The teacher has placed bowls of water, segments of brown paper, and paintbrushes at a circular table. She wants to know how the five children standing around the table will “read” this situation. She also wants to know if they will read her actions when she makes watermarks on her paper. Making marks requires high-level thinking. The mark is more distal to the action that produced it and is an early kind of symbol, a symbol for the shape of the brush’s movement. Young children first enjoy relating an object to the self (put brush in mouth); then learn how to relate an object to another object (stir brush in water); and then discover how to make a record of movement – a mark. In order to make a mark the child has to get to the point where the brush is somewhat transparent – where it’s not about the brush, but rather it’s about the mark. The experiences in this video clip will help the children reach the point where a child makes a mark and says, “That’s a worm” – to relate symbol and referent, an even more advanced step.