Do we age discriminate in Preschool?

I have been reflecting upon how we view children... and how the way we group children influences our expectations of them...

I have now been working at Filosofiska preschool for just over one and half years and I started with the group of the oldest children at the preschool... these children had access to a room where there were smaller parts and more challenging play which the rest of the children did not as they were all primarily one year olds that were turning two that year.

We now have three groups...
Himlen - 1-2 year olds
Molnet - 2-3 year olds
Vinden 3-5 year olds

The interesting thing is that the oldest child in our youngest group is actually older than the youngest child in my oldest group when I first started.
Of course back then the oldest children did not need push-chairs to get to the park, they were allowed to be around small parts, there was, in general a different expectation of what they could manage.

 So do we limit ourselves as teachers in how we think about children's competency by putting them in these groupings... and by limit I mean not just making children smaller than what they are, but also more capable of what they are...
 did that just turned 2 year old in the oldest group feel out of his/her depth, or did the child feel empowered by our expectations? Does a the same age child in the youngest group feel our expectations are too small?

I have no answers... I am merely reflecting on what I see at my work, and also at previous preschools - and also in families where the expectation on older siblings is often different from younger siblings.... even if we try to respond to children in a similar way...

How do we value age?
Do our values of age influence how the children view themselves and also how they view children who are younger or older than themselves? Does being older in a preschool have higher status?

I know that over the years in all of the prechools I have ever worked at the older children refer to the 1-2 year olds as babies... I keep reminding them that there are no babies in preschool, babies stay at home with their parents and they start as toddlers at preschool (we have generous parental leave here in Sweden, which means no preschool accepts a child under the age of 12 months, unless there are very special reasons). I try to communicate that these toddlers are children, just like themselves...

Do older children in preschool get more privileges? Are children being discriminated because of their age...?

I think this can be seen not just within the preschool but within society as a whole... Are things that children enjoy being given less status because there is age discrimination? Is play of less value in society because it is not a part of the adult world?
Of course this age discrimination works in many ways... how are the elderly viewed? With the same status as all adults?

How is the balance of power/status in your setting?
Why are schools given more attention than nursery/preschool settings? Why is it OK to have non-educated staff with the very youngest children in society but not with the older children in society? Why is it OK that teachers in schools get payed more than teachers in preschools... when they have had the same number of years training?

If we want the respect that we as ECE teachers deserve in society then we also need to really inspect how we view the age discrimination within the preschool... why is it that over the years you nearly always hear a slight moan when a teacher finds out that they will be working with the very youngest children... some teachers specify that they will/can not work with the 1-2 year olds. I know I have said this ... when my own children were in preschool I did not want to work with the very youngest because the risk of spreading childhood infections between my work children and my own children (and vice-versa) I felt was too great, and I made the decision that my chances of being at work was greater if I was working with an age range that had a developed immune system. Now my own children are in school, have developed immune systems of their own I can thoroughly enjoy the challenge of working with the very youngest... the children who learn soemthing with just about every look they take (how cool is that?).

So take a close look at your setting... how do the children view each other and their competencies... is age given status... by the children or the staff...?

A collection Of Outdoor spaces for learning and play...

Sat at home nursing a nasty cold and sore throat, looking at beautiful images of learning playspaces... and thought I would share a few of them with you...

A Mud kitchen at Fazelely Preschool... you can go there blog and check out how it was made... Fazeley Preschool, UK

There are several images of the natural classroom at A Child's Touch where they have kept the four elements... water, air, earth and fire as a central theme.

The outdoor space at Puzzles Family Daycare when they celebrated the International Fairy Tea Party last year... more images of Puzzles Family Daycare can be seen if you click to this image on their facebook page and then browse the page some more...

The playspace at Cowgate Under 5s can be seen on Creative Star Learning's blog with more images to be seen... and plenty other links to outdoor play and inspiration.

I have shared images of waterplay on my blog... click here to check it out

Playscapes has blogged about barefoot paths in New Zealand... I am a big believer in the sensory experience of outdoor surfaces... for barefeet and also for all our other senses too. I have written a post about Outdoor surfaces - you can read that here

Loose parts outside... and how do they connect to the inside. Play and learning  made visible on this post by Mid Pacific Institute

Tessa Rose Landscapes shares lots of before and after photos of how outdoor spaces can be designed to create a more natural feel.



Here is a link to a previous post I wrote on International outdoor playspaces - not so many photos but plenty of links...

A link to one of my posts about outdoor play in Sweden... some images of public playspaces and descriptions of some requirements/reflections for preschool playspace

And another post I wrote with links to outdoor playspaces... can be read here

Hope that keeps you going for a while...

The storycards in action

This afternoon I read the fairy book again to a few children and when I was finished they wanted more... instead of re-reading I got them to hang up the story cards so that I could read them a story from the cards they chose... they were happy to do this... then I took a step back and let the children get on with the cards...

They arranged the mat like a portal (so I was told... a word they have learnt from the fairy book, although one child isalready quite familiar with the word) - then they collected small piles of cards each and arranged themselves like a meeting to tell a story together.

They struggled here... there was lots of preparation and announcements that they were going to start, but I could not see their play starting as they were planning (even though it was all play)... so I noted that it might be an idea to sit in a circle and practice how to tell a story as a community, so they can apply that to their own play (the idea was there, but they seemed to lack the experience to put it into practice).

In the end they seemed to settle into pairs and looks through their stack of cards commenting, and creating a series of short stories.

One child started to line on cards on one of the long mirrors from Ikea... and this was soon copied by two other children, it alowed them to transport their story around the room.

In total there were 8 children ranging from 2-4 years of age... they spent just over 45 minutes in deep concentration playing with story ideas and trying to work out how to create stories together.

By observing the children I can be of better support as a teacher ... I know where I can best place my guidance so that their storyand language skills can grow together and individually.

It is also interesting to see which cards the children are taking... the card of Elsa from frozen is popular with one child... calling it "let it go" card, not knowing the characters name, but being familiar with the song. Others are exploring traditional Swedish stories like Pippi and Alfons and Bamse and others are exploring the images of houses and whether or not they would like to live there...

The majority of the time though was spent on sorting the piles of cards and trying to work out together the rules of the story telling game...

...with an open heart

I was sitting reading this book with a small group of children... and one of the first things it tells you, if you want to see a fairy is "Open your eyes. Open your heart." and to listen.
One of the children asked me "How do you open your heart?"
I answered that I was not sure, and we wondered together the various possibilities of what it meant.

Yesterday we went to a new forest for us... legs are getting longer and stamina stronger, so we can walk further. This new forest has a different kind of calmness, an almost magical quality, especially when you think it is just a small forest in the middle of suburbia ... but there were differrent kinds of trees, each giving off its own atmosphere, especially when they were several together... there were fallen trees, the floor of the forest was covered in ferns and blueberries (sadly not many blueberries due to the hot dry summer... not that we should really complain about the gloriously warm summer).

There was time to look for fairies... which meant we found lots of other things... insects, seed filled spiderwebs, the wetness of the ferns as we walked through them, small openings that could be fairy doors...

We also listened... to the wind through the trees... what was it saying to us... the children could translate "welcome to the forest... come and play"...

I asked the child who had wondered about how to "open your heart" if she could think of a way of opening her heart to the forest... to be able to hear the forest... and this is what she did...

She listened to the forest... she told me she could hear it talking... she could hear the fairies... and they are apparently as excited about the International Fairy Tea Party as we are...

a little bit of magic...

I love getting the chance to sit down with my colleagues and talk about the what ifs, the what mays and the what coulds...

Ellen and I sat for almost 3 hours talking about the possibilities of this term based on our knowledge of the children... their interests and their needs from us and each other... and also to connect with our development areas as teachers this year...

Reflection and critical thinking about norms...

We have been looking at the structure of the week... how can we create more time for reflection, meaningful reflection, for the children, where they can see the purpose of this reflection... to really get them involved in thinking about what they have been doing  in order to work out how we will progress... that we do our reflection WITH the children MUCH more.

We now will have our reflection time together on Fridays instead of Mondays, where we, as teachers, can reflect on the week that has just been, looking at the needs of the children... later in the morning we will have a reflection time with the children where we use photos of the week to stimulate reflection on what we have learned and then plan together how we should continue the following week... of course some of the activities will come from us the teachers using our knowledge of the children to stimulate and challenge their play and to support their social, emotional and cognitive growth - but we really want the children to think up activities too... not just random things that they like but based on their reflections... Mondays are going to be children's "choice" day... where we can be in up to three groups - it also gives us the weekend to work out logistics if we need to. It feels very exciting... the children have challenged out power and that adults make so many decisions, we are certainly not going to relinquish our power of keeping them safe, but we are handing over more power of the content... but really that is wrongly phrased... because the children have always had that power, they have just not been aware of it... so I think what we are doing is making their power more VISIBLE.

All this talk of power is rather apt... as fairies and magic powers is where we are starting the year... re-asking a few of the questions we asked last year to see how the children are thinking now as we start the project... but we are digging deeper and the project is going to be less about what are fairies and more about using fairies and magic powers to explore themes such as rules, power, friendship etc...

This week has all been about coming together again... we are finally a full group, except for one of our poor friends who has broken our foot (we visited today to leave a feel better book we made) - next week we will start our magical explorations... the magical play has already got going...

fairy painting...

15 books to get you thinking...

There are many books that are available to use with children to encourage critical thinking - here are 15 books, familiar and maybe less familiar, to get you going, and to get you thinking about the book/story choices you are making...

Not a Stick
Not a Box - both by Antoinette Portis...

Maybe a thinking book for the adults as much as the children... to see the possibilities in everyday objects... the books can be read - and then a stick passed around and the children share what it is for them... with support from the story, and also their own imaginations...

The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein

A way to talk about how we use nature, about friendship.

The Day the Crayons Quit - Oliver Jeffers

Can colours be used in new ways? Are the crayons justified in their feelings? What colour is the sun... etc

Flotsam - David Wiesner

an image from the book Flotsam by David Wiesner

A book with no words but absolutely beautiful images. What happens to the camera, how many years has it been used? Can marine animals take photographs? etc

Tell me a picture - Quentin Blake

Quentin Blake's quirky characters help us see details and ask questions about various works of art - going through the alphabet by artist.

Where did the dragons go? Fay Robinson

There are so many stories about dragons... did they exist for real... if they did where are they now... do you think dragons and children could be friends, why couldn't the adults?

A world of Food - Carl Warner

A book of scenes made in food. What would it be like to live in a candy world, or a world made only of food. Would it be OK for people to start eating your home?

I am the King - Leo Timmers

Allows the children to talk about leadership and rules...

Journey - Aaron Becker

Another wordless story with beautiful images... reminds you a little of Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. What would you draw if you were given a magic crayon.... and why?

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig - Eugene Trivizas

I love all books that take a traditional story and change the perspective. In fact all the traditional stories work great for getting the children to start thinking of alternative endings, to think about the idea of goodies and baddies , to attempt to look at the story from the perspective of both...

How to live forever - Colin Thompson

A book to explore the ideas of immortality... it is important to read books first, especially if you are wanting to lift a vertain question... it might influence how much of the story you read to the children before asking the question... sometimes it can be good to pause mid-story, or just before the end, or even shortly after getting started. Reading the whole story is not always essential, using the book as a stimulus to thinking can have it's benefits - it will encourage the children to use their own imaginations.

The Tin Forest - Helen Ward

A look at nature and rubbish that is dumped... recycling ideas too, and the importance of caring about our planet. Could stimulate the children to start constructing their own animals and forest with junk.

How to see Fairies Brian Froud and John Matthews

Question after question about how fairies are usually viewed - are they big, small, how do you see them "Sometimes far away is near and sometimes small is big. Sometimes things you are told aren't true - it all depends on YOU". Lots of beautiful images. It does have flaps, fold outs etc... so it needs to be a book that is handled carefully for it to survive.




Resources for teachers...
to get you thinking about how storybooks/stories can be used in connection with philosophy/critical thinking check out the following

Why think by Sara Stanley
Big Ideas for Little Kids by Wartenberg

more developments in the rainbow room

Slowly but surely the room for philosophy and stories is taking shape...

Today a new blue mat was added... for the youngest children (1-2 yr olds) to have their gatherings - but it will also serve as a fishing pond, with stones and stumps to fish from. We are fixing a game using images of real fish with a paper-clip on it so we can use a magnetic fishing line to fish them up... this is to connect with a magnetic fishing game the children have been thoroughly enjoying at the table...

The walls have been given a bit more of a forest look with leaves being added - and lots of butterflies - and there is a ring of grey, stone-like, circular sitting mats now too. These are thinking stones... and where we will meet to have philosophical dialogues - eventually we will have a very low table in the middle of those mats to enable the children to document their own thought processes.

Shelving has been purchased and will be fixed to the walls during the weekend... so the book part of the room will start to function better next week.

The sitting area is not quite ready yet, and eventually we would love to have a more natural feel to the cushioning there. The aim is to create a calm and imaginative room - to inspire creative thinking.

Storycards...

As part of the transformation of the rainbow room into a space for philosophy and a library I have created closer to 200 storycards... the cards reflect everything in life... for example when it comes to fairies there are old ones, young ones, beautiful, ugly, fat ones, thin ones, mean, kind, many different skin tones, with wings, without wings etc etc... the idea is that all are included, everyone in the world is valued - and not just certain kinds of people... the idea is also for the children to start thinking about what they see as beautiful and ugly (I would never put the cards down and make that judgement myself in front of the children... I leave it to them to see). The story cards are not just about choosing a selection of cards so that we can tell a story, but also so that we can stimulate philosophical dialogues... as they get used more, I will share more here on this blog about the different ways we will be using them, the different questions that we will ask, and also inspire the children to ask...

Today I introduced the children to the idea of hanging images with pegs on a line and then telling the story based on the images... it took no encouragement to get the children to hang up the images... they did this with great excitement. I then told the story of the cards starting from the left and working in sequence (like reading). I needed to tell just two stories before asking the children if they wanted to tell the next story and the children were confident and excited...

hanging the cards up... leaf pegs to go with the enchanted forest theme

They took it in turns to tell stories, changing the cards together (so there was no real thought going into the order or what images were chosen, except that these children liked that image).

The storycards include images from familiar stories like Red Riding Hood, but in different artistic styles - the wolf is represented in images as angry, smiling and howling/singing... the wolf can be seen blowing down the pig's house, playing croquet with brothers... the pigs are shown collecting their materials, but there is also a big bad pig... I want to get the children thinking and questioning and not always accepting that it has to be a certain way.

telling the story - pointing to the card they are referring to and telling the story... and yes, they were connecting the images to create a continuous story... some images were more complex and the child spent longer... but I have kept it to just 10 pegs so that the story does not get too long, and the audience's listening skills do not get over-whelmed.

There are images from familiar children's films and books... a few Disney characters, Pippi Longstocking etc - the idea is that these images might support the children in their story-telling, as well as mixing these images with other's to create something new - I saw that an icey fairy got called Cinderella and that Disney Sleeping Beauty was called a girl rather than being defined by the character of the film... the children were using the cards to serve their own imaginations...

I have also included images from different cultures found at the preschool (and in the world in general, so as to expose the children to the whole world) - so when it comes to houses and buildings there are images from Russia,  Africa (various countries) - there are houses made of mud, old fashioned houses, modern houses with a pool, houses made of candy, houses with chicken feet!! Small house, BIG houses, and houses in between... again the aim is to support the children in their understanding of their world and an acceptance of all the people within the world...

The storycards are far from complete... I want to include more traditional stories from around the world - I also want to include images of handicapped/disabled etc. Some images are hard to find, for example it took some time to find an image of a girl/woman in armour (as a knight) where she was not being portrayed as sexy... I wanted her to look like a warrior just as the men did. BUT finding non-sexy mermen was just as hard!! Anyway it's a process that has been started...

The Rainbow room continues

The rainbow room's progress to being a library and philosophy room has made another step closer to being finished.
At the end of last week the room got new flooring - and now some furnishings and decorations have gone in... yet to come are shelving for the books and seating for the philosophy sessions....

A view through the indoor window with birds on branches stickers. The ceiling is filled with ricepaper lamps (no lighting in them) to help reduce the height of the room and make it more child friendly - a place to have big thoughts (when I was a child I used to love dreaming big, but did not like it so much outside... I realised that to dream big I need to feel safe, and being somewhere smaller made me feel safe when my thoughts were so big and carrying me away... so I have applied my understanding of my own childhood... together with the understanding of observing children over the years, and the children I am working with now, to create an atmosphere that will support big thinking)

Raw planning...

The term is starting and I am collecting ideas as to how this term could evolve, using my knowledge of the children and their interests as well as observing the children in their play now...

We will be celebrating the International fairy tea Party again this year... and it starting to look like the whole preschool will be joining in the fun... not all the teachers are back from the summer yet... so we will have to see if all groups think that this will be meaningful for their children...

Vinden seem raring to go... at least the ones that have returned... fairies and magic powers... so I have been thinking about what could we do along these lines...

AND I am going to share those first initial thoughts with you before they are sorted, properly discussed with my Vinden colleagues so that we can fine tune a bit more... and of course I have tried to collect far too many ideas so that I can go with the rhythm of the children - go in their direction, listen to even more ideas - as well as challenging them with some of these ideas that I know will support them in their social development...


NOTES

Fairies - to dream of how one looks. Philosophical dialogue about what is  a fairy and how does it look like (use the dialogues from last year to see if the children have changed their minds about what is a fairy etc or not). What does a fairy do? Is it good or bad? Who is invited to the fairy party - beautiful fairies, ugly fairies, angry looking fairies, sad fairies etc etc (have a wide selection of fairy photos and figures) does how the fairies look impact how they behave or should be treated?
Art - representing fairies in art, what mediums can be used - visit Modern Art Museum and National Art Museum for fairy inspiration (also magic power inspiration)
Music - what does fairy music sound like? Can children find fairy music with their families and bring/send in for us to listen? Will families choose the same music, same type of music or will it all be very different genres? Can we create fairy music of our own?
Movement - can we move like a fairy, dance to the music, fly?
Values and norms - Do fairies have rules? What rules? Do fairies treat other fairies badly - or are they always kind - are fairies ever naughty? Is there fairy police, fairy prison? Is there a fairy king/queen - what do they do?
Do fairies fall in love, have families, have babies like us - or do they come from magic... seeds, flowers something else?
Are there different kinds of fairies? Do some fairies have more worth than other fairies - why? If there were two fairy lands that did not get on with each other how could we help them solve their conflicts/ get on with each other (need to create a story for this)
Magic powers - if you had a magic power, what would that be? Why? How would you use it? (maybe ask individually first and then as a group... do they change their mind when they hear the powers that other's choose?)
reseach and play our way through the various powers (ice-power has been well used... we could do lots of ice-experiments)

Are there any bad powers? Can good powers be used badly?
Use films to explore themes/ideas better... small snippets rather than a whole film.
If your power made you different from everyone else and people were scared of your power (like Elsa in Frozen) how would you feel if you were forced to hide your power?
How do your learn to control your power... do you have to fo to magic school? Does there need to be rules as to how the magic powers can be used? Why?
Who would decide those rules? Why? What would the rules be?
Are there any natural powers/powers in nature? Do we possess any powers right now? Do any of the teachers have powers? What are they. Do any parents or other adults have powers? (courage, love - will these pop up as ideas)
Will there be a discussion about magic powers and super powers - are they the same thing or not?
Look for songs connected to fairies and magic powers. Does a magic power have a sound?
If you wanted a magic power where do you get one from? Can we build a machine that makes magic powers?
How much will the children connect to films and stories... how much will be their own fantasy. Will the children all choose the same power - is it OK for them to do that? Or can only one person have a type of power... can we experiment with having the same number of powers as children and they all have to choose one of them... what happens if there are powers no-one wants - or that everyone wants... how will this be resolved? What would happen if on 2-3 children were allowed to have magic powers... which three would they choose, and why?
Literacy - write our own fairy story/magic power story together. Illustrate it. Can we make a film from it? which books connect with fairies, magic, magic powers. How can we connect the stories to gender awareness and critical thinking so we are presenting the children with many different perspectives - old, young, boys, girls, all cultures etc etc etc
Ethnographical musem might be a good place to explore magical powers around the world. Will the masks etc influence/inspire the children's thinking and their activity in the atelier and other areas of play?
Teamwork... continue with the idea of Together paintings and doing things together - the big body prints made at summer preschool could be a good start to see how we can make the art more magical... more fairy like?
Construction - can we construct a fairy town/house. Can you construct a magic power (magic wand??) Can we build a machine that makes magic powers?
Light - there is magic in light... to continue our light play with the new perspective of exploring its magic, rather than using it to conquer fears of the dark - maybe we could put on a little light show for the children to inspire them to use light in a new way. I-pad?
Shadow theatre - make a fairy story for this
Magic powers from around the world, magical creatures





Well, that is it for now... a first initial idea gathering based on the children wanting to explore rules and challen
ging the idea of why do adults make so many decisions... and also the children's interest in the film Frozen and the magic powers involved there, this would be a great base to explore inclusion and exclusion too - and all the empathy exploration required to do that.

Transformations... (Rainbow Room)

During the summer a wall has been added and a wall has been moved at preschool... including the "Rainbow Room" that is home to the library - and philosophy room to be...

The floor is not quite ready - as the wall was moved to make the room larger leaving a long shallow hole across the room.

I will be sharing the transformation process here... and of some of the other rooms (we have give the rooms the names of colours rather than the names of activities so that the spaces can remain flexibel and we have the opportunity to change the purpose of the space (if needed) without adding confusion.

As you can see... we are just at the start of this transformation...

water and bubble exploration

We started off the day with exploring bubbles... the children and Elin had carefully followed the recipe for making extra big bubbles - and had also made  bubble wands with wire by the time I got to work (late start today, as I had the closing shift)...

After some fruit we headed out to make loads and loads of bubbles...

but there was a slight problem... we just couldn't get the bubbles to work... just the odd one (and with a special technique of wrist flicking rather than blowing... and even that was not particularly reliable) - we tried adjusting the mix, but to no avail... but we did give it a good try...

 There was time to make fairy wands.... quite by accident. I had taken some foil out to make ponds in the sandbox... but the foil was soon put to other use...


In the afternoon we played with the hose - including making rainbows, lots of water play with tubes, watering cans, buckets etc and the big plastic boxes... we addded the bubble mix at the end and used a whisk to make lots of foam... and pretended to make it snow... and used the tube to blow bubbles too...

snowfoam....

climbing into the bubbles...

rainbow shower

one of the few bubbles we managed... and I just had a mess about session this evening to see what sort of effects I could use and how it changed the look of the bubble.... a good mess about with technology is needed every now and again...