atelierista

friendly signs

2012-01-31T12:33:00.000-08:00

With so much construction going on at Sabot, there are many signs pointing out what not to do and where people should not go. I wondered what young children would think if I asked them about making some friendly signs to hang up.
Here is their conversation, held as they were drawing images for the signs.

Anna "Could we make some friendly signs or some 'yes' signs?"
Ju. "Yeah, like you can bring a dog. Or, please have a nice dog and not a mean dog. Cause a mean dog might get the fragile stuff like me and Duke's special boat. I know you need signs, cause Duke started putting signs so the cleaners wouldn't throw away the big (cardboard) pirate boat.

Ja. "I want to say 'please draw'"

M. "How about 'play the guitar'?"
L. I wanna say please have beds, so I can sleep in the grass."
Ju. Sleepover with Sabot?"
L."Please be comfy on the grass'

L. I know! "Please have good manners"
M. Please slow down"
Ja. "I want to say 'play the guitar' on one."
M. "I said 'hug'. Anna "Can you write the letters for hug? H-U-G"
M. H..........U..........I can't do a G.
Ju. "I can! Let me show you how"

"Be comfy on the grass"

"Please bring nice dogs only, and keep them on a leash so they don't jump up on children"

Next, we will show the sign ideas at circle to see if anybody else in the class has suggestions or sign ideas of their own. Eventually, I would like to hang the signs around the school, and then around the city. Can you imagine walking through Richmond and seeing a child-made sign that says 'Please draw here'?

How to Make Seats for a Ferris Wheel

2012-01-29T15:25:00.000-08:00

Most of the Meadow room children feel finished with their little Ferris Wheels and are ready to make a big one. The teachers said to the children;
"We asked Pippin if he thinks you could make a real Ferris Wheel, because we thought it might be too hard. But he said he thinks we can do it!"

Ja. That's cause he's a building man.

How can you make a seat that would show Pippin the right size for a child's Ferris wheel?

An. It has to be the size of that chair (points to a chair in the room).
Ja. It has to be a cage so we can stay stabled. So we won't fall out.
children- Yep, It has to have seat belts. A door. Maybe another door. A seat needs lots of stuff.

Ac. I've rode on a real Ferris wheel, and it has bars that go up and down. The bars go up and down for the people to get out.

Je. I saw that on a chair lift!

B. I saw it on a roller coaster. When you put your hands up, it goes... boom!

Ac. A man comes to wiggle the bar to make sure the seat belt is tight.

An. It has to have a roof, in case it rains.
Ca. You get to have a ride... you have to have a buckle, and when you click it on, the man just pushes the controller.

Ac. Maybe we can take (our model seat) to show Pippin after this!

Teacher "How can we make sure our Ferris wheel plan has a seat that's the right size for a real child?"

An. We need to measure it from a real chair.

Ac.We need lines on the back so you don't fall out. Let's see if I can get it (my wire) around the chair. No, it's not long enough. Maybe we should try it for real with one of the Meadow roomers in it.

Ac. Wow! I'm really not falling out now! We have to do the bottom, guys.
Ja. (measuring wire to cut a piece) The wire needs to be the same size as me. Not too tight, just the same size. (Robyn holds the wire up to him and they cut) We can tie it around (the bottom of the seat).

After weaving all of that wire for the seat bottom and back of the seat, each child sat in it to try it before they went to eat snack. They noticed it was still a little springy and pokey. Ja. noticed it needed a place to put your feet. We will come back to it this week.

Buckling the seat belt

the seat belt works!

The model seat and seat belt

glasses

2012-01-27T18:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Friday!

Snake Trap

2012-01-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

a tube or tunnel connects the houses

click on an image if you want to see it bigger

Messy Hand Kids!

2012-01-20T09:51:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther King Day

2012-01-16T10:10:00.000-08:00

"If you believe that others are a source of your learning, identity and knowledge, you have opened an important door to the joy of being together. We are not separated by our differences but connected by them. It is because of my difference that I am useful to you because I offer another perspective."

Carlina Rinaldi in The Hundred Languages of Children third edition

The Hundred Languages of Children, third edition is here!

2012-01-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

The Hundred Languages of Children 3rd edition is full of inspiration and ideas, as all of the books are. For me, reading these kinds of books is a way to shake off weariness and renew my capability for "the art of becoming surprised and amazed by children" and what they can teach me about teaching and about being.
(Loris Malaguzzi)

For a while now I have been trying to understand more about documentation and its role in learning for children, parents and teachers, as well as its potential to make political change. Learning to use pedagogical documentation is one of those things that requires lots of time for trying, reflecting, and trying again. In light of moving out of preschool to work with older children, I especially want to figure out if documentation should or can be used in primary and middle school.

Part three of the book is called 'Documentation as an Integrated Process of Observing, Reflecting and Communicating'... just what I need! Here are some quotes;

Brenda Fyfe talks about documentation as valuable for emphasizing children's thinking and processes of meaning making, and for helping children learn to self assess their own processes.

Gunilla Dahlberg writes that documentation "promotes the idea of the school as a place of democratic political practice by enabling citizens, young and old, to engage with important issues such as childhood, child care, education, and knowledge. It opens up a public space, a forum in civic society, where dominant discourses can be visualized and negotiated."

"As a tool for assessment and evaluation, pedagogical documentation represents and extremely strong antidote to the proliferation of assessment and evaluation tools that have become ever more anonymous and decontextualized -objective and democratic in appearance only. The language of evaluation -namely, the language of standards and accountability... builds on a highly administrative rationality, a rationality seeking the best methods and procedures for delivering a predefined body of knowledge with predetermined outcomes... instead, documentation is an alternative language of evaluation -the language of meaning making."

These are fighting words in an era of standards and standardized testing. Even so, this book is focused on early childhood education. We will have to struggle with the question of documentation and its role in elementary and middle grades a while longer. Maybe the answers will be revealed when I read the rest of the book!

Pirate Bones

2012-01-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

A group of boys who are 4 have been playing a pirate game in their classroom. These guys would rather be in action than sitting at a table, but the lure of making 'pirate stuff' brought them to the studio. A classmate broke his foot earlier in the year, and so this class has been looking at x-rays and bones. It seemed like making skull and crossbones would be a perfect place to start. I have a bucket of pieces from various 'Mr. Bones' (plastic skeleton models) that have broken over the years. The boys eagerly examined the pieces, hypothesizing about what parts of the body they were.

It is always striking how the model skeleton inspires close observation and detailed drawing, even in very young children who are just beginning to learn to control their marks.

skull and crossbones

A.who is 3, has been interested in bones too. He made a paper skeleton

the paper skeleton

earlier in the week and so his teachers asked if he could be included in this group. He joined right in with the older boys, even though he wasn't especially interested in Pirates.

The older boys used long white straws for flag poles, and A. decided he would use them as bones to make a new skeleton:

tinkering at two

2012-01-05T18:19:00.000-08:00

It is always fascinating to see how the youngest children are in the studio, what they choose to notice and try.

drilling a hole in a stand that Pippin built

testing how the wheel spins on the stand, and
noticing the feeling of the little 'hairs' that stick out.

sea glass and glass tiles at the light table

a chair for K's Father, and one for her Mother

The difference between centers and provocations

2011-12-31T14:06:00.000-08:00

two year olds put their houses on a map

During a meeting a few weeks ago a teacher asked the preschool staff what the difference was between 'centers' and 'provocations'. It seems to me that there are a lot of similarities between the 2 things. Provocations are materials or experiences that Teachers set out to provoke children's thinking. From what I've seen, centers are classroom areas that are set out to give children experience with certain developmentally appropriate learning activities.

So in a traditional classroom you might see a literacy center where children can practice certain writing activities, and in a Sabot classroom you will find writing materials, a variety of papers, things that make marks, envelopes, books and other tools and materials that can be used for writing. One mistake people sometimes make is to assume that the fact that the environment is set up differently and may look looser and less formal in a more progressive school means that teachers don't look for those moments when a child is ready to receive some information about forming letters or to support specific literacy skills.

But it seems to me there is a difference in control in centers vs. provocations. In a center the teacher has decided what will happen, and in the case of a provocation, the teacher provides some things and then watches what happens when the children come in contact with them...the teacher is not in control.

the children draw paths between the houses so they can visit each other

Does that sound right? Doesn' the difference come down to the image of the child -the way teachers can practice listening to the children through documentation, and the way they plan both the classroom environment and activities, with, and in response to the children? It's like what I wrote about the geese, and the farmer who thought about what geese need from their environment and then planned how he could create that on his farm. Provocations are provided to create a context where the child can explore and the teacher can listen and learn what to do next.

Some of the materials in our school may be the same as those found in a traditional early childhood classroom, but on a fundamental level, their purpose is different.

here are some links to some articles about centers, some more progressively focused than others; www.pbs.org/teachers/earlychildhood/articles/centertime.html

www.communityplaythings.com/designingenvironments

www.trcabc.com/implementing-literacy-centers-in-the-early-childhood-classroom/

Winter Circle

2011-12-24T11:19:00.000-08:00

Before the Winter break, there is a big circle where all of the classes gather to hear a story and then sing together. It's one of the traditions that has helped to create the culture of our school.

In the pre-school winter circle, we heard the story of Raven and sang songs.
HAPPY WINTER

Pre-school circle, photos by Walker

big people and great big people

2011-12-23T17:07:00.000-08:00

Years ago we had a student named Anna in the preschool. I remember someone asking if they should call me big Anna and her little Anna. She told them that she was big, so that wouldn't work...maybe they could call her big Anna and me great big Anna. I liked that a lot.

Here are some pictures of some big people with some great big people around the school.

A helpful parent helps T repair his plane after it crashed.

reading buddies

O shows a plane to his reading buddy

Buddies still singing after the big winter circle

friendly greetings after the winter circle

It's nice to have family at school for big, big hugs

how awesome?

2011-12-14T13:47:00.000-08:00

The boys came with a note that said "We want to make a fish for our Pirate play."
They set out to make some fish, and decided on a shark, a puffer fish, and a turtle. I helped cut a fish shape out of blue plastic, and helped the guys make some triangles for fins (the plastic and cardboard was hard to cut).

When the fish were taking shape, D said "That's shark awesome!"
I wondered aloud "Shark awesome? ("yeah") What is more awesome, shark awesome or Batman awesome?"
D said, without looking up from his coloring "Shark awesome."
Is shark awesome better than robot awesome?
R said "yeah", and T said "Yes. Look! (The shark) it's bigger than a PERSON!"

D said "Dinosaurs used to be the biggest living animal in the world.
Did you know that, T?
Dinosaurs used to be, (most awesome) because they were alive, now they died.
Now sharks are the biggest, so it's shark awesome.

("But it used to be Dinosaur awesome.")

Now you know, too.

uncommonly beautiful

2011-12-13T19:21:00.000-08:00

Here are some things people were working on in the studio today...

Airplane by kindergartners Kaiya, Drew and Nolan

House by Walker, 3

Big Ferris wheel by Annie, 5

Airplane by Kindergartners Dillon, Tom and Emerson

Snake House ( back and front) by Nora, 5

Snake House by Beverly 5

Substituting in the Forest Room

2011-12-11T08:37:00.000-08:00

Last week I spent some time with the youngest children at school.
One child asked "You know what I can do?" and showed me a terrific spin.
Soon they were showing me all sorts of ways that they could move. Big fun!

They Have to Believe They're Free

2011-12-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

On This American Life this weekend,there was a story about a man who raises geese in a new way. Eduardo Sousa shares the secret: the geese "have to feel like they're free".

What fascinated me about this story is the difference between the way Mr. Sousa developed and then carried out his method on his farm in Spain, and the way another chef tried to implement that method here in the states.

When the American chef invites Mr. Sousa to his New York farm to see his operation, Mr. Sousa is surprised to see things like a hatching room and incubators. He cautions the Americans not to touch the chicks, because their touch will communicate "love and domestication" rather than wildness. Mr. Sousa reminds them that the geese don't need high quality feed. "They'll eat anything if they think that they're wild. But that's the key: they have to think, from the moment they're born, that they're just passing through, that they're not part of this movie," he says, gesturing at the admittedly cinematic fields."

The way that Eduardo Sousa thought through what it would take to raise geese so they feel wild was incredibly thorough. It seems that every nuance of food, nest, and even the tone of voice he took with them was thought through very carefully, always with "they have to feel like they're free" in mind. According to the story, these geese felt so happy that they would call to wild geese flying by, and convince them to join the flock on Eduardo's farm. It still hasn't translated so far to the US context.

This reminds me of what so often happens when a teacher tries to adopt a method, rather than taking the time to really think about the ideas behind it and to adapt those ideas to their own classroom. It takes time, it takes noticing and reflection, and a certain tolerance for failure to really learn a new way of teaching. It also takes a willingness to give up control of the classroom. Many teachers I have met are too afraid to risk giving up that tight control of the media, the schedule, and even of the goal of covering all of the material to really change what they do. They are scared that the children won't get all the facts they'll need, or that the Parents will get mad, or that the classroom will be a mess. So they do a little bit of the new thing hoping that will make a difference.

Here's the thing... whether your new idea is "they have to feel like they're free", or "children have multiple intelligences" or "4 year olds struggle for power", I think it's so important to slow down and be as thoughtful as you can. Listen to your inspiration carefully, read what they say, but make sure you think about the reasons why it's worth trying that at your school. Teaching with integrity requires a lot more than reading a guidebook or installing any piece of furniture. It is only in noticing and reflecting on your practice with your goals and intentions in mind that you can move toward the noble but maybe unattainable goal of perfecting your teaching.

here are links to stories about Mr. Sousa and the geese-

time magazine article

figuring out ferris wheels

2011-11-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

This is just a small part of the long story of Ferris Wheels in the pre-school. It started with A.L.'s attempt to make one back in early October. Even with J's help,they couldn't make it turn. Even though they couldn't solve the problem, the two children knew it wouldn't be a very fun ride if the Ferris Wheel just sat still.

Later they took their Ferris Wheel to circle and got a lot off helpful advice from the larger Meadow room group.

The day these pictures were made was the day, several weeks later on November 15th, when the children were able to make Ferris wheels that could really spin! What made the difference? The children had come to understand the role that axles play in the process of spinning wheels.

This plan and Ferris Wheel don't look the same as everyone else's, but A's comment that she would get a
more exciting ride from the "wavy" seat shows how much understanding she has about the way spin and
spoke length would affect the way the ride would feel to the rider. She suggested I ride in the seat closest to the
axle, since I didn't want to get too dizzy.

It spun on this hook, but then there wasn't any room for the seats. The plan shows

J's revised ideas with a center axle, spokes, and a base.

This plan shows J's point that the Ferris Wheel had to have a ladder and a way to stop, so people could get on and off.
In the background you can see one of the spinning things we stocked the classrooms with in order to give the children as much experience with wheels as possible.

I can hear myself say "Let's see, is it going to spin? Um, yes, it is"
Not my most inspired Teacher moment!

Edublog Nominations

2011-11-27T11:26:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of great resources out there on the internet. Three of my favorites are Marla McLean, Atelierista
bakersandastronauts.blogspot.com and urbanpreschool.com. I go to them for information, for beautiful pictures, and mostly because they make me feel like a friend. It can be a lonely job, trying to figure out something new, and as the only 'edublogger' at my school, I have struggled to find the balance between meeting the school's desires and my own need to dialog and reflect. Although I have good friends and treasure my wonderful colleagues at Sabot, these bloggers help me feel I am not alone in reflecting on the kind of teaching I want to do.
So, that's why I'd like to nominate them for Edublog awards. You can nominate them too, by writing about them on your blog, and then filling out the form at networkedblogs.com/qE7oH
And thanks to Teacher Tom for sharing this idea! He is another wonderful resource and internet friend, and I second his nomination

edublog awards

2011-11-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

The the 2nd grade is investigating the question "Who was here before us?" in social studies. They are gathering an incredible amount of information on Native American tribes in Virginia as well as about the first English settlers at Jamestown and Henricus through their research. Their sources include books, interviews, and field trips, including a couple visits to both Historical Jamestowne and the Jamestown Settlement and a visit to a pow-wow and 'Indian Exposition'. They are a gregarious class, and ask lots of questions of the people they meet on these trips.

They stopped in the studio after their Pow-wow trip to think about what they had seen and to make some things for the exhibition they are going to have. G. is interested in Native American Myths and especially mythical creatures. He was sad, because he felt like there was nothing he could make to go into the 2nd grade museum. R was most interested making one of the jingle dresses she had seen in the Powhatan dances, and offered to work with him. They decided to make a set-up that has a Shaman, wearing a jingle dress, using a mythical creature (her spirit friend) who has a series of magnets and electricity inside, that he uses to help people.

Here's how it goes:
"The Shaman sends a signal, and it goes down the leash to the spirit creature. Then you have to turn him around toward the person's brain (the person you want to help). He sends out electromagnetic signals to the the person and reads their mind, and tells if they're excited or calm." Then, the mythical creature influences the puzzle solver inside their brain to help them get what they want.

So, while learning many, many of discrete facts about Virginia history, the 2nd graders also have space and time to make up stories about mythical creatures, sew some soft sculptures, and to engage each others "puzzle solvers and emotion handlers" by supporting each others interests and place in the group. That is what is so exciting to me about the way children conduct investigative research around here.

`Ferris wheels

2011-11-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

Last night at the fall parent dialog the Parents all came to school and joined in with some tinkering. I got to be with the oldest pre-schoolers parent group, who worked on building some Ferris wheels for the children. It was lots of fun, and the children enjoyed the constructions today, noticing the way the parents made the wire seats, and used axles to make the wheels spin.

cool goggles

2011-11-16T18:12:00.000-08:00

I love working in the studio

The Kindness of Children

2011-11-10T14:17:00.000-08:00

I don't usually take phone calls while I'm at school, but yesterday I was on call with the Vet while my big dog Bill was in surgery. The children wondered what was going on, so I told them that Bill was in the hospital and I was worried about him. W. began to make me a dog to cheer me up, saying to anyone who passed by "Anna's doggie is sick, so I'm making her another Bill!" His care for me was just so sweet, and when he took "Bill" for a walk in the hall with such joy, he did cheer me up.

Children can be like this: just caring and feeling with their whole body and heart.

Planting the labyrinth with the the pre-school staff and Bill

An idea to ponder from the NAEYC conference

2011-11-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

"It is in the space between inner and outer world, which is also the space between people--the transitional space--that intimate relationships and creativity occur." D.W. Winnicott

a Florida alligator I met in Orlando

One of the best things about going to the NAEYC conference in Orlando last week, was getting to meet some people who's work I admire. I also saw some good presentations, including Vivian Gussin Paley's keynote address "Who Will Save the Kindergarten?" and another one that was called 'Where is Play Today?', and was sponsored by people from the Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood.

This was especially relevant since it was given in the heart of Disney-land, one of the most prominent marketers to young children. In a way it was a sad talk, since in many ways play seems to be an endangered species these days. But on the other hand, research is really on the side of people who think children need time to play meaningfully. That means, play that is creative and not merely imitative of screen entertainment. Perhaps the fact that research confirms the benefits of play over and over again is helping to elevate it's stature among all people who care for children.

During the session, President of CCFC Susan Linn introduced us to some of the ideas of D.W. Winnicott, who I had not known of before. She described his ideas about a "holding place", which is the space, for instance, between a Mother and an infant when she is cradling him in her arms. It is within this safe space, she said, that children have a chance to 'generate', rather than just receive emotions, language, and other stimulation. So, when a baby smiles or coos, and then the person who is holding her smiles back, the baby has generated that good feeling between them. In this way, according to Winnicott, people come to know that they can express their 'true selves' safely.

It is this kind of space that people find in play, where they can instigate something and find a friend who will respond...where they can do something silly and generate a reaction in another person, or pretend to be a cat and find another "cat" that wants to build a house under the table with them. Winnicott believed that it is only in play that we can be our true selves.

"It is in playing, and only in playing, that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self."

ps.
podcast of my presentation at NAEYC 2011 which should be available soon

Two kinds of tinkering

2011-11-02T05:06:00.000-07:00

Big Ideas in Preschool

2011-10-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about big ideas a lot after a teacher development thing we did on backward design (starting from the understanding you want children to come to, and planning backward from that). More specifically, I've been remembering a project from years ago when I taught in the 5 year old classroom.

This project started off when a child told us at circle about how he passed a man on the street who didn't have any place to live. The children started to talk about experiences they'd had with people who didn't have enough to eat or a place to live, and how they'd given some food or money to help. Very quickly the discussion turned toward homeless animals who needed help.

On subsequent days, thinking that homelessness might be a rich topic for further exploration, I tried to bring our circle discussions back to the topic of people who needed help, but the children always went right back to animals. Eventually someone told the circle about the SPCA and how it was a place that helped animals and tried to find families for them.

This was it. The children immediately began planning things they could bring to the SPCA to help the animals. They made lists of things they wanted to collect, including treats, food, collars, newspaper, and blankets. At one circle children talked about how their dogs liked to sit with the family and watch t.v., so a small group took up a project to make a video of a football game for the dogs to watch to feel more at home. A VCR was added to the list of things the children wanted to bring the the SPCA.

The whole group got very passionate about another idea -to make signs that would hang around the school and the city, so people would know that there were animals who needed help. Emma wrote one that said "I want to make a movie for the dogs and cats at the SPCA. Kids can help if they want!" Others made pictures of cars that said "Stop for animals!"

My co-teacher and I had different ways of thinking about the project. She wanted to plan the field trip to the SPCA, knowing that it would be a rich experience. I was most interested in scaffolding the children's activism, and I wanted to keep the project there for as long as possible. I didn't want the project to be over, and we both knew that delivering the items to the SPCA would be the culmination of the project. I think I drove her crazy with dragging the project on, and I did feel bad about that, but something just told me to stay with it longer.

I must have realized that the real learning in the project, the "big idea", was social justice and the interdependence of people and animals, not the experience of the field trip to the SPCA, even though I couldn't put it into words then. So often there is pressure to get to the end, the grand finale...the product, even in schools that talk a lot about being process oriented and inquiry driven. Maybe it's just human nature. Thinking about the big ideas behind inquiry can help us stay away from that goal-oriented mind set, and help us slow down and keep children's intentions and important ideas in the forefront.

"We're making a box for the SPCA. We're decorating it. We want the grown-ups to put stuff in the box -like movies for the dogs, and newspapers."

Verbum Sat Sap

2011-10-09T12:35:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went to the 40th anniversary celebration (and big, huge reunion) of my high school. I often think about how the progressive public schools my parents sent me to; Drew Model School, Hoffman Boston and HB Woodlawn, have never left me. I'm sure the reason I strive to teach in a democratic, progressive way, comes from the way school was for me from 5th grade through high school. I bet my image of the child comes from the times that I was respected and listened to as a young person.
Until last weekend I had forgotten Woodlawn's motto; Verbum Sat Sap, which means "A word to the wise is sufficient". After a week of thinking about that phrase, I am struck by how simply it sums up what I think education should be, both by starting from the assumption that children are wise, and by it's suggestion that a teacher doesn't need to do much more than share a word in order to help a student increase their understanding.
Thanks, Woodlawn people!

wikipedia.org/H-B_Woodlawn

me playing bass in the high school cafeteria
with our all girl band -we knew something like 5 songs and
played them to an appreciative crowd.

Young Children Investigate Materials

2011-09-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

For the youngest children at school, maybe more than for anyone else, the studio is a laboratory for experimenting with materials. Whether it's "blueing a paper" or discovering that wire can be bent to look like a fish, these two and three year old children want to know the "demand characteristics" of different media. Howard Gardner wrote about symbol systems and media in his book Art, Mind and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity :

"The fact is that symbol systems and media differ radically from one another in the nature of their elements, in the ways in which such elements are combined, in the kinds of reference of which they are capable, and in the psychological and neurological mechanisms that they invoke and evoke". These characteristics of media can also be called their "affordances".

Discussing the drawings of two 31/2 year old children, Gardner writes:

"The charm of children's drawings sometimes obscures the achievement they exemplify. Just twelve months before these (examples from the book) were made, neither child was constructing recognizable forms, let alone depicting events and experiences in the world. An additional year before that, the child could hardly wield a marker at all. The swiftness with which children acquire the ability to use various artistic media is a

formidable accomplishment..."

Early School Days in the Studio

2011-09-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

learning the painting routine

using the drill

construction

Friends of different ages working together on a rocket

trying tape

cutting

tinkering with gears

Arwen's sculptures

gluing

making the first of many Castles this year

figuring out where to wash your hands

building a T Rex, working from a plan

plan for a quilt

sewing the quilt, while others dress paper dolls and build planes

Making the "giant ball thing"

2011-09-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

Evening gatherings at school are a time where children of all ages can play together. At the Sabot Parent Association Ice Cream Social this week, Pippin, Nancy, Marty and I provided a tinkering challenge; 80 feet of gutter, some wire, logs from a hurricane damaged tree and a grocery bag full of tennis balls. Everyone from brand new students to long time veterans, from the youngest preschoolers, kindergartners and other elementary school aged students, to Middle Schoolers and Parents worked together build a "giant ball thing" against one garden wall.

Why tinkering?

2011-09-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

For this school year, Sabot at Stony Point school is looking at mechanics and engineering, (tinkering) as a school-wide investigation, what we call an umbrella project. There are several reasons why we chose this topic, but my favorite is that it will be an opportunity for our tinkerers to lead, and to teach us what they know and how they learn.

It's easy to find the tinkerers. Just put something new in the room and they will notice it and try to figure it out. They may not want to stop trying to figure it out to go back to their other projects, and now, they won't have to!

Teachers Tinker

2011-08-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

Our Umbrella project for this year is Tinkering. Many of the Teachers at Sabot@StonyPoint are not natural Tinkerers, myself included. Don't get me wrong; as an artist I mess with materials constantly, but mechanics and engineering and physics? Not so much!
Exploring this subject will give teachers a chance to practice and gain new skills,in order to learn how to scaffold others in this type of building. This years Umbrella Project will be a chance for the children at school who have this type of intelligence to teach everyone else a thing or two, or three or four.
So on one of the Teacher work days, we broke into groups and practiced tinkering... the challenge was to use the materials pictured above (plus a few more) to make something that moves. Each group worked together to make something unique, from a coffee fetching machine, to a pop-up surprise.

Teachers collaborated in small groups just as the children would.

It took some trial and error to figure out how to make something that really worked.

Some groups drew plans before beginning, and everyone had to take some time to handle and explore the materials.

The group processes were just like what happens every day at school -some people envisioned the projects, some had skills with materials or tools, and others took a more social role, helping the group work together. There was lots of laughing as the groups figured out what they were going to do, and how to make that happen.

Tinkering together with all of the teachers was terrific fun!

Drawing letters and writing symbols

2011-08-03T17:26:00.000-07:00

I just got a couple of back issues of Innovations in the mail (well, see, I thought I had re-upped my NAREA membership at the NAEYC conference, but apparently something happened with that).

'wonder' by Nolan

Anyway, the Spring issue features two articles about writing as a form of visual communication. One is "Between Signs and Writing: How Children Approach the Written Code" and the other is "Children and Figurative Writing". They are an example of the kind of teacher-research that they do so beautifuly in Reggio. In this case, teachers noticed children's proclivity to embellish letters and words in order to convey deeper meaning, and decided to methodically observe and notice this phenomenon. Teachers then asked children to "experiment with words and letters", documenting the process.

I am very excited by these articles because I've been asking myself questions about how drawing relates to the development of writing quite a bit lately. I think all of the drawings of bird song that happened this year really made me wonder about the relationship between drawing, sound and meaning.Of course, I knew that there was a field called semiotics, about the way words and letters and other symbols are used, and have been wanting to learn more about it. I love the idea that a word, a symbol, a motion or gesture or other signifyer of meaning could be considered a sign. This idea that all of these are equal communicators of meaning really speaks to me as a person who is so tied to helping children make their ideas visible. Sadly, everything I've tried to read about semantics is very hard to understand.

Hummingbird Sound by Poppy

These articles in Innovations are about how children sometimes use letters and words to communicate more than just sounds, embellishing them or inventing their own symbols in order to communicate a sort of poetic meaning behind the word. So when a child thinks about the word "Sea" and all of it's connotations, he might feel it important to write it with lines that look like crashing waves, or use shimmering colors to evoke a calm sea and sunshine.

Observing children's experiments with writing is one side of these questions, but there is another piece that comes more from the drawing side. I'm wondering how children's drawing and early creation of symbols leads to and influences writing, both before and after formal instruction begins.

The authors write about valuing the shapes of letters, looking at them from an aesthetic point of view, rather than a phonetic one. This point of view seems especially appropriate for young children who are between that stage of made up scribble letters and formal writing instruction.

Robin Sound by Dillon

Seeing the Reggio teachers' work on this inspires me to find some good questions to ask that will unmask how the process of drawing and creating visual symbols leads into the process of learning to write.

Studio Camp

2011-07-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

red guy

Studio camp has been lots of fun this week. Children have some time to learn about new materials like paper mache, clay and plaster, and also lots of time to work on whatever they want.
Today Jake invented a bowling game, which everyone played, a Rodent factory produced many hamsters, and some spaceships, solar panels, and houses were built.

cheering for the bowlers... go team!

making hamsters

dancing to the radio

magnatile construction

2011-07-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

During Studio Camp this week the kids came up with a way to use magna tiles that I have never seen before, digging out all the metal items they could find from a tray of mixed materials and sticking them to their structure.

Even though everyone in this group that spans from rising kindergartners to 4th grade had a hand in building this, they put a stop sign on top so no one would knock it down.

Music and Sound at Gallery 5

2011-07-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

sound toys to play with
Sean and Brian -these guys were great and brought "a table full of noisemakers and sonic experiments for children of all ages to come fiddle with. Lots of knobs and switches with some flashing lights for good measure".

making sure the art car still has it's headlight

making a sound sculpture

stylophone

drawing a tambourine

checking out some instruments

listening

microphone and echo effects

looking at the exhibit

slinky sounds

decorating the art car

figuring out how to make sound with a bike chain, fire pole and gear

thanks to all the people at Gallery 5 for hosting us!

naming

2011-07-10T13:14:00.000-07:00

After working on his pictures with chalk pastels, 2 year old W. said "I'm gonna punch a hole. With wire. For my Mama."

Punch a hole with wire? I wondered if I should hand him a hole-punch but instead just motioned to the shelf where they are kept.

W. grabbed the stapler and looked at me quizzically.

Of course! 'punch a hole with wire' must mean stapling! He must not know that word, I guessed.

Was he looking at me to give it to him? I said, "what is that?" and helped him put the paper in the slot of the stapler and press down.

He said "it's a climp."

"It's a clomp"

"It's a stick-through thing"

I thought it was so interesting that although W. didn't know the name of the thing he wanted (stapler), or the name of the thing it did (stapling), he did remember the function of the object (putting a piece of wire through a hole). I have read that there is debate about how children label and classify things, both in their minds, with language, and when sorting physical objects. Some psychologists think children classify by shape, or how the object looks, and some think the function of the object is more important in labeling and classification. This young child described the object he wanted solely by it's function.

ps. I did tell him the name of the stapler and we looked at it closely together, opening it up and turning it around to see al the parts.

2011-07-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

"Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher,

and philosophy begins in wonder."

-Plato

K playing her one stringed instrument during the first grade Middle Ages play

A making sound with a glass and water

this is pretty great

2011-07-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

thanks, Sara!

sights from the exhibit

2011-07-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

The 'Sound is Moving Through the Air or Flying with a Cape' exhibit
has it's official reception on July 16th, but last night at Richmond's first Friday, bunches of people came through Gallery 5 for a different event that was happening, and I snapped a few pictures. It was great to see people who have nothing to do with the school stopping and taking time to really look. I wish I could have heard more of what they were talking about...

I loved these guys. They looked closely at the documentation of the 3 year old's theories on how sound
works for a long time, talking about the drawings and pointing out things they noticed.

My friend Black Liquid, who taught hip-hop writing
in the middle school last semester, came by to check it out.

...and then some great bands (including one of my Husband's) played in a benefit for WRIRlp, the independent community radio station where I volunteer. FUN!

"Sound is..traveling through the air, or flying with a cape" exhibit

2011-07-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

Here is a collage of images that show our exhibit as we were hanging it at Gallery 5 in RVA. Work from the preschool is on the walls, with photos from many classes, and at our community event on the 16th I will show videos from some of the other classrooms. It's a start in sharing Sabot's umbrella project work and play, and hopefully in the future we will find more ways to show the power of children to our community.

this panel shows some of the things we want to say with our exhibit

the fire pole at Gallery 5

Marty, Sara, Cris and Maggie helped hang the show

Forest room clay monster faces (2 and 3 year olds)

These girls were out exploring the city with their Auntie. They had the first tour of the exhibit!

Image of the Child

2011-06-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that your image of the child forms the basis for the kind of teacher or parent you are. I notice in my college classes that the image of the child students hold is the most important factor in how successful they will be in planning lessons that will inspire children to make connections and think creatively (and get a good grade from me). Education students who think of children as mainly cute and needy seem to make lessons that are, well, cute and superficial.

What if all teachers took some time to think about their attitudes about children, and how important a school community's view of children is? About how the image of the child changes everything about how a school operates?

I've been trying to write something about the image of the child for an exhibit that will take place at a cool art gallery here in Richmond called gallery5. I hope a lot of Sabot people will come, and I'd really love it if some families or teachers who don't know much about our school would stop by. I've been trying to write something that will introduce the image of the child to people who haven't thought much about it, and came upon these documents which explain more;

UNESCO Policy Brief on Early Childhood

and

Image of the Child: where Teaching Begins

I hope the exhibit shows the children as powerful thinkers, strong, competent and, most of all, connected to their community of learners. The UNESCO paper contrasts that "to some other common images of the child as lacking, passive, acted upon, or following a predetermined path set out by adults and/or innate ‘development’"
These two papers are good resources for thinking about your own vision of the child, and they have a lot of other food for thought about documentation as well as materials and environment in schools. The second one is the text of a speech by Loris Malaguzzi, and features his beautiful, poetic language as he talks about relationship and listening.
I'm glad to have found them

2011-06-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

This year the kindergarten worked on a long investigation of animals in urban settings. They came to the studio many times to work on some inventions to help animals, like a trap to lift animals off busy roads at night, and a delightful kit to send around to teach dogs to avoid skunks.

Later, they got interested in ducks and other birds who lay eggs in cities, wondering how they protect their young. They got more and more interested in bird families, and began to make nests all around the kindergarten. In the studio, they worked with basket making materials to weave nests
and eventually decided to make a big nest that they could all get into.
Around this time the artist Patrick Dougherty returned to Richmond to build an installation at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. We got the cance to visit the work in progress before when he came to the Children's museum here.
I was so happy that the kindergarten teachers invited me along on a field trip to see the new installation being built.

The children walked around for a short time and then sat down to draw the construction, noticing how Mr. Dougherty emphasizes pattern in the building, using sticks almost like drawing materials. I was proud to see the Sabot students taking the time to really observe the 'stickwork', drawing to learn about the structure and pattern of these sculptures, and asking questions of the volunteer builders and Mr. Dougherty himself.

The kindergarten teacher Mary has already documented this project beautifully, but I couldn't resist sharing it again. Here is a link to Patrick's website
(as the children call him...they think of him as a collaborator on their nest) http://www.stickwork.net/

portfolio picnic

2011-06-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

The end of year portfolio picnic is time for each lower school student to share their portfolio. Families gather on blankets scattered around the garden, eating good food and looking at their child's portfolio.

This was my first year seeing the portfolio picnic, and I was touched by the care children took in 'reading' the stories of their year at school to their families.

It was especially lovely to see the attention everyone gave to the children and their work. Families spread out across the garden, taking time to chat and smile at each other, but really focusing on listening to the children, and seeing the many examples of learning the children had gathered into their portfolios.

these cookies look a lot like the pictures in G's portfolio

happy teachers

big, big sandwiches

happy families

colors

generations

smiles

friends

good times

A labyrinth for Stony Point

2011-06-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

the labyrinth at old Sabot school was very important
We ran around it, drew it, used it as a landmark in our maps
Now we have a labyrinth at Stony Point, dedicated to our colleagues Marty and Irene.
It looks right at home here

Last Days of Preschool

2011-06-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

drawing a star wars guy

drawing pictures and making a monster

princess

tow truck

talking about how to get a radio signal

making a kite

drawing some cars

and Luke W's book about a cat, Minnie Mouse, a fox, and Justin Bieber having an adventure

The artist, the painter

2011-06-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

“Perhaps a person who has had the occasion to paint has a greater practical sense, a sensibility for what that means, what a difficult, seductive thing, even for a child, it is to deal with being confronted by a large, white sheet of paper, making the first brushstroke, the first sign, entering a relationship with this empty, unknown space of the white paper. At the same time being aware how many ways a person can explore, caress and attack the paper, the large paintbrush steeped in paint, the greediness that takes the child in layering the colors that transform into the impasto as they merge.”

From Vea Vecchi Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia

This quote reminds me so much of Adelina and other children who love to paint.
When Vea Vecchi refers to the greediness which takes the child, I think of that moment when a picture that was just under control is suddenly saturated and dripping and the child's hands covered and colored with paint. I know that moment myself, when I 'come to' from the process of painting and telling myself the story of the painting, and notice the marks I've just made.

Packing up, saying goodbye

2011-06-02T12:55:00.000-07:00

As we were begining to pack up the studio for the year (tomorrow is the last day of preschool), we were going through all of the drawings left in the workbasket and the paintings on the drying rack. Some children were helping by being mailmen and delivering pictures to the classrooms. Others were in the studio looking to see if they had left anything on the shelves.

Since they were laid out on the table for people to find, this was a good opportunity to see lots of children's drawings.

Nolan, looking over all of the pictures, many of them of people, said "I'm noticing that people don't draw a lot of noses." A group of children, Star Parent Jess and I looked too, and noticed he was right. There wasn't a single face with a nose on it in view! I asked Nolan if he would like to draw a picture of a face and leave it behind for the next group of preschoolers, sort of like a lesson in how to draw a face.

This is what he drew...

I'm going to miss the older preschoolers. I'm glad many of them will be going on to Sabot kindergarten, so I will still get to spend time with them and hear their ideas and noticings, which so often fill me with wonder and awe.

On Being an Atelierista: letter to the next Atelierista

2011-05-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

For the last 2 years I have been trying to define the job of Atelierista. If I were to write a letter to the person who takes this job after me, there is one thing that I would want them to understand more than any other. It is something that is not easy to make happen, and that is true collaboration with teachers and children.

The kind of collaboration I'm talking about makes inquiry in the classroom richer.

While preserving her voice as the voice of an artist in the classroom, it changes the studio teacher's point of view from someone outside looking in, to someone who is a vital part of the children's investigative process.

It's easy to help with project time as a warm body, watching the group while the teacher works with just a few children, or as an extra set of hands, helping students build a structure or find a material. It is even easy for me (because I have been at it for so long), to come into a classroom and make something happen, to see where the children are and to scaffold them to the next step of whatever it is they're doing. It is much more difficult to truly be 'in' the inquiry, because that takes a whole different level of communication with the teacher and with his or her documentation.

For instance, I have been having conversations with the teachers in the Meadow room all year. I know what their students think about birds, about the media they like to use, and about the relationships and interests of those students. I know this because the teachers share the children's drawings, transcripts of their conversations, and have me in circle. We talk and email and brainstorm together at odd moments, but enough so that I understand. The children know me and think of me as one of their teachers. So, even when I have a small group in the studio I feel like I am supporting the work of the classroom. Somehow the studio teacher has to make that happen with all of the classes in the school, if the atelier is to be as good as it can be.

Garden room teacher Sara and I often talk about the 3 year old children's theories about sound, light and danger, and we have our own informal research project into how to use the echo-y, dark basement space as a provocation. We talk occasionally, and we email a lot, and Sara sends me photos and drawings and links that go along with our questions. Mostly, our collaboration consists of meeting regularly with small groups of children and going down to the basement to try things out.

Today we set up the overhead projector down there and observed the children's interaction with the projected images.

How to help the teachers let you in to their process is so difficult. They are busy every second of the day, and the studio schedule is packed trying to find time to work with children from 2 to 8th grade. Often when teachers want me to spend time in their classrooms I can't. There must be a way to change the studio day to make collaboration happen more easily. The key seems to be in sharing of raw documentation, the kind of in-process stuff that teachers might be shy about showing to someone from outside the classroom. This documentation is how I can get a look at the children's inquiry even when I'm not in the room with them.

It is important that the school reach intersubjectivity about the studio, and it is hard to know how to deepen the perception. There are so many ways to see it as an add-on or special place, but I hope that eventually the studio and the Atelierista will not be a voice from outside the classroom, but will seem an integrated part of the school and the teachers' and children's inquiry process.

and ps. Sorry if I scared anybody, I have not turned in my notice or anything like that...YET (mwah ha ha)
(-:

social constructivism explained?

2011-05-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

First graders were talking about Sabot school, and why they think it is "so awesome"...

"everybody knows a little bit about something, and then we join that together and we all know a lot... and we make kind of like a network... Yes!, yes we do, and the best part is, we all have great friends. And being nice is also important."
After the camera was off, H. added "See, because knowledge is so big, just one person can't know it all, so we have to work together."

After this, they had a discussion about naming their field day team the 'knowledge network', but yesterday chose the Peregrine Team, because peregrine falcons are clever AND fast. Thanks to 1st grade teacher Allison for collaborating with me all year!

Teacher Appreciation Day

2011-05-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Sabot preschool has a lovely tradition- on a day in May, the children arrive with a flower for their teacher. These flowers are assembled by parents into beautiful bouquets. Later, they serve a wonderful lunch. What a fine day. Thank you!

these are some of the wonderful notes that children gave me

True meetings and resistance against the taken for granted

2011-05-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

A couple of Sabot staffers went to Calgary last weekend for a conference, and came back talking about what and who they had heard, including speaker Harold Gothson. In the book Childhoods; a Handbook, part of which is available as a google book, Gothson has a chapter called 'Appropriating Reggio Emilia; from Cults to Cultural Constructions'.

Reflecting on being influenced by the Reggio Approach, he asks the question "What happens with ideas and narrating of experiences when they travel from one context to another? What happens with the idea, and what happens with the receiving context?"

The narrating of experiences -the story -changes with the context. I can't really know what it was like in Calgary, but I can hear the stories they will tell me about it and form my own image. In this way I can learn from their experience. In thinking about the Reggio approach, or even old Sabot preschool, I can listen to the stories (even the ones I tell myself), and apply what I get from them to my new context. Gothson writes that he views Reggio through his Swedish eyeglasses, just as I view everything through my metaphorical eyeglasses, and so do you.
Gothson goes on to talk about looking for new points of view in order to challenge your own established ones. He talks about the benefits to educators of challenging personal perspectives by looking at other schools and other ways of doing things. He writes that Reggio educators look for disturbances, seeking out "contexts that make them uncomfortable and force them to reconstruct and develop their ideas... in the ongoing effort to find new confusing and provoking encounters to make it possible to create resistance against the taken for granted."

I'm not sure about the translation here, but the way this is worded does capture something about disequilibrium, the feeling people get before we understand something new. It does feel uncomfortable, confusing and provoking sometimes.
We have to understand that ideas must change with the context and that the place it is to be taken to will also change. So that's why there is no Reggio Emilia 'program' or 'method' that can be implemented anywhere.

Gothson writes "all narrations are built on interpretation, choices and interests.. and invite a complex and contradictory reality that surrounds every decision of action and thinking in general." .

Does that mean we take what we want from our inspirations, or that we take what we need?
Either way, it implies that we must give careful consideration when reconceptualizing an idea in a new context, resisting "superficiality and rigidity".
This year, having moved the school across the river into a new building, the preschool staff is finding out what parts of our long story still work in the new context. I really like experiences that cause me to question my habits, provide 'resistance against the taken for granted" and make me think critically about my point of view, but the feeling of starting all over again from scratch is very unsettling. Luckily there is a group that can work together to represent this old story and create the new one.

While reflecting here, I started to think about truth. If what we know is just our version of a narrative, can there be such thing as truth? Gothson writes that there is no "Reggio Emilia", just our interpretations of it.

It turns out that there is a social constructivist theory of truth, that truth is constructed by social processes and is affected by context (according to wikipedia.org), which I never thought about until now, but which seems about right to me.

For me it comes down to a commitment to the value and values of children. How to make that visible in our community and culture is what brings me back to the inspiring ideas from the schools of Reggio Emilia again and again.

Gothson has more to say about values; Read it here books.google.com

Snake part 2

2011-05-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

Showing the snake skin at circle in the Garden room.

R. "It's a dead snake. I think it's a dead snake."

A. C. "I have a book about it, and they poke...snake skin comes off."

C."Or maybe the snake has new skin. Snakes take off their skin from rocks. They scratch themselves on rocks."

J. "It's only the skin. I heard Anna say it's only the skin."

D. "What happened to the bones?"

Measuring the children and the snake skin.

snake!

2011-05-06T16:04:00.000-07:00

Georgia found this snakeskin during Exploratory time on the way from the Middle School to the main building.

She let me keep it in the studio for a few days to show it to the preschoolers.
While they observed the skin and talked about it, I learned from them that the scales on the bottom of the snake (visible in the picture at left), are "grippers" that grip surfaces and allow the snake to move. I learned that this was probably a black snake, and not a copperhead, because no diamond pattern was visible in the scales (when I looked online it did seem to match a black snake skin). It was taller than all of the pre-schoolers. You could see the eyes and even tiny nostril holes if you looked closely.

Thanks, Georgia

Big Kids in the Studio -Wednesday

2011-05-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

4th and 5th graders came to the studio for a rainy-day recess

1st graders work on scenery and curtains for the play they are writing about Medieval Scotland

middle schoolers working on their exploratory projects

kindergarteners mess about with basket making reed in preparation for building
a large birds nest

practice weaving with paper

older preschooler shows a younger one something he's
discovered about propellers

propellers, tracing, mural painting, bird machine construction, and fun

Being an Atelierista: King of Stuff

2011-04-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

notes for the studio

costume for teaching dogs to avoid skunks

A big part of this job is managing stuff. I often come in to the studio in the morning to find a couple of bags of donated items left on my chair or desk. People's Grandmothers clean out their attics/basements/sewing rooms and give me boxes of materials. Parents hand me coffee cans in car pool. My neighbor Pat leaves a nice bag of recycled bits on my porch every now and then. It is nice; this is what we need, but it is a lot of stuff.
Materials are a crucial part of the dance between the children and the school.

I try to keep up with the investigations happening in the classrooms, mapping out things that could happen and the materials that might come in handy. Then, I look for these things, and try to have them ready. This is a delicate matter. When the children are thinking about birds, it is easy to think that a basket of multi-colored feathers might be useful, but what do these things really connote? In the Rainbow room, the bird exploration is a lot about balance of form, while in the Meadow room, communication and stewardship seem to be the most important concepts.
What materials scaffold these big ideas, and what will provoke further thought and experimentation?

The studio is a place for projects, and also for the exploration of materials (what Malaguzzi called 'messing about'). Other than clay, light, and cloth, I rarely set out an array of materials for children to try, like the teachers in preschool classrooms do. Over the years I have stopped being interested in having big trays of things to glue on paper, or other activities that have children using gobs of stuff to make...anything. I know that the preschool teachers provide thoughtful introductions to glue and paper and other basic media. With so much material available in the studio, and an intention to be as environmentally responsible as possible, I am very watchful for aimless activity.

Instead, I ask the children to use materials toward thinking through some idea. The idea can be anything, as you see from the notes, above. By asking children to start with an idea, and then select materials with which to explore it, I hope that they learn techniques such as cutting, gluing and sewing as well as the affordances of materials. I hope that they also learn to respect materials, to use just enough but not too much. Children experiment with media, maybe, fail and try again, but hopefully avoid duct-taping 50 beads to a piece of origami paper.

a tree

Every day, children come in to make things, or to get something to bring back to their classroom, and I rarely have to say 'no, we don't have anything like that.' That is a hidden part of being an Atelierista that makes me proud. Whether it is a robot brain, some foil for a hat, a waterproof base for someone's tsunami experiment, or material for a Powhatan Cheif's costume, we can usually find it in the studio.

Sometimes grown-ups tell me they get overwhelmed if the studio looks cluttered. I tend to like the sparkle and shine of it all, but notice if the photos of children making things in the studio have big piles of things in the background.

Really, art studios are supposed to be cluttered, right? I have to find places for everything, but I also have to know where things are right away if a teacher runs in for blue paper or fishing line right before the children arrive. It is a big job. It's funny that there are a couple of things I can never find, like a big bag of stickers that I've had for years. It's one thing I usually can't grab quickly, but have to dig around for a while to find... those stickers elude me, every time.

The part I love about all the stuff is what can happen in the studio because of it.

a submarine bird

sculpting a character from a story for a reader's response

happy friends in the studio (photo by Miles)

Designing a Bird Machine

2011-04-26T16:12:00.000-07:00

B. started to draw this while his friends were working on the mural. He called it a bird machine.

He designed the whole shape first. He said it wasn't finished, but needed to go eat snack, leaving it in the studio. About a week later I asked him if he wanted to come back and finish it. He brought a group with him, and they talked about the different parts as they colored and added detail.

They talked as they drew, explaining the parts as they made them. I wished I had a recorder, because it was a good example of how children build a common understanding as they play. The bird machine, it turns out, is a machine that makes birds. The birds roll through on a cart, passing through areas where they pick out their own parts. There is also a place for Mother birds to get a bath. The orange lines show heat, which powers the bird machine. Above you can see a 'room' where the birds get their beaks, and the red dots are in a place where they get eyes.

O. had the idea to change the shape a bit to make the whole machine look like a bird. The black shapes in the black area are bird feet, and the colored shapes below are in the 'feather room'. The blue-green lines represent electricity.

Our wonderful Carpenter-about-campus Pippin has offered to cut the machine shape out of wood, and Nancy their teacher gave me this box of machine parts. I hope the boys want to try to build the bird machine for real!

2nd graders

2011-04-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

The 2nd graders sing 'Simple Gifts' while they paint the scenery for their play about Pocahontas.

Attention, everyone!

2011-04-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's a call for submissions from Redwings Nest, a new art and literary magazine for children. They need submissions! I hope it is visible now (I see it just fine). Go to www.theredwingsnest.org for more info.

Feather to Wing; Soaring feels like a soft pillow...

2011-04-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

In collaboration with the Rainbow room teachers, the investigation into feathers has continued. The challenge of looking closely and representing individual feathers, and then thinking about how they are part of a bird is challenging for the 4 and 5 year old children in this classroom. The children do not seem to perceive the individual feathers within their pictures and sculptures of birds, no matter how much observation of feathers they have done. They talk about feathers, and flight, and birds, and they represent all of these things beautifully.

Piaget seems to say that part/whole integration is in place by age 9 and has to do with his ideas of concrete operations and logic. I usually find these kind of development by age determinations to be way off, but in this case the children really don't seem to grasp the relationship between feathers and bird the same way I do, and I want to understand this. That's why I want to keep the children looking at feathers as well as birds. Will more experience speed up their whole/part understanding?

I'm remembering art school, and reading about the idea of a gestalt...this is what happens to me when I see theory in action in the classroom -I get curiouser and curiouser.

Last week we showed a small group that I had made a wing, explaining that I didn't think it would fly without any feathers. Could they make me some feathers?

"Anna, you will have to flap really fast. If you flap VERY fast, it will be like a hummingbird.
Q. What part of a feather makes a bird fly?
L. "The part in the middle, and the feathers (indicates the hairy parts of a feather)"
G. "So, I guess the 'feathers' make the breeze, and the stick makes it move."
N. "The bone (indicates the part in the middle of the feather), it makes (the feathers) flap."

P. told us about a movie where you felt like you were soaring (my word) above the Earth. "You put on a seat belt, then you go into the screen, and they go up, up, and you're looking down at countries."
Q. Do you know the word 'soaring'?
All of the children say yes, B. puts out her arms as if soaring in the sky. What do you think soaring feels like?

"Soaring feels like flying." P.

B. "(Soaring), it makes the bird rest, and you can even swoop down and come up."

As they talked, the children made feathers. The used paper and straws, clay, and painted feathers using a feather as a brush.

N. "I've been on a plane before."

P. (In the movie) "I was up high... really high, above the clouds."

Soaring
feels like a soft pillow.

first grade play scenery

2011-04-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

the shetland pony has different coat textures
at various times of the year. The 1st grade pony
has a summer coat.

Garden room children notice the first graders work.

the backdrop

There was some really wonderful activity in the studio this week. These pictures are from the first grade, who are making a play about the middle ages. Here you can see the backdrop, as well as a Shetland pony that the Scottish knights will ride. The boys who are making the pony hope to add mechanics that will make the horse walk. I don't know how to do that, but I hope the first grade boys will help me learn. However, even if we can't figure it out together, there is no doubt that the pony has a lot of personality and will look great on stage.

building

Size and perspective demonstration

2011-04-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry this video is sideways. I always forget the you can't rotate the camera when shooting video. But this is pretty great: The children were explaining to me that the sun really is a small star, but it looks big because it's close to earth, and we see it in relation to other things around us. This demonstration shows how things look smaller when they are further away.

A Day in the Life (take 2)

2011-04-08T17:09:00.000-07:00

beading together

drawing a giraffe

planning a painting of Mother Nature

painting the bird mural

drawing Rapunzel

investigating tiny bricks

making a 'submarine bird'

just hanging out in the studio

sorry if you got this twice...something happened to all of the photos I posted last night.

more pictures of mural painting

2011-04-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

red-winged blackbird

Before starting on the mural, children did many
practice paintings, using the overhead projector to enlarge drawings of birds. It took several days to make each of these paintings, doing a bit at a time until they were finished.

the school building

Only one child questioned the process of different people using all of the drawings. She felt that each child should only paint their own picture. The other children took it in stride that anyone could paint any image.

filling paint cups

just the right mix of red and brown for bricks

painting one of Georgia's drawings
(Georgia is a middle schooler who shared a catalog
of the birds on the school campus that she created)

working on the sky

Making a Mural

2011-04-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I've really tried to scaffold children in painting a mural, and I feel like I should learn how to do this. The bird drawings that the 5 year olds have been making just seem to really lend themselves to the mural form. And besides, this class of children from the Meadow room really seem to enjoy doing things together (I think that is because of how their teachers have supported them in forming a group that really cares about each other).

Children drew different ideas for backgrounds. Today, I gave them 2 transparencies, one of a meadow and tree by Nolan, and one of the school building by Isabel. It took some trial and error, arguing and negotiation about how to show both pictures. They kept laying them on top of each other and arguing about the fairness of which one would be on top. Finally they got them on the projector side by side so that they could trace them onto the big paper. There are other drawings of trees and buildings, and maybe the children will want to add those, too.

When I looked at the children working this way, I sighed and said, "You guys really look like artists".
Nolan said, "Well, we are... well, we do need an artist hat, though."

Inspiration; Drawing from Books

2011-03-31T07:07:00.000-07:00

Books provide a valuable resource for drawing. I still haven't quite worked out
for myself how Dewey's ideas of authentic educational experience works when the topic
is far away and out of reach, but I do think stories and illustrations can help bring
far away animals in to the classroom. At least a little bit.

An idea I want to try

2011-03-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

I have been wishing for Karla Cikanova's book 'Teaching Children to Draw' for a long time. I am a big fan of her book 'Teaching Mixed Media to Children', but her books on painting and drawing have been out of print, and I couldn't find them at prices I could afford. Last week, there was a cheap used copy on Amazon, so I got it! The first thing I noticed while looking through the book was this nifty idea, which will be great for the Sabot preschool with all of the thinking going on about birds.

The idea is to have children make rubbings, prints or drawings of feathers in order to see and notice things about them, and then, to think about and use the feather shapes while drawing a bird.

It seems to me that this would be valuable in helping children think about parts of a whole, drawing the texture of a bird, and learning about how birds are put together.

Here are a couple of feather drawings by Acadia and Nolan. I haven't gotten to the part about drawing a whole bird yet, but I am excited to try.

2011-03-20T15:36:00.000-07:00

The 5 year olds who like Star Wars came bursting into the studio "Anna! We need to hear R2-D2 noises on your computer!" I was working with some other children and was a little concerned that the boys 'high energy and loud voices would distract from the concentration in the room. Trying to figure out the source of the energy and the point of the request, I asked them a few times to tell me again what they wanted. Each time I got the same response, until I asked "Guys, please tell me why you want to use my computer to listen to R2-D2 sounds. I'm worried that you just want to sit down and click things on my computer, and it doesn't seem like you would be learning anything new by doing that."

Then, the boys told me "We need to hear the sounds because we are reading a Star Wars book, and when it gets to a page with R2-D2, it says 'R2-D2 says beep-beep'. But we don't want to say beep-beep, we want to be able to make the right sounds there. And the book writer didn't write down the real sounds."

So, not only are these pre-schoolers reading, but they are also reading with a critical eye, noticing that the author simplified an important detail. This little moment made me feel lucky that once again, children have taught me the benefit of slowing down and really listening.

Cross Age Interactions and Family

2011-03-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

A good thing about having a school that serves so many grades (with one studio for all to share) are the meetings that happen between students of different ages. Here, a preschooler came in with her journal (a composition book families fill with pictures to create a home/school connection). She wanted to look at a picture of her dog in order to draw him.

Coincidentally, her cousin was in the studio making a video for a project in which the 5th graders are documenting their math learning this year.

While some of his teamates were working on props for the video, He got paper and took time to draw his dog, too. They talked about family pets who have passed away, and the ones they have now.

Then, they watched the math video together. The care they took with each other was a lovely thing to see.

On Being an Atelierista: Languages and the reason for studios in schools

2011-03-11T07:33:00.000-08:00

Going through some old piles of things I have been meaning to read, I came across this quote from Maxine Greene, in the article "Radical Puppets and the Language of Art" in Art Education from May 2009 (I told you it was an old pile!)

Working out where the black bunny painting is in the basement.
Is it something we should be scared of, or not?

"You can learn more about the language of art, not in the hope that you can be transformed into an (artist), but so you will have at hand a greater range of means of expression, ways of saying what ordinary language can rarely capture or convey." (2001, p. 111)

"I'm drawing a real Princess of India, not a Disney Princess"

When drawing and writing are not yet developmentally
appropriate, other media can serve as a tool of communication.

This quote really captures the essence of studio thinking and the reason for introducing art media and materials into the school across every discipline. I do think that many of the students who have access to ateliers and atelieristas in school will continue with art throughout their lives, at least I hope that the habits they develop in drawing from observation, for instance, will continue.

However, the main reason I believe it is important to give children exposure and techniques in art media is that idea of languages. By providing children time and access to these media and materials, we give them the chance to think about things in ways they have not thought of before, to show us their ideas, and to 'say' things they may not be able to say in other ways.

Social Emotional Learning and Conformity

2011-03-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

The Teachers that I work with in the pre-school are very, very good at scaffolding social/emotional learning with children. That doesn't mean everyone feels happy all the time, in fact it means that hard things, sadness, worry and fear are seen as opportunities for children to begin talking together and learning about what other people like, and how they feel. Learning to play together and to respect each other's personal styles and ways of being are no doubt very important in growing up to be a kind person who is able to share and listen. I believe in this strongly.

Lately, however, I've been feeling a tiny little bit of doubt about it all. It has begun to seem to me that in helping children with these skills, it is crucially important for teachers to monitor their own expectations about how people should be. I have begun to think that there is a very, very fine line between helping children be part of a group, and teaching children to behave in a very similar way, a way that 'meets our expectations'.

Now at Sabot, the teachers have a very beautiful way of talking with children, especially when strong feelings arise or there are difficult circumstances, like conflict or sadness. The culture of the school encourages connectedness, listening and empathy. Of course, no one gets it right every time, but the teachers work hard to listen closely, treat each other well, and talk about it when they fall short.

So I feel like I come from a pretty good place, but still, this new idea nags at me. How can teachers be sure that their expectations for behavior and relationships give each child a chance to be who they are? Within the expectation that we are all going to be kind to each other, how can we make room for those who relate to each other differently? It is easy to see, and we have much training which tells us, that we should make room for the person with big differences -someone who doesn't speak, for instance, or has extreme sensory sensitivities. But how do we be sure we aren't lumping all of the other children together and expecting them to play in a way that is not their way? How can schools create a social/emotional culture of learning that respects each person's individual differences?
Well, that's what I'm thinking about. What do you think?

An Especially Expressive Portrait

2011-03-04T12:19:00.000-08:00

Oliver, 5, sure can draw.

He made this on tracing paper while looking at this photograph.
I like the expression Oliver created very much.

Vea Vecchi book

2011-02-27T12:35:00.000-08:00

I am devoted to the ideas about teaching, research and education that have come out of the schools of Reggio Emilia. I am very aware that I teach in a different context than the one these ideas emerged out of. How could I not be, in a place where fried chicken, sweet tea and the civil war define the culture, rather than high fashion, reggiano-parmesano cheese and WWII? I am also well aware that I live in the land of the business model of education, the supremacy of standardized tests and a general view of children and teachers that is very top down and about control.
The reason I hold R.E. ideas out as ideal is because of their integrity. This work has the children at it's center. It seems that everything that is said and done by these educators represents the ideas and intentions of the children from who all of the observations and reflections stem. Here is a place where teachers are seen as capable of research and societal change through their practice. I have never seen any of this carried out like it is in Reggio. I admit it, I want to teach in a system that shows as consistent a philosophical integrity as the schools of Reggio Emilia.

Lately, I've been reading the new book Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia, Exploring the role and potential of ateliers in early childhood education by Vea Vecchi. It is the kind of book that I carry around everywhere so I can read slowly. I keep finding passages that I want to share and discuss. There are 6 unpublished blog posts on my dashboard that are just long passages from this book! Here are a few bits paraphrased from pages 56-59, a conversation between Vea Vecchi, Atelierista, Simona Bonilauri and Claudia Giudici, pedagogistas, where they talk about the reasons for ateliers in schools, the role of theory, listening to each other, and the importance of being subversive;

Vea Vecchi; If we were to forgo dialectic exchange for too long, ...we would lose the way the schools ..give shape to theory through educational projects and everyday practice, without those theories being betrayed. At the same time, it is important not to be too fond of our theory and to leave space for doubt, to let our 'listening' to cultural social reality, and our listening to children, modify the theories we refer to. Critical awareness is something to be looked after very, very carefully.

In the pedagogy of Reggio, art has been used as a force for breaking away from dominant thought. When you try to understand how children learn, you realize it takes place in a multi-disciplinary and multi sensory way, a way that is already inherent in children.

When children learn, they do it by interweaving and making connections between different languages, and this is exactly what school in a traditional sense does not do, because it tends to separate the languages, which are defined as different subjects, disciplines, fields of knowledge, etc..

The day to day work of observation and documentation of the children's learning processes has been the instrument of interweaving between pedagogy and thinking in the atelier, modifying each other reciprocally. Observation and documentation show how children seek beauty through many languages that are empathetic to each other, not separate and sequential; how they seek an aesthetics of expression of their ideas and thoughts.

(In designing the schools of Reggio Emilia) it was necessary to make a choice that would not betray the ways of knowing children, of human beings. It was necessary to introduce into the school an element of subversion, with respect to the traditional school and way of teaching, that would render the teaching-learning process more complex, thus more consistent with children's ways of knowing.

What do you think? Wanna have a dialectic exchange?

Another nice gift

2011-02-25T16:47:00.000-08:00

Somebody left this ring in a fancy box on my desk today.
I haven't figured out just who it was, but the mystery made
me smile. Thanks, secret friend!

Exploring and Mapping the Basement

2011-02-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

The Meadow room children have been thinking about the basement, and the murals which are painted on the wall there. There is one, a picture of a big rabbit, that some people feel afraid of, while others just love making up magical stories about it .

Nolan "Are you brave enough, Oliver, to go to the black bunny, and touch him?"
Oliver "Yeah"
Nolan "Maybe we could go together."

figuring out how to show stairs that have 4 landings and a doorway at the bottom

The discussion of the bunny led to theories about how to trap it, and the idea of hanging other pictures nearby -maybe to keep it company, or maybe to keep an eye on it.

"If the stairs are there, we got to make it so that door is on the map right next to the stairs"

Nancy had worked with some of the children to make a model of the basement, to figure out which walls might be available to hang paintings on. This model wasn't quite right, because the children didn't have a clear picture of what the basement looks like. So, on Friday we took a trip down the stairs to work on a map of the basement.

checking out a pile of stuff

Oliver video taped our tour, and then we went upstairs to draw the map. Referring to the video tape was very helpful, but there were still a few places the children weren't sure about. We brought the map downstairs again to check where a couple of doorways were, and how to draw the stairs.

in the 'light saber room', working out where the doorway is on the map

I Admit It, Change Is Hard

2011-02-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

Little gifts, left on my desk, like this one from Emerson, make me so happy.

I've been coming to the realization that the change I've gone through (that all of us Sabot pre-school people have been going through) is bigger than I thought. My friends Sara and Robyn are smart. They said even before school started that this year would be really hard, but I still didn't expect it. I usually love change and am always ready for the next step, whatever it is. I also tend to be unaware of myself a little bit. By the time I notice that I'm really sick, and go to the Doctor, he usually tells me that whatever I had is just about gone. Maybe that explains why I haven't given myself credit for going through something really, really big.

After all, I went from working at a little pre-school, where it seemed like I was building something special with a small group of friends who knew each other's ways, to being folded into a much bigger organization. I went from listening to and knowing the preferences of 12 teachers and trying to understand the intentions of 68 children, to trying to work with many more teachers, and students from 2 year olds through 8th graders. Most everything is different, from the leadership structure to the number of staff and families we work with.
I don't mean to complain. A lot of the changes are nice, and most people don't get to work at their dream job for so many years, in a community as inclusive as Sabot's. However, I do think I need to acknowledge to myself that starting this year meant starting a whole new job, and it has been very, very hard. Hopefully, it will get easier and more fun. Maybe it already has, and I just haven't realized it yet ( :

So, thanks Emerson, I needed that!