A really useful tool

This little, tiny drill is a great tool for making holes in cardboard, popsicle sticks and other soft wood, and even layers of paper or fabric. I got it at a craft store years ago. At first I was hesitant to let children use it, but have found it to be safe and less prone to slip than other hand drills. I think that is because it is small child sized, and is turned just by the child's hand (there is no mechanism or moving parts). In the pictures, Nolan is using it to drill holes for electrical poles in his foam-core street.

Representing Place: Rainbow Room

The Rainbow Room children (4's turning 5), have done a lot of investigation of the Forest Space at our School (see bit.ly/Voicesarticle for more on the history of that). The class goes outside most every day, and really knows it well. The children have each chosen a favorite place in the Forest and has photographed and drawn that place. Today Page brought in a group to continue working on making paintings of their favorite place in the Forest.
Some of these photos are not easy to paint. They don't have a clear focal point and contain elements like fallen leaves and running water (sorry about the flash reflection on the photo below). Still, the paintings are really beautiful, made over several sessions with much attention to detail. Besides practicing close observation and painting technique, Page has the children mixing paint colors to match the colors in their place.

Reese was just starting to paint in his drawing. I noticed that while mixing, he described the colors in the photo poetically, showing that he had really thought about the colors in this place... 
I asked "What color do you need for the stream, Reese? He said "Wet color."
"Hmmm, so what is wet color?"
Reese "Well, wet color. The creek is wet color. It's greenish-brown.
The cave (the two holes in the creek bank) is pitch black. It has to be pitch-black, very dark. When it's pitch black, you can't see a thing."

Holidays in the Studio

At Sabot School,we try to keep true to our negotiated (or emergent, or contextual) curriculum, and one of the ways we do that is by not bringing holidays into the school. This leads, at certain times of the year, to a lovely respite of calm within the school, while outside, holiday hubbub reigns.

However, children often think about the holidays they have celebrated, and they bring those ideas back to school with them. We have had Halloween costumes on Valentines day and very often have much making and giving of presents in the weeks after the Winter Holidays. Last week, Afton brought Saint Patrick's Day to Sabot. Afton's big sister had a Leprechaun at her school, and he walked around and left green footprints where ever he went.

Afton drew this plan for a Leprechaun trap;

and showed it to her group of girl friends. They came
to the studio to make a trap that would catch a Leprechaun.











Here is the idea; A leprechaun might sneak into school at night. While he was looking around, he might notice the beautiful trap, and the bait, made of a candy heart and some 'gold'. When he reached in to grab the bait, he would get stuck in the green net, and the girls would see him in the morning. I'll let you know if we catch one!

Scenes from the 3rd and 4th grade class -project time

I have been enjoying helping the 3/4 class during their project time 3 days a week. We started with some simple questions about why people leave places and move to new ones, but as the students have learned more about their families and about the big ideas of immigration and migration, more and more questions have presented themselves.
I hope that the class can see that inquiry like this does take time. Even the students who quickly got a lot of family information and found out where their family was before they got to this country, now have to put that in context. What does it mean that my ancestor probably left Ireland between 1845 and 1855? (It was during the Irish Potato Famine). Now you have to go find out more about that! The students seem to get discouraged at times by the lack of easy answers, but are re-energized when good stories or potential connections are uncovered. I have faith in the cycle of inquiry, including the part where disequilibrium is felt. I know that this, which can feel like discouragement, frustration, or even nervousness and fear, is a valuable part of the best learning. But the students don't have as much faith, they just feel bad!
















The cure and the reason to keep going is the stories. We have found some good ones, from those in books, to some of the family history, like the song written about Ravenel's ancestor who ran for congress, and stories about Ian's Grandfather, who was a war hero. Even some of the family trees that seem less exciting have potential. For instance, Hannah and Lilac are thinking about the story of the early settlers -what must their lives have been like?

Like I said, I have utmost confidence in the cycle of inquiry, whether it is with preschoolers or 3/4s, and in both cases there is learning for me as the teacher as well as for the children, and disequilibrium for all as well. I would love to hear from other constructivist (or Reggio inspired) educators working with older children. Is there anyone out there?

Personal Maps

 

Through the inquiry into Place, our umbrella project for the year, I am starting to understand more about children's developing sense of place, as well as the development of the concept of 'map'.  

When Page brought this group of 4 year olds to the studio to draw maps, several chose to draw maps that are personal to them (as opposed to maps of the school or forest).  

Lolita chose to show a map based on a game, "Indian Jones", complete with a path through a jungle. She is the first I have seen to draw a key to a map, something she learned from the game. She said 'This shows how many points you got from the people, there are guys with bow and arrows here, and the green part is the jungle." 
The brown part is Indian Jones whip " His brother can't go in the jungle, but Indian Jones can swing (on his whip), and he can go somewhere without his brother, and then he can bam something, and then his brother can go there too." 
This map incorporates landmarks as well as action, characters and change (as in the brown areas that turn green after being 'bammed'). It is the representation of a 21st century digital/hypertext map.

Afton's map shows the route that she takes when walking her sister to school in the morning. It was important to her to draw her sister's backpack (there is a little practice sister to the side). Her house is represented by a door, and you can see the route goes around some turns on the way to the little elementary school. I can see that Afton understands the idea of a map, and I can also see how her concept differs from the adult in that the people are so prominent. Her walk to school is as defined by the people she goes with, as by the route.

Nolan has really been thinking about maps a lot. He has been building a model of our school, and on this day, represented his life story through a map. This shows his old house in Princeton, his Grandmother's house, highway 95, the place his Dad works and his new house. In looking at this, you can see that mapping is becoming a language for Nolan, a way for him to communicate ideas.

All of these children are helping me understand the development of an idea like 'map' for young children, and to think about the differences in the ways they use 'map', as opposed to how the grown-ups understand this construct .

Superheroes Defined?

Sara brought a group to the studio to do some work with super heroes. Hoping to encourage collaboration, we suggested they use a long piece of paper to draw a 'movie', a long story with lots of parts. They started off by listing the super heroes they would use in their 'movie'- The boys listed themselves first, and then few children who were not in the room,(McGuire and Emerson), Batman (who flies in the air), Supercat, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, and then Beverly said "I like Dora". Lucas was alarmed: "Wait, No, she's not super. She's not a superhero. She doesn't have a cape like super heroes."
"I like Dora", Beverly replied.
"Dora is not a superhero. You need Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is a Super Hero, Dora is not."
"I like Dora", shrugged Beverly.

Sara asked if Spiderman has a cape, and we talked about McGuire and Emerson, and Super cat (he has paws that push him through the air), and if they had capes or not. Lukas told us about Wonder Woman, who has an invisible plane, and Spiderman, who forms webs and stops mean guys. He said "I'm gonna draw Superman now, because he's a boy".
Owen drew a web. He said "Spiderman is saving every stuff. He's saving all of this, and he's calling all of these things, and he's calling them to him".
Beverly said "I did draw Dora. See, these are some webs that keep her in." (Later, Diego was in the web, and Dora saved him.)
Lucas said "Superman doesn't want Batman to come. He wants to be be by himself. Then he says 'Hey Batman, you can come now. I'm done with my work.'"
Lukas began to ad non-caped heroes to the story, including Astronaut and a droid. I'm not sure he and Beverly have reached intersubjectivity, (as in a common definition for what a super hero is), but they seem to at least be able to work together with their separate opinions.




I have long been interested in popular culture and it's role in the classroom. I have a feeling that banning things at school, things that children love, is undemocratic and marginalizing. However, I understand Joseph Campbell's ideas about transforming society by changing the mythologies that define us. Among the three and four year olds, power, good, bad and even nurturing and empathy are defined through stories. They seem to need super heroes, in the same way that people long ago needed stories about Witches, Dragons and Heroes. You can almost see their conception of these things growing and changing as they tell or draw stories about super guys or animals, princesses or monsters, bouncing these ideas off of each other and the teachers. I have learned that letting the play/drawing/talk unfold, and just intervening occasionally with questions that might point out gray areas to children, is the right way to go. I have heard so much talk about shooters and dead guys from young children over the last 14 years, that it doesn't alarm me anymore. What do you think?

Purple People in the Garden Room

This is what happened when the girls who made themselves in to 'Purple People' in the studio, went back to their classroom. Sara did this piece of documentation.

-click on pictures to make them bigger.

A classroom relflection on the Rainbow Makers (Forest Room)

 This is a bit of documentation that was sent out by a classroom, about work they did in the studio. Thanks, guys!(click picture to see larger)