Action Possibilities Enhancing the Spiritual Wellbeing of Young Children: Applying Affordance Theory to the Godly Play Room
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Conceptual Framing
2.1. Spirituality and Spiritual Wellbeing
2.2. Montessori’s Prepared Environment
…in the church the children would not be able to carry out all these actions so slowly, so patiently, so exactly, so often and with such attention, as they would in a room set apart, and so furnished that they could carry out these actions with great deliberation.
The Godly Play Room
2.3. Affordance Theoy
3. Applying the Taxonomy of Affordances to the Anecdotes of Three Godly Play Storytellers
3.1. Daniel and the Parable of the Good Shepherd
- Chooses his work from the shelves
- Sits on the floor
- Unpacks the contents of the parable box
- Manipulates the pieces contained in the parable box
- Places the sheep on the shoulders of the Good Shepherd
- Manoeuvres the pieces so that the Good Shepherd places each one of the sheep on his shoulders and then takes each individually into the sheepfold.
3.2. The Pictures of Bobby and Jimmy about the Parable of the Mustard Seed
Bobby—uses tempera paints and large paint brushes (p. 108) Storyteller (to Bobby)—“Hmm. I like your painting” (p. 108) Bobby—chooses his work, selects the Parable of the Mustard seed parable box from the shelves (p. 109) Bobby—“its [the painting] like Jimmy’s…” watching Jimmy as he works (p. 110) Jimmy—makes four pictures using ink markers, tempera paint, markers and pencils (p. 112) Storyteller (to Jimmy)—“Where’s the mustard seed?” Jimmy—“It is the tree” (p. 112) Storyteller (to Bobby)—“Where’s the bad bird…the one that was hurting the other birds?” Bobby—“He’s gone” (p. 115) Storyteller (to Jimmy)—“Are the birds coming or going?” Jimmy—“Coming” (p. 115)
3.3. A Child’s Spontaneous Response to the Story of the Holy Family
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
5.1. Limitations
5.2. Implications for Research
Funding
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Hyde, B. Action Possibilities Enhancing the Spiritual Wellbeing of Young Children: Applying Affordance Theory to the Godly Play Room. Religions 2022, 13, 1202. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13121202
Hyde B. Action Possibilities Enhancing the Spiritual Wellbeing of Young Children: Applying Affordance Theory to the Godly Play Room. Religions. 2022; 13(12):1202. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13121202
Chicago/Turabian StyleHyde, Brendan. 2022. "Action Possibilities Enhancing the Spiritual Wellbeing of Young Children: Applying Affordance Theory to the Godly Play Room" Religions 13, no. 12: 1202. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13121202