What Are Schemas? Understanding Children's Learning Patterns in EYFS

A child who spends 40 minutes transporting items from one corner of the room to another is not wasting time. A child who wraps every object they can find in fabric, paper, or clothing is not being disruptive. A child who insists on spinning, rotating, or turning everything they encounter may be developing one of the most fundamental spatial reasoning concepts in early mathematics.

These are schemas — repeated patterns of behaviour and thinking that children use to make sense of the world.

What schemas are

Chris Athey's research at the Froebel Institute in the 1970s identified schemas as a central mechanism of early childhood learning. Based on Piaget's work but applied practically to EYFS, Athey found that children explore specific patterns of action repeatedly — through different materials, contexts, and media — until they have fully assimilated the concept.

A child in a 'trajectory' schema fires objects, throws things, runs fast, rolls balls, swings on swings, and draws straight lines — all exploring the same fundamental concept: the path of a moving object. This same exploration lays foundations for forces, velocity, and projectile motion.

Common schemas to recognise

**Transporting** — moving objects from one place to another. Using bags, boxes, pushchairs, diggers. Exploring the relationship between containers and their contents.

**Enclosing/containing** — placing things inside other things; drawing lines around objects; building fences and walls around small world figures; climbing into and under things.

**Rotation** — spinning, turning, rolling; fascination with wheels, cogs, and roundabouts; drawing circles and spirals. Directly related to early understanding of rotation in maths and science.

**Connecting** — joining things together: Lego, train tracks, string, tape. Also disconnecting. Exploring relationships between separate elements.

**Trajectory** — moving in straight lines, at angles; dropping, throwing, rolling, running fast. Physically exploring the path of objects and bodies in space.

**Enveloping** — covering and wrapping: covering themselves with fabric, wrapping toys, painting over everything, building dens to hide in.

**Transforming** — changing the state of materials: mixing, crushing, melting, adding water to sand, cooking. Early chemistry and materials science.

What to do with this knowledge

Observe first. When you notice a child returning repeatedly to the same type of activity, you are probably seeing a schema. Note the pattern: what are they always doing, across different contexts and materials?

Provide for it. A child in a trajectory schema needs: gutters, ramps, balls of different sizes, running space, throwing targets. Trying to redirect them to table activities will produce frustration and miss the learning.

Extend it. Find books, stories, songs, and activities that connect to the schema. A transporting schema can be extended into the story of the wheelbarrow at a farm, into counting (how many can you carry at once?), into design (what makes a good carrier?).