A nice thing to say- if you speak Hogwarts

Yesterday third grader Dominic said "hey Anna, you know what?"
What?
"If you were in Harry Potter, I know what teacher you'd be. You would be McGonagall. Hey Tom! Tom! I know who you would be if you were in Harry Potter! If you were in Harry Potter, you would be Dumbledor" Tom is a lead teacher in the class, and he is wise and kind like Dumbledor (and maybe magic!)
"Wow! thanks", we both said. I told him that my own children have decided I would be a Hufflepuff, because I'm a hard worker and pretty nice.
Today when I was back in the third grade studio, Dominic told me he was thinking about it, and he didn't think I was a Hufflepuff, I am more like McGonagall and so I would be a Gryffindor (they are brave, clever and true).

Isn't that one of the nicest things a third grade boy and avid Potter reader could say to a teacher? I think so.

Star Parents at Sabot

We have always felt that school is a partnership between children, parents and teachers at Sabot School.
What started as a parent run co-op 30 years ago is still a place that wants and needs the whole community to be involved.
Because children are free to move from room to room at the pre-school, we need a parent volunteer to watch the hall to make sure children are safe and going to places that are available (stop signs on doors mean the space is closed, and children are careful to follow this rule, but sometimes...) This 'Star Parent' is so important to our program, letting us allow free movement of children, as a friendly parent presence every day, and in support of children's ideas as well.
Today Mary was are Star Parent in the hall. When Nolan made a second car for his model Sabot School parking lot, Mary noticed he was having trouble fitting it onto the "blacktop." Together, Nolan and Mary added on to the parking lot, figuring out how a paper clip could change into a handy connector for the black foam. Mary was so respectful in listening to what Nolan wanted to do, and Nolan was open to her help. It was a real pleasure for me to see (and overhear). Thanks, Mary and Nolan!

Literacy in a Co-Constructivist Setting

The Rainbow Makers

The Forest room teachers brought a group of the youngest children at our school to the studio to further their exploration of Rainbows. They joyfully explored the studio and made rainbows out of tape, thread, on the overhead projector and by sewing.

Mapping a Family

Dahlia came to the studio to draw a map. "I want to draw a map of my whole family." I wondered about her concept of 'map'. Would her map involve a place or be more like a picture of her family? Do maps have to involve a place, or is that just my assumption?

Here is a definition of map excerpted from thefreedictionary.com
A representation, usually on a plane surface, of a region of the earth or heavens.
The correspondence of elements in one set to elements in the same set or another set.
To depict as if on a map: Grief was mapped on his face.
To explore or make a survey of (a region) for the  purpose of making a map.
To plan or delineate, especially in detail; arrange:  mapping out her future.
I think the pre-schoolers conception of map lies between these things. It can be any of them, but not always on a plane surface, and connections do not necessarily correspond one to one.

In Dahlia's image, her family is in their house (you can see the line crossed by a tiny 'door'), and her two sets of Grandparents are in their places in the world, one set in this country and one on another continent. There are lines ('roads') connecting each set of Grandparents to her family, but the Grandparents don't visit each other, so no line connects them. The circular shapes are airplanes that take Dahlia's family to see her Grandparents. She titled it "Map of my family that has roads and you can see where you live."

After this she decided to do a map made out of clay. "This is my house, and this is Luke's house." She chose a red feather and laid it between "this is the road between my house and Luke's house."

maps.

Doing Things That Are Hard

At Sabot pre-school, the children go to their classrooms first thing in the morning, and if they want to go to another room, thay can, but they have to write a note that says where they are going. After 10:30, children can move around to different rooms and outside.
One day, Oliver came to the studio with a note that said "Do you have any Batman pictures?"
I showed him my binder full of pictures of heroes. He found a couple of Batman pictures, and brought them to the Garden room to finish the picture he must have been working on.

Later, he came back with the same note. It now said, "Can I cut one of the Batman pictures out?" He wanted to cut "A Batman", which is what he called the bat symbol, out of one of the pictures in the binder. I told him he couldn't do that, but that I could show him how to draw the bat symbol.
I showed him how to start with a sort of 'M' shape. He followed along, though it was hard. You can see some of his tries on the front and back of the note. He had trouble with some parts, and began to get frustrated. Many times he said he couldn't do it. Avery told him that "you have to just keep doing things, sometimes you have to try a lot of times, then you learn it."

That gave Oliver new energy to keep trying. After he finally figured out how to draw the pointy tips of the wings, Oliver took me aside. "I don't like the big triangle you make", he said. He showed me how to make a shorter triangle for the tail peice. I learned how to make a shorter tail, the Oliver way.

Then, he colored and cut out one of the bat symbols, and brought it back to his room.

On being an Atelierista

I have had a couple of questions lately about how I do this job, so I thought I'd talk about what I've learned lately about being an Atelierista.

First, some context; I have been teaching at this school for 14 years. For the first 12 years, I had lead teacher responsibilities  for a classroom, and I tried to be as helpful as I could in opening a studio for children and consulting with teachers about art. It was just last school year that I became the Atelierista 'full time' at our pre-school.
Because of a lot of practice, teacher-research and reflection, I know a lot about scaffolding small group inquiry, the affordances of media, what materials have creative potential here, and knowing when to teach a technique and when to let someone 'mess about'. 

As a classroom teacher I had the most fun with big groups. I like loud, boisterous play, and if it involves superheroes or magic, all the better. But in a reflective practice (at least for me), these nagging questions come up, and over the years the one that has ruled my thinking is 'how does learning happen?'. Despite Graduate school and lots of reading, I still don't know the prescription for that, but I do know that learning seems to be easier in a small group, in an 'amiable environment', and with scaffolding from a more knowledgeable peer (sometimes that's me).

So I've changed how I work a bit in order to satisfy my curiosity on this question. 

 Here's what is hard; Consulting with the teachers on what is happening in their classrooms, knowing what is the best use of studio time, integrating the studio with the rest of the school. 
I am just starting to figure it out. I have learned to keep up with teachers and continually ask them how I can help. I visit their planning meetings and email them. I read their documentation and stick my nose in where ever I can. (-:  I'm still not the best at it. This is the most important new thing I have learned this year -communicate. 
I work with all of the classes, ages 2-5.5, sometimes in a pre-arranged inquiry group, and sometimes just as an open-studio. I give priority to groups, so a teacher can ask to sign out the studio for a time and I put the stop sign on the door. I also know it helps inquiry within the classrooms to send a few kids out of the room at times, so children visit the studio for that reason, and often those are the kids who can't get enough of art.

Children can stay as long as they like. Over the years we have worked hard to elliminate transitions that interrupt our day, so children eat snack when they are hungry and go outside when they want. Some stay in the studio for hours, most come for about 20 or 30 minutes and then go back to their classrooms. Some stop by to get a bug box or a piece of tape. Sometimes they come with a note that says "we need a brain", or "I want some sticks to make a skunk."

I do not have specific projects for the children to work on like an art teacher would. I try to have materials on hand for activities that support the intentions of the classrooms, but I also have things like beads, because sometimes you just feel better if you can make your Mom a necklace. I do try to support the whole school intention, which this year revolves around sense of place. Again, communication between teachers is most important.

Next year the pre-school will move across the river to join our lower and middle school. I don't know what this job will look like then, but I look forward to finding out.

Family Stories

I have been working afternoons in the 3-4 class at the elementary school.  The lower school has some guiding questions that frame their inquiry around history and social studies. I am helping them with an investigation based on the questions "How did my people get here?", and "What is the story of Virginia's people?"
I don't see a lot of difference between scaffolding small group inquiry at the pre-school level and in the lower school. In both cases, I have the big ideas, my mental list of resources, essential questions, and media in my back pocket, ready to be brought out to support the children's learning.  At every age, when we come to a place where we need information from observation, a book or expert, we do the same thing; We ask a question and go look for the answer. People keep asking me how teaching in this way works with people who are older than pre-school age, and when I say it is the same, I don't mean that I don't expect different things for pre-schoolers, 4th graders, and College students. However, I do think the foundation is the same. We try to figure something out, find a problem, solve the problem, try again, find another problem, and in the process increase our knowledge and ability.

The children are learning about immigration and Virginia's people by starting with their own family histories. I am helping them find a way to show their family story in their own language (as in 'the hundred languages'). So far, we have someone working on a mixed-media book, a graphic novel, a sculpture, a quilt, and lots of ideas in process.
The most interesting part of working with this great group is, just like at the pre-school, the thing that is most compelling is the connections between children. It is yet to be proved, but so far we have found potential family relations, connections of geography and family origin, and great events in history.




Here are a couple of ways artists tell their family stories;


Do-Ho Suh shows us much about immigration and displacement through the images of his 'Seoul Home/L.A. Home' (a fabric replica of  a traditional Korean House that he could carry in his suitcase), and 'Some/One', made of thousands of dog tags. Pepon Osorio also works with the ideas of immigration, belonging and place in his installation"En la barbaria no se llora (No crying in the barbershop).

How does snow work?

Miss Zahra over at Trees and Branches, Trunks and Roots 

posted children's theories about rain and puddles. Today I had the chance to talk to some children about how snow works.   We began talking about snow during early drop-off time. Greta drew this cloud -rain is on the side, and snow is bulging at the bottom.       These theories show how children work with ideas, taking bits of serious thought, bits of whimsy and beloved motifs, and bits of 'what people have told me', and mixing it together into a changing 'under construction' version of how things  are.                                                                                                                                                             Owen drew a couple of versions of "a 'chine that makes snow" way up "at the clouds". His pictures have a rocket that can deliver the snow, but his theory really revolves around the machine that is really big, and seems to have a pipe that delivers snow to clouds and rocket. "It falls down, down down, down. Look how long the big piece of snow is." Owen drew himself and his sisters down below the 2 lines of snow, one from the 'chine, and one from the rocket.
 

Greta loves stories and drew a big cloud with snow inside. "This is how it comes out; -creeesshh! Fireworks comes out, and then the kitty starts running and jumps high, and then he scratches with his paw and then that's how my snow gets down." (The kitty scratches the cloud and breaks it open, and the snow falls.)

Bella emphasized the idea of individual snowflakes, referring to "dots" many times. She must have thought a lot about the difference between how snow is in the air vs. the big piles of snow blanketing the ground. She was not as interested in where the dots came from as I was. "First, it starts in a little circle. Hey! Snow just falls outta, this is a snow cloud. This is the snow; dot, dot, dot. Just the little dots that come down over the sky. Then, it comes down from the sky. You have to put little dots. We got LOTS of snow, and -I can draw a hill. Here is a hill of snow."

                                                                           Toshi (4) changed his theory as he drew and 
 talked about it. He drew on a series of strips of paper, which show the sky, the rain or snow falling, and the ground. He started with "It's rain before it goes down. Yeah, that's what it does, in Christmas days it snows, and then it starts snowing somewhere else. 
The rain just gets frozen. It gets frozen when it lands. (So, it freezes when it lands on the ground?)

"No, not when it lands. It turns into snow a different day. ...Actually, rain does not turn into snow. Snow just lands."

(So, that means, it's already snow when its falling?) "Yeah, it's up in the clouds and it falls. Did you know that clouds are actually snow? A cloud is a snow cloud."


This type of discussion gives me a chance to practice asking good questions, ones that lead thinking forward rather than stopping it or distracting children. It gives the children a chance to practice mentally working through a problem, representing an idea so others can understand it, and  to test their theory against the theories of others.

Sabot in snow 2-3-2010

                                                                          Most of these pictures were taken by Robyn after our first big snowfall here in Virginia. We have had another snow after that and more is predicted for tonight!