reflecting on play...

This week we have taken a whole new approach to what we do... instead of our usual week we have chosen to do 4 new parks in four days (its week 44 and its also autumn break in schools).

The children have been reflecting on the parks on our way back to the preschool... how many points out of 10 and why...

Today as we were watching the children play I was wondering whether the children would rate the playspace in the same sort of way that we as observing adults would rate it based on their play...
As what I was seeing today was not the same engagement in their play, even though their initial enthusiasm was huge when they saw the bright orange mound, trampolines and rope nets (where they later played spider).

this was the first playspace in Stockholm to use the rubber matting... it was very exciting when it first came as a new play surface... although I am not so keen on it in winter as i find it insulates from the heat of the ground and takes the snow and ice longer to melt.

Once the initial buzz was over I saw that many of the children struggled to find something to do... not a problem in the previous two parks...
There were some bikes available but not nearly enough for the sheer number of children in this playspace... many of my children hung around waiting for a bike and found themselves unable to play as they were consumed with the wait... in the park on Monday where there were bikes too, there were a few more bikes, but there were also a selection of small houses and small animal climbing statues that busied the children, so waiting for a bike was never an issue, in fact they often forgot about a bike... there was also an enormous slide there which made them laugh with exhileration. In the park yesterday there were no bikes, lots of small areas, a climbing frame like a dragon and small slides... the children were busy the whole time with rather complex play (we think that that park was the best park for their play, but they rate the first one as better as they had bikes and the long slide there).

in one of the houses in the background is where Astrid Lindgren once lived...

To be honest I was rather relieved when all but one child said they had not enjoyed this park as much as the others... most rated it 1/10, 2/10, 4/10 commenting on the fact that they had not been able to ride a bike... one child said it was 10/10 - this child found a bike at the start and would not leave this bike at all, and played just a short while with other children when they had some time on bikes... this child would not give the bike to anyone else, no matter how the children asked, or how we reminded that maybe others would like a turn, and how would it feel if roles were reversed... this child was quite shocked at the response of peers interpretation of the park being very different. (I have deliberately written this without naming gender... as gender is actually not important here).

Tomorrow we will visit another new park, one without bikes, one of Stockholm's newest parks in fact... one that has amazed many by its look... will the children be able to play there as well as the playspace pleases their initial impression of the playspace... as Vaspark today did not deliver for THIS group of children (I have been there with many other groups where they have had great fun)

With so many new playspaces in one week it has been interesting to see how the children have reacted...  first there is an exploration phase, where they test out things... then (as we spend almost 2 hours at each park) they settle into various kinds of role play utilising the playspace as props or inspiration to their play.


On Friday we will reflect together (with images) on the playspaces... which was their favourite, and why... and if they were to design their dream playspace what would they want to be in it... (and maybe then I can create an image of this, similar to what I did for their dream square the first image (of several) can be found here)

Bubble game..

As promised on my facebook page... here is the bubble game

It started out with the children sitting on chairs in a circle... and when I whispered a name the child would come into the middle to pop the bubbles that I blew at the same time... the other children sitting calmly and watching... not so easy when popping bubbles is so much fun...

The game is designed to support the children in their listening skills and also in the self-regulation skills...

Sometimes I will say the same child's name several times in a row... as it was obvious when we were talking that children often have a tendency to switch off just after they have answered or contributed to the conversation... this not knowing whether I will say their name more than once.. or two three or even four times in a row keep them a little more on their toes, keeps them listening actively, helps them to practice being aware of how other's participate also...

The game has been developed with the children lining up against the wall... and the names come faster (why we stand up rather than sit down)... we have done it when the childrne can cheer each other on, and also in total silence... again challenging the children in different ways... keeping quiet requires an awful lot of self control...

We also play that all the children are to pop the bubbles at the same time, but not to make a noise and not to touch another child... each touch means those children sit out and watch, the idea to look at the technique the other children are using... those who are left (or the one child that is left.. depending on how long the bubble session goes, as we don't have the children sitting and watching for too long) will also share their technique for not bumping into someone else whilst popping bubbles... all the children then try again, trying to apply the techniques observed and listened to...

it is a VERY popular game, and the children want to play again and again... we do not talk about winners... we talk about working together so that no-one bumps into another, so that everyone plays the whole time.

Playing this game in many different ways is good fun and also means that the children get to practice their listening and their self regulation playfully... Even though we have played this game many times it is still hard work for several children to keep still and not pop the bubbles in the middle... and keep still in the sense of staying in their place until their name is called out.... and since we are a small group of children it is seldom that they have to wait for a long time...

I am not sure if I have been clear enough in this description... so if you have any questions, please ask...

collaborative painting

During the last 6 weeks we have been reading the Rainbow Fairy books during snack time... the idea is that the children sit and eat their snack while I read the story aloud... with NO PICTURES... this was a real challenge for the children at first... they asked constantly for pictures... and I encouraged them to use their imagination instead... they tried hard to look at the book cover, which interfered with their ability to listen - so I ended up wrapping the first three books in some other paper.. so that the children could relax and listen... the last four books they have got the hang of being able to listen without the need for visual input... I would love to be able to see the images the children create for themselves in their heads...

Two weeks ago some of the children made black and white mushrooms to represent Fairyland from the books... devoid of colour, since the rainbow fairies were in need of being rescued...

Now as we read the last story, and the colours will return to Fairyland, as the last rainbow fairy has finallt been rescued... we have started to paint rainbows over the mushrooms...

One child painting with one colour, and collaborating to create many rainbows... not exactly free creativity... but an exercise of working out which rainbow needs my colour next, an exercise of realising that together we can create something - a collaboration.

I like to use art in many ways... not just a free expression of their creativity, but also to challenge their thinking, to bring them together as a group, and to introduce new techniques which they then can apply in their own creativity...

Parklek... Swedish manned play-spaces

Today the children and I went to Björnstraädgård... a parklek (park-play) on the south island... if you check out my pages you will see there is an option to look at parks and play in Stockholm, I have shared images of Björnsträdgård there, if you are interested...

 While I was there I saw the following sign

where the history of the park was explained... when I first saw this and read that "there parks should be so much fun that no child or youth would want to keep to the streets and squares" I wondered if it was because the adutls did not like them there... and wanted to control them... it could well be... veven though when you read the brief history below you will see there were concerns about adults abusing the children, some 20 years earlier...

A history of parkleks (from Wikipedia... so no great research done here)

A Parklek - playground in Stockholm.
The  playspace is staffed by trained personnel. If it is unmanned, they are called a lekpark =playground.

The first parklek in Sweden started as charities. The very first was probably in Norrköping, where a playground was opened in 1914 on the initiative of Maria Moberg (who along with her ​​sister Ellen also launched the country's first kindergarten - in 1899). 

The first major investment in playground activities came two years later, in 1916, in Stockholm. The journalist Gerda Marcus saw how many children were running around on the city's yards and streets while their parents worked, and how they became easy prey for adults who abuse children. One of her social projects for the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet started playground with park employees in Vasa Park (I will be taking my children here next week... it is the park next to where Astrid Lindgren lived). The first day was on 14 May 1916 where 100 young children came to the park.

The modern parklek, with municipal employees, was introduced by Stockholm urban gardener Osvald Almqvist. The first parklek was tested in 1936 in Observatorielunden and Björnsträdgarden with great success, and two years later was 14 more parkleks were added. In 1940 this was extended to a year round availability and not just during the summers.  

In 1980, there were at most 200 staffed parkleks in Stockholm. Two of  three parkleks have been closed since then and in 2008 there were only 54 left. Until the 1980s, each child in Stockholm have a maximum of 50 meters from the door to a toddler playground and 500m to a staffed playground. Distance Rule 500 meters is now changed to 1000 meters. 


There is also a film that you can watch about parks in Stockholm from the 1970's - I have translated the Swedish text, so you know what it is about... but even in the seventies there is a concern that children mught harm themselves when playing...in fact there are many arguments that sound very similar to today's "fight" for children's right to free play...

film from 1970 on Stockholms Parklek -
The film's announcer text is structured as a conversation between three people. A gently critical and questioning mum is not sure that the idea of ​​playground activities and its pedagogy fits her son Klas Gustav. Her questions are answered by a woman and a man who argue for the development parkleks offer -   the meeting of children of different backgrounds. At one point the man says: "It's a shame about Klas Gustav - kids need this stuff to tighten all external and internal organs.".

It's Street office park department who ordered the film - and who organized the educational playgrounds in Stockholm. The film is told proudly that "Stockholm is ahead, not just of other cities in Sweden, but throughout Europe. People come from all countries to collect inspiration." It is emphasized that the parks department has trained people working with "people doing research in the child's behavior." The philosophy is that children should learn from each other and "doing stuff themselves without adults."

1970, Stockholm 160 playgrounds and according to the narrator was the goal was to basically every child would have a playground within four hundred meters.

So all of this has got me thinking... 
are playgrounds for children - really for children - or is this just another way to control childhood? I haven't really thought this through at all... it just a wild question that I want to mull over...

more light exploration...

On Friday we explored light again... after playing in puddles outside we came in and looked at images of our light play from Wednesday...

It was interesting to see what caught the children's imaginations... it was very much the photos of themselves... and the short films.. so we have plans for next week to show five short films that I take of the children to reflect upon... of course less films if the children have a greater need of time to reflect on each one... we talked about having films of everyday things, not just of activities, in order to help the children become aware of their actions, their routines, and the small things in life...

In the afternoon my daughters came over together with two of their friends (13-14 yr olds) - and they played with the children. I set up  the light installation again, to see how the children would interact this time... I used the photographs from the reflection session in the morning, including the films.

The teenagers seemed mostly interested in creating with the magnetic tiles and the lights... apparently a kind of Hogwarts... the preschoolers observed their collaboration, their discussions and joined in and helped too.

When it was time to pack up my daughters asked to explore the emergency sheet/tent - as they knew it had a tunnel like property (since we have played with one at home). They put a string of lights inside... which we could see from the outside... and then the children (regardless of age) all took it in turns to walk and crawl through the glowing silvery tunnel.

There were slightly less children than the morning of Wednesday, so this could have also influenced how the light was explored, as well as having older children there... but there did seem to be a different level of exploration. There was less role-play that leads to the chase play... and more play of the exploratory kind... if I dance and wave the chiffon what happens? if I run back and forth through the netting what happens? can I make the balls of light become the same colour by timing how I switch them on and off? The children watched each other and then tested themselves what their friends had been doing...

It could be a good idea to do this one more time (at least) and possibly add some more materials to see how it affects the play and exploration...

 exploring shadows

Exploring shadows with chiffon scarves

 exploring the sensory experience of the material and light pouring over the body

 construction with magnetic tiles and light

 lights on the inside of the tunnel taken from the outside... the material has such an interesting property of being not fully transparent... only when the light source is stronger on the other side...

 going through the tunnel

Puddle Play

Puddles really are brilliant... they offer so much play potential... from running through and feeling he difference that makes... to jumping and splashing, to sitting in them, collecting water as an ingrediant... to making rivers in the gravel and sand... when there is water... there is nearly always play...

Not much has changed... this was the case when I was a child... when my much younger colleagues were children... and also I see it now... hopefully this puddle play will always be with us and no-one will be making signs banning it..

making pretend tea...

strange!

Sometimes you have to wonder...

In the many yards/communal gardens in the area where the preschool is situated there are playspaces - with slides and climbing frames, swings and sandboxes... there are also signs saying "ballgames forbidden" just a few metres away from a basketball net...

Light and Art Installation - PLAY and ART

 After visiting the exhibition urSinnen at Färgfabriken on Monday I wondered if I could build on the children's playful interaction with art.. with the challenge to the children to play and think about "what is art?"
I also challenged them to rethink their play... not there usual games this time... this time was to explore the light art installations and to interact with them...

During the session I reminded them twice, as they slipped into chasing games, or the role-play game that precedes the chasing game... as this was not the space, as it was set up, for chasing... and they all had ben told that we would go to play outside afterwards to run, chase and play as they freely wanted to... on the second reminder I asked if they were finished with the exploration and ready to go outside to play chase... no, they wanted to continue to explore...
The art exploration lasted about 45 minutes...

 Suddenly they discovered one shadow was larger than the other... why... and so they started to experiment...

 walking backwards they discovered their shadows got bigger

 and walking closer their shadows got smaller... later on two other children made the exact same dicovery together.

 As the overhead projection was over a matress it allowed a different kind of physiacality to explore the light and shadow... all the children that explored here jumped and watched their shadows fly.

After about 20 minutes I notised that there were not so many coming to this area... and as it made the room quite bright in conjuction with the other installations I switched it off to give the other areas more effect.

 Across the room from the overhead we had hung two sheets of mosquito netting... In my head I had hoped that it would both capture the image as well as letting the image through... I also wanted to create a tunnel sensation so that the children could feel as if they could walk into the art and be a part of it, as well as the sensory feel of the material on their bodies...

 I have to say that I was really pleased with the effect... it actually worked as I had visualised it... and the children interacted with it in may ways... as groups, pairs and quite often individually...

 All of the children reacted with huge smiles and amazement as the entered this installation

 there were also severla chiffon scarves available to add more effects... many were used as wings.

 I spent yesterday evening collecting images of the children's artwork over the last year... as well as things that were artlike... to see if the children would reflect upon whether or not these were art... but I think the effect of everything maight not have given them the time to start making these reflections.... yet. I loved how the children became part of the art... there is a child in the middle of that artwork...

 It was also interesting to se how the art moved as the mosquito netting moved

 At the far end of the room there was a light construction area... so the children could explore and construct their own light artworks... these children were talking about dragon powers as they played with the light sources (they all changed colours)

 I got all excited when I saw this photo as it looked like the child is shooting out magic powers - really it is just a string of lights... being moved to decorate the light contruction

 An emergency blanket made the base of this installation... to make it all reflective... here you can see the string of lights better too... and magnatiles were used to contruct with...

 The children built around some fibreoptics... bits of it are sticking out between the cracks... and then the string of light was wrapped around...

 Every once in a while, when you are taking photographs in the dark... the photo is not OF something but is just some kind of magical artwork of its own...

 The mosquito netting continued to have the biggest pull... children experiemnting in different ways... in it, in front, behind... and in collaboration with others too... the multilayers added new dimensions to the children's shadows... suddenly there were more arms than they expected!!

 The chiffon also added a dimensions... catching the light and art... and creating shadows...

 The children watched each other explore the light... looking face into the art as if bathing in the light...

 and turning round to see their shadows

Lots to explore
The children will get to see the photos prjected onto the wall, as part of their reflection on Friday... with sucj a visiual week... a visual reflection meeting seems right...
and Friday afternoon another session with the three installations seems in order too!

Tomorrow

I was going to write up a post about our philosophy session yesterday... but instead I have attended a first aid course (about taking care of children in emergencies) and have spent the evening preparing for tomorrow... we are going to fix our own light and art installation at preschool... to see how the children react... projecting images from Monday's visit to urSinnen exhibition, as well as images of various works of art the children have made... including patterns they made in the snow last winter, constructions they have made, leaf patterns, bubble blowing... to really get them reflecting about what is art...

We have plans to hang things from the ceiling.. to get it to be a sensory sort of experience... hopefully we can pull it off...

So going to sign off now... and start gathering various sources of light for the children to explore...

I wonder if we get it to be as an amazing experience as this... this was the most liked element of the urSinnen experience, based on today's philosophy session...

urSinnen - of the Senses

"The exhibition "of the Senses" at Färgfabriken is a meeting between infant research and art. New ground-breaking infant research is teaching us more about adult human emotions, morality and aesthetic experience. What questions do infant scientists/researchers ask today? How do artists create art that includes an infant's sensual approach to a work?"


 "Partaking of culture is a democratic right without age limit. Both artistic and scientific research shows that babies can assimilate elaborate contemporary art. The latest advances in international brain research suggests that human abilities for creativity and improvisation already starts in infancy. The child's approach to make intelligible their new world can be compared with the artist and the researcher's desire to explore hitherto unknown terrain where visions and hypotheses tirelessly tested against reality again and again."


 "The artworks in the exhibition offers a venue where children and adults can have a shared experience on equal terms. "of the Senese" wants to convey an artistic experience that is valid for all, regardless of age and previous knowledge."


The exhibition is a result of  discussions nd experiments that started in autumn  2011 in collaboration with  Färgfabriken, Artikel 31, Uppsala Barn och Babylab och HDK in Gothenburg.
 "Föreningen Artikel 31 - The "association Article 31" investigates conditions for how children can exercise their right in Article 31, to participate freely in cultural life and the arts."

The above are excerpts, translated into English by me, from Färgfabrikens website about the exhibtion we visited today... urSinnen at Färgfabriken

It certainly was an interesting experience... and I am not sure how much I want to write here and now... part of me wants to try and make sense of it, or pick it apart... or both... and part of me wants to keep open and just wait and see what the children will say in our philosophy session tomorrow... showing the very photos I share here with them, to stimulate their memory...

Of course the photos are very much taken with my perspective of what I saw and how I saw them play... and their play (once they had tested everything out) became their usual mummies and daddies and witch games that they have been playing for weeks....

It made me think about the light explorations we had this time last year... where the first two sessions were mostly screaming, reacting, shouting, laughing, running and experiencing the light and the dark... but on the third session it became more exploration, time for curiosity... so I have e-mailed already to book another time... to revisit Färgfabriken, to see if our dialogues about what we have experienced will awaken a different approach to experiencing the art...

So for some images... and the explanations from the website, as well as my own thoughts...

" Lars Siltberg is a Swedish artist who, among other things, is interested in the body's development in a technological environment. Central to his video work is the meeting between the dreams of a new world and technology's or the body's way there. In this exhibition, he shows a video work that projects a stream of new life forms. A green skin-like mass moves, grows and turns. "
The children were very much into the ramps here... which at the time felt like a really good thing... maybe run off some of that built up energy from the journey to Färgfabriken, where the need for safety means we have to stick close together, have to follow the rules - while the children played (and made lots of noise... we did actually have to ask them not to scream) Anette told us about the exhibition and that it was OK for the children to experience it their way - of course there still needed to be respect for the works of art...
Not many of the children in this group took the time to look at the film... although they all did see it.

 "Goran Kajfes and David Osterberg are two Swedish musicians that through a large network and musical experimental spirit work with a variety of expressions. They take part in the exhibition with a bathysphere, a spherical metal tank akin to those submarines used by e.g Jacques Cousteau to dive into the deep-sea graves, the few places on earth that are still unexplored."
I think this was my favourite of all the works... but I am partial to things that you can touch and you can see and hear the effect straight away... noise and light by turning the many many steering-wheels. When you were inside it the globe the noise was a bit too instense for me... it reminded me of a baby exhibtion I visited in 2000 (while pregnant with my twins) - we started in a room where we laid down in the darkness, it was very warm, very loud and the light changed every once in a while... it simulated being in the womb - the heart, voices, stomache noises etc etc... the sun shining on the stomache... made me glad I was not a baby in the womb again, also made me realise why being on top of the spinning washing machine was so comforting for my new born girls!!
The children made the connection to a boat... both the steering wheels and the sound effects gave them this idea.

 The Swedish artist Ebba Matz's installation, visitors crawl under a funnel-shaped pavilion of red and white sails parachute material hanging down from the entire height of the art gallery. The visitor is captured here in a tactile suction cup and there may resign themselves to be tasted and known, and investigated by the artwork itself.
 To be honest I wish I had not read this before I went... because I was really interested in being tasted by this work of art... how would that work? Maybe because it is not easy to relax when you are visiting an exhibition with 11 three to five year olds that I did not feel this sensation... the children seemed to use it as one of their houses in a role play game. This was also a work of art that they had to be told NOT to twist... I mean reall something hanging there is just asking to be twisted... just like they love doing with swings...

 In American artist Nina Katchadourian's world pictures and phenomena get new meanings when they are connected in unexpected ways. For "of the senses" Nina has worked on a new piece that hangs in the exhibition hub, the central place that lent its form of squid three hearts.

I did not have the opportunity to lie down with the children here and listen to what they had to say about the artwork... so I am very much looking forward to that tomorrow. This space also became a house for their play

The above pictures show how lighting really creates an atmosphere... the chairs were filled with knitted squids and the floor with balls of wool... this was the only interaction I saw of that space...

Lower pictures...
 Candice Breitz is a South African video artist who lives and works in Berlin. In this exhibition, she shows the Canadian identical twins Natalie and Jocey Tremblay side by side in a stereoscopic video installation. A fascinating picture of two people's entanglement emerges in a story about how our own mirror image and persona are shaped and by mirroring the other.

This was my least favourite... mostly because of the swearing... and because, even though the story these twins had to talk about was interesting, it was not something that engaged the young children... was this making art accessible? When I questioned about the appropriate use of swearing in an exhibtion that is designed for children, I was told it was not designed for children... so I said then it is designed with children in mind... no I was told it was for everyone...
So I have gone back to the text that Färgfabrik has written about this exhibition... the words child/ren, baby, infant are used 22 times, as well as Article 31 which is a children's right article...the word people/person is used 4 times, and the word adult/grown-up is used 5 times... this makes it hard for me to understand that this is NOT an exhibtion with children in focus... and if it is not then I also feel very sad... what is its purpose then...? I thought it was about allowing children to have equal value...?
...the explanation went on... that she could not censur an artist... but I wonder if this artist actually designed this piece for this exhibtion... what was the artist thinking about using clips of people telling their story with the use of swear words... does this mean that children's books should have swear words in them so that they can be a part of culture...? I am sorry, but I would not have wanted my young children (when they were preschoolers - or even now really) being exposed to the F word... the world is full of beautiful words... why not fill it with more of them? Can this story only be told with swear words?
Well I had to do my research... this piece of work was made in 2009 and is one of a series of videos of twins and triplets... you can find out more on Candace Breitz website... there are also links to media clippings, should you want to go that far... I did, because I am nerdy like that.... as I could not wrap my head around that someone chose to make this particular film for this exhibition.. I simply could not make the connection... I do though LIKE the film, like the story of the twins and value it... but just not here... that is my opinion... it will be interesting to see what the children made of it... they did not spend much time in this room either... I mean what child does want to listen to adults babbling away...? Although I was told infant twins were fascinated by the film...

 Simon Heijdens is a Dutch designer and artist who lives and works in England. He has been highly praised internationally for his kinetic and interactive light sculptures and projections. His works in the exhibition consists of a glass container filled with fluid in which a light beams inexplicable signs and precipitates the color. Like a drop of ink dropped into a glass of water.

I liked this one... it was calming... it would almost have been nice to have been in a little room to block out some of the sound of the other children playing... as if to listen to the light singing. It will be interesting to see what the children have to say about this, as there were moments where the children paused and absorbed this too.

 The Swedish artists Bigert & Bergström have worked for almost 30 years and have produced a long list of projects in which the human relationship to nature and technology is central. For the exhibition, they worked together with two students from KTH who did their final work on a sculpture that takes the  form of  an interactive and tactile tentacle that visitors can lie and sit on. It is controlled by the touch and its waveform putting thoughts and feelings about communication in motion.

This was another work of art that required the children to slow down... and this was a visit where they were very busy, so slowing down was not much on their agenda... many of the children did not spend long enough to feel the movement that was very subtle, one of my colleagues never felt it move. It made a low hissing sort of noise, so I asked if the tentacle was whispering secrets to them... one child started talking about magic powers... I wonder what they will talk about tomorrow? Of course if we come back to visit, there might be more opportunity for slowing down and communicating with the tentacle...?

Kevin Schmidt lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. His works EDM House is a video projection showing a deserted house which was converted into a programmable light installation. The house and lighting flashes to a classic electronic dance track like a brain researcher experiments with fluorescent protein in mouse brains that give rise to brilliant ideas.

 Not so sure about the brilliant ideas bit... this room was the children's disco room... the dunk dunk dunk of the music and the flashing light, and the house moving in an out on a slightly odd sort of zoom, gave it that effect... I remembered something about the mouse brain... and it was only when I got back home that I put the two works of art together... I could not stay in the room, it was visually over stimulating together with the music... it was the strange zooming in and out that made me feel motion sick... go figure, the older I get the more motion sick I seem to be getting...


So this is what we have experienced today... and these are my thoughts... now to puch them aside and to make myself open to what the children have to say... what was their experience?

playing cinderella

On the way back from the park one of the children kept sweeping the ground with a bunch of leaves in her hands saying she liked to scrub the floor... several other children piped up that they too liked to scrub the floor... so I asked if they wanted to scrub the floor in the afternoon? I was met with a huge "yes" reply from all of them...

But this was no ordinary scrubbing of the floor... first I squirted paint onto the floor - yellow, red and white... the children peeled of their socks and trousers, tights and longer dresses - and were allowed to skate and mix up the paint on the floor... they had an amazing time skating around. They were warned about the slipperiness and that they would have to be careful how they painted with their feet...

After a while they each got a little scrubbing sponge to clean the floor with... this is where I took one or two photos at the beginning and then it was all hands on to make sure the activity remained safe...
the floor got VERY wet and VERY slippery.
Again the children were warned that there was a high risk that they might slip and fall... and I got that look of "yeah, right"... and three slips later the children had understood that I had been right... the floor did get slippery when it was wet...

The whole time they were wetting their sponges and "scrubbing" I was drying the floor to makes sure the area around the sinks did not get too slippery... I felt that the floor in the wide open area was an OK risk to fall on, but the area around the sinks had a higher risk that I was not prepared for the children to take... so yes, no more photos taken... I was on the floor on my hands and knees drying like crazy the floor area around the sink.

It is no easy thing to decide to do a risky play activity... my heart beats so much faster than normal, my need to see what everyone is doing is intensified and funnily enough I do think my ability to see everything improves in these situations as I am on high alert... I also know that these kind of activities can only happen for a short length of time when the children have a high focus of their own... so after a while I made the decision that all the children put their sponges in the sink for washing and start to dry the floor with me... which was equally fun...

As soon as the children started scrubbing the floor they announced that they were Cinderella... I guess that is the only place they will see someone scrubbing the floor this way, on their knees, these days...

Canaries in the mine

It struck me, as I was responding to a text about ADHD not being real and that it is just a response to the fact there is not enough time to being outdoors and sitting still for too long...

I feel yes, these are the REACTIONS ... but I feel that my child with a diagnosis of autism/ADHD (not medicated) are the REAL reactions of children... they are unfiltered, genuine, not striving to be an adult or liked by an adult, but striving to be true to themselves...

So maybe, just maybe, we should be listening MORE to the children with ADHD and other diagnoses...
If there are more and more cases (as it keeps being reported) maybe it is because school is becoming MORE and MORE restrictive... these children are the canaries in the mine, warning us that things are going wrong...

Maybe it is TIME to radically change the face of school... not just for the children with ADHD who do not thrive... but for the sake of ALL the children...  to give them a chance to be true to themselves, to connect with their own individual essence of who they are...

Iris Grace seems to have been given the time, space and materials to discover her talents... why are we not affording ALL children this...?

I have been on the phone with my son's mentor... one of many teachers he has... and I want to give a HUGE applause to his teachers, because they are really putting a lot of effort and time into making his and the rest of the children's learning experience a meaningful experience... but it is not working... and it turns out the system has failed both the teachers and my son...
But we will work on this together and try to make it work... I mean you simply don't give up on children, do you?

We have a new prime minister... a new government... will their be changes? Will they be big enough changes... I think most governments are far too afraid to make big changes... but we can hope...

It would be so wonderful if Sweden could be the first to revolutionise its school education on a national level -
 which I think they HAVE to if they insist on school being a legal requirement. The school law talks about the rights of the individual student... but it does not really seem to be working in practice... because that amount of individuality actually requires a different system to work on, it needs more resources, it needs more flexibility for the teachers... and it needs society to value what teachers are doing... so that we all work TOGETHER to raise our children.

So if more and more children are being diagnosed ADHD... maybe it is because the system is not allowing them to thrive... that those children who are true to their childhood make a stand against adulthood and say not yet!
Let children play.
The best learning tool we humans have... 

Reflection
It has been months since I wrote this... so much has happened to my son in this time, and he no longers attends school in the same way... he does not go into a normal class, or have the same hours... after over a term where his self esteem plummeted, his love of school vanished and turned into hate... he is now slowly learning to like school... and therefore starting to find joy in learning again...
Slowly slowly the amount of learning will increase each day... his days will no doubt expand, and hopefully he will spend some time in his class...
BUT it took a parent to shout out loud (and I mean really loud) - to shake the system - so that the teachers and my son got the resources they needed

a ladder to magical powers

In yesterday's philosophy session we talked about where do magic powers come from... there were several ideas being put forward... the fairy queen hands them out, you catch fairies and take the power from them, you mix various things together (they were quite specific what you had to mix... water leaves a strand of hair...then a dash of ice of you wanted ice-power, or some fire if you wanted fire power), from the heart, from the sun... you needed a ladder to get to the sun to shake some powers out of it... you can buy them... etc

Today while they ate morning snack I re-read their thoughts to them so that they could get thinking about how we couldplay with some of these ideas...

The Fairy Group wanted to make a power machine... we looked for boxes and other things that would work, but there were so many ideas and suggestions pouring out of their heads that we decided it would be better to catch some of them on paper first... so the children drew designs... for two of the children most of this time went on how to draw a square... moments of frustration as the pencil kept revealing a circle on their paper... it took patience and for one of the children lots of scaffolding when it became obvious that there had been enough frustration for today... "draw a line.. lift up your pencil... draw a line... lift up your pencil" - the lifting up of the pencil was the deciding factor... something that had not occurred to the child. The other child worked out how to do the square on their own and suddenly the air was filled with the joyous sound of "I did it... I made a square" a voice filled with equal amounts of surprise and pride... those moments are fuel to a preschooler teacher's soul. Interestingly one of the circles in the attempts to make a square (the square idea came from the fact the children wanted to use a certain box) was explained as sun power... so very much in tune with our philosophical dialogue yesterday. The designs are now made... next week we start construction...

The Butterfly Group (the children have chosen the group names) wanted to make a ladder to be able to get to the sun and shake out some powers. They soon discovered that finding a ladder long enough was going to be tricky... so they started designs on a space rocket...

The ladders though have stayed with us...

After afternoon snack I showed the children the Disney/Pixar short film "la Luna" where there is a magic ladder that goes up to the moon...

you can watch the film here... it is LOVELY

This inspired the children... they wanted to fly like the child did... as they saw that he flew in the shower of stars...

So I got out the stepladder, we piled mattresses and cushions around it and the children took it in turns to climb to the top (its not the biggest of stepladders) and the children "flew" with enormous joy.
I put the overhead on to create a more magical feel as they were jumping...

As we tidied up to get ready to go outside there were plans amongst the children to fly again tomorrow...

Slime on the overhead...

Some of the children had been asking for slime in the last week... so I got some out for play...

It started on the overhead, I wondered what kind of patterns it would make on the wall, and I have to say I was a little disappointed, I think it was just too thick to really get too arty with... or to experiment with the flow of the goo...

Some of the younger children came into the ornage room (a room for sensory experiences and experiments) so I moved the slime down to a lower level so it was more easily reached... and could be played with, without the restriction of the overhead.

One of the children started making patterns with beads and ice-cream spoons... the image of the spoon shining on the floor... she put another spoon on the floor and marvelled at the size difference... and that her foot could hide the real spoon yet looked tiny on the image on the floor.

Later, after snack the slime was set up for "baking" - to continue yesterday's baking activity in a more playful way... the spoons, small bowls, big bowls and ice-cube tray ... the children made cakes, soup and pancakes - and could not decside whether what they were making was yummy (it was pretend play after all) or whether it was disgusting (it was slime soup after all!!!!)