Tröllaborg Preschool, Akureyri, Iceland

Tröllaborg preschool is in the town of Akureyri, located in the north of Iceland. It caters for children aged between 2 and 6.

The MakEY research project was undertaken with children from Tröllaborgir during three weeks in March of 2017, and focused on the topic of coding, creativity and play. The group that participated in the project was composed of nine 5 year old children, chosen by the preschool teacher to give a cross-section of all the children in the five year old classroom.

The project was conducted by three researchers from the University of Akureyri, Anna Elísa Hreiðarsdóttir, Kristín Dýrfjörð and Margrét Elísabet Ólafsdóttir, with aid of a master student Herdís Ólafsdóttir. It involved the classroom teacher Drífa Þórarinsdóttir and nine children, boys and girls, from Tröllaborgir.

The aims of the project were to enable children to explore coding and creativity in play through the provision of a temporary makerspace. According to the Icelandic National curriculum for preschools, learning through free play is to be highlighted. For the research team this emphasis was an important part of the project’s framing.

Materials provided by the research team for the children to use during the makerspace workshops were Blue-bot, Cubelets, Lego, drawing materials, GoPro camera and an iPad (part of the news corner).

The research team got a permit from the municipality, the head teacher and the parents beforehand. The children were also asked to give their consent and informed that they could quit the research whenever they liked.

The project started with children gathering in a circle where one of the researchers told the children about the procedures of the research and that the team would be videotaping and photographing the sessions. The preschool is situated close to the university and most of the children knew someone that was either working or studying there.

After the introduction, the classroom teacher Drífa Þórarinsdóttir, took over and led a conversation with the children around stories and how stories and characters in them are created. She asked the children to describe and imagine all kind of characters.

Afterwards the children went to the drawing materials and created their own characters (see figure 1) which they would use throughout the project. The project took place twice a week for three weeks.

During the first day, the Blue-bot, a small coding toy was introduced as well as the news corner (see figure 2). Over the next few weeks, Cubelets and Legos (see figure 3) were introduced.

The children created their own stage (see figures 4 and 5). Over the next three weeks the play and creativity evolved, and children familiarised themselves with the coding devices and learned how to code. The children were generally happy and showed excitement during the temporary makerspace project (see figure 5).

We also think it is important to mention that after the project ended, the preschool got all the materials for a few weeks. The aim was to give the other children in the classroom, which had not be taking part in the research, the opportunity to play with them.

Children's interviews

Ten weeks after the temporary makerspaces the children were interviewed about their experiences.*

Question: What did you think was the most fun during the workshops, if you think about all of them?*

Inga: Everything

Lilja: Everything

Birgir: When we were making the stage for our story.

Tumi: When we were making our characters.

Dagur: When we were colouring our houses. [Part of the stage]

Bergrún: Making the castle. [Part of the stage]

Bára: To play with the Blue-bot and the Legos – making.

Teacher evaluations

An example of Drífa Þórarinsdóttir (teacher) evaluation after each session.

Session one

Everything went very well, the children were interested. Conversation around the fairy tales was valuable and almost all the children had their own ideas which character they wanted to create – draw.

The character they mentioned in the conversation underwent some development when they were creating them. They were very interested about the Blue-bot. Some were quicker than others to understand the coding. The news corner went well, I look forward to add the Legos during the next session.

Session four

The children are very engaged – [they] kept on building the fairy-world with the Legos – used the fairy characters [which they created during the first session]. [They] build trees, persons, animals and etc. The wolf attacked Maja [the Blue-bot] in the woods, most of the children were imaginative and motivated.

The Cubelets were introduced for about 15 minutes. The children need to understand how they work. Randomly they were able to put the lights on and so on. It will be interesting to watch them during the next session, how and if they find out how the Cubelets works.

Research diary – session four

It was interesting to watch how quickly they [children] personified the Cublets and wanted to touch and even hug them. A girl put a “helicopter spades” on one block and wanted it to gently stroke her face, cheeks and chin, she also wanted one of the boys to try and find out how it felt.

Research diary – session six

They [children] played with the Cublets in similar way as yesterday, made little stories and let the Blue-bot travel on the stage. The rotations blocks were as popular as the wheels, the children seemed to have grasped the idea of sense and think blocks, but the action blocks they named after each signature action.

It was delightful to see the children exchange, loan and help each other, it was never an issue, if a block was needed or if they wanted to try out the blocks the other children were using or try out constructions that another child had made.

Conclusions and learning from the project

We found rich interaction between children and between children and devices.

We saw that both girls and boys showed interest and progress, skills grew, both girls and boys had problems interacting with devices. The main gender differences observed, boys used more space and hand tendency to be in bigger groups. Girls had tendency to stay in one place.

We experienced lot of creativity and play. Both girls and boys used devices creatively in play.

Additional information

*The children's names are not their real names.

More information on the coding robots used in the project:

• Blue-bot

• Cubelets