The following is spontaneous dialogue from the latest DSW project, in which four groups of 5-6 year olds played in the park and found a sculpture consisting of hundreds of seeds (acorns, maple seeds, sycamore, sweet gum, honey locust, horse chestnut) made, unbeknownst to them, by older children from their after school program.

Group 1
It’s something like a coconut!
It might be a squirrel house! You can’t go to this place! It might be a squirrel, and it will bite us!
I’m not scared…. (as he picks up the sculpture)
Ewww! Ewww! (two children squeal in alarm)
I saw a real nut, it’s a little baby one!
Oh, touch this! Touch this! It don’t itch, it don’t itch! I see a clue inside!
And this is stairs!

Group 2
I found something!
Oooh!
Look, that’s the same thing! (found sweet gum seed on ground like one on the sculpture)

Group 3
We found it—it’s a treasure!
What is in here? Oooh, it looks nice!
It looks famous!
It’s a treasure! Let’s bring it to our home! Let’s bring it to our mobile home!
Where’s our mobile home?
Right here, right there (puts object down in front of a tree).

I’m going on a piggy bank ride!
A what?
A piggy bank ride!
I give you the DESTINY! Of! The forest! I give you my own ___ of destiny! Today! We will bring a treasure to the King! I’m going to put a flower!

Group 4
Look what we found!
Nuts….
Freaky….
I think that we should put it in there…
I see a hole over there…
Careful with the pointy stuff!

Notes I wrote as I edited Group 3’s scene:
When all of the children see it, their eyes get bigger. They stop in their tracks. They look around for someone to whom they can share this secret finding. How quick some of the children are to label this strange object a “treasure.” What is that readiness, the willingness for the object to be special, to be so unique and wonderful as to be worthy of the moniker “Treasure”? They have no qualms, they waste no time in whispering, saying, shouting the word. They do not wonder if it is a treasure; they merely speak the word, they give the object its rightful name: treasure.

Others do not speak a word. They merely look at the thing and touch it warily and look around incredulously at their companions. This is quite strange, their eyes say to each other. One among them may move to pick it up, but others in the group are convinced that they should oppose this decision and shout at that person or even kick the sculpture. What is certain is that this object is not anything the children know about. They will soon figure out among themselves what it is and what should be done with it. They will create its mythology.

Two weeks after the play/videotaping in the park, I showed the children the video of their play/discoveries. Each group viewed their own scenes, only, such that they didn’t know what the other groups did with the sculpture or thought it was. I will write more soon about the voiceover narration they provided, as they were watching.