If you notice your child making cubbies, playing inside boxes, wrapping up their dolls or wearing lots (or no) clothes - they are exploring the Enveloping Schema.

Enveloping seems a lot like Enclosing, but upon further inspection is very far from it. Where Enclosers might like to draw circle after circle and place shapes inside the circles, Envelopers might colour all over their picture, covering it up.

Children are conducting research into what happens when they cover something up. Can they still see it? hear it? feel it? Does it disappear? They discover what happens when something is wrapped in tissue versus a play silk versus cellophane. 

Why do we need the Enveloping Schema? We need to know how to dress ourselves appropriately for the weather. In order to complete higher level maths tasks we must discover the concept of object permanence (things still exist when you can't see them) so that later on we can think in the abstract.

Some of the ways we explore the Enveloping Schema at Discovery Time includes:

using clay in all its forms as it covers our hands and turns into something new.

playing with the way light and shadow cover and uncover different objects.

using different paints and inks and crayons to cover as much or as little of a page as they want to.