. They’re especially valuable in a loose parts play environment, as loose parts provide the perfect medium for students to explore their urges.
Keep playing beautiful people
More readings and articles about schema and urges can be found HERE.
If you’re setting up a loose parts shed at your kura, we offer online or face-to-face coaching to help your shed become a thriving asset to your community. This year we’ve supported 20 schools in activating their own loose parts sheds. You can read one school’s journey HERE.
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