The story of communication... part two

In the last few days since writing the first part exploring our adult role in communication I have seen an increasing number of posts about setting up the environment ready for the new academic year to begin (in the northern hemisphere that is... of course in the Southern hemisphere the school year is different, and it is winter right now!)

So I decided that this next post in the series should take a look at the classroom... the learning environment ... the third teacher..

as  Reggio Emilia inspired educator I reflect a great deal about my colleague, the third teacher, and over the years I have written quite a lot of blogposts on the topic, as well as sharing images from settings I have visited...

What I have always struggled with is that many educators focus on how the third teacher looks a little more than how it functions... imagine if that is how we educators were treated too. That how we looked, fixed our hair, the clothes we wear whether we work out over not... all of this had more importance than how we teach, communicate and interact with the children... it was more important than the knowledge and experience we have gained over the years... or more important than the relationships we create with the children, parents and colleagues...

I think we would consider people that looked at us in that way as superficial and missing the point of us as educators... not seeing or valuing what we really do.

Of course the early years does not get the value it should, but not to be valued by our own ECE peers would not be healthy for our teaching self-esteem.

So in this post I want to look at how the room communicates... with you as a teacher, with the children as learners, with the humans that spend time there...

Start with the question...
what is the intention of the room?
The intention of the room at the start of the year might be about making the children feel welcome, feel settled and feel comfortable to interact with others...

How do you with the resources that you have meet these needs?
How are you going to arrange the furniture to create space for the children to meet and talk with each other? Do you want them in just big groups or smaller groups? or able to change the size of their group throughout the day (which would mean a selection of space sizes from large to the small).

Do you want the children to feel independent and competent? How do you set up a room to do that?
If you have EVERYTHING out and visible at the beginning and the children do not like to tidy up or are not ready to cope with the amount of resources then you are setting the children up for failure and yourself for frustration and hard work picking up after them... Why not limit the resources in the beginning to see how the children manage those, allowing them to feel in control of the space by being able to play and tidy up after themselves without feeling overwhelmed? New things can be introduced bit by bit... and these introductions can allow you as an educator to enhance the play and learning you see the children engaged in and allow the classroom to meet those needs. It also allows you the time to explain some tools and how they can be safely used... rather than having everything out at the same time and a feeling of risk in the everyday is higher than what it maybe should be.

For instance I have worked in groups where scissors are a great creative tool and all the children knew how to hold, transport and use them... while in other groups the scissors have posed a problem, carried in a dangerous way, not being held properly and accidents happen (too frequently) or children use them inappropriately which switches the scissors from risk to dangerous...
Access to scissors is based on the children's ability to use them and their relationship with them... the room needs to communicate I trust you... and if you are placing materials in the room that require you to police the children then the room and you are saying you do not trust.
When I have had groups with children unable to happily and safely interact with scissors (regardless of age) then I put the scissors out of reach and in a space where they need to ask me to use them, I will bring them down and we can work together, communicating with the children how to hold them, how to carry them and how to use them so that they can get creative... with the intention that as soon as they are ready the scissors can be placed in a place where they can reach themselves.
Just as we do not let people drive cars without lessons and learning first and proving that they can drive safely, I think we need to use the same approach with tools in preschools... so they do have that competence and I avoid coming in saying no.

I want to create a room that says yes.

And more importantly that allows me to say yes rather than no.

Look around the room. Do you see anything that might make you say no to the children? Why does it have this no potential? Can you make changes so that the room clearly allows the children - permits their play - rather than requiring you to police and possibly restrict their play and learning?

Take the time to look from the child's height. It does look very different from their height. Does it look inviting or intimidating? If the latter what changes can be made?

Children have a very different sense of beauty than what adults have. Attempting to clone what others do is not always the best option. Find out what your  children need and like.  Will baskets, neutral colours and the like calm them or send them to sleep? Is that their sense of a learning environment? I am personally not an educator that likes a lot of visual clutter and lots of colours brightly challenging my eyes... but equally I don not like the opposite where there is no colour and devoid of all clutter. I like a learning space that says welcome - come play, come learn, come share your ideas with others... and also a space that celebrates this process, the children can see their value, the value of their ideas etc as this is communicated in the space too. We do not need fancy furniture and expensive materials to be able to do this. We get creative with what we have.
Not all learning spaces have the financial means to get exactly what they want from the catalogues - it is about recycling and upcycling... which is a very sustainable approach to education and also has its own beauty/aesthetic

When we look at images from other people's settings we need to always take this into consideration... we do not know what kind of budget they have, we seldom know how the space is used and what kind of children's needs and abilities they are meeting, we seldom take the time to ask about how the space communicates with the children... it is so often judged on how it looks.

This is part of the reason why Malaguzzi did not want people to take photos of the settings in Reggio Emilia... he did not want others to simply come and take photos to then replicate the space elsewhere... he wanted the educators to start a journey together with their third teacher... where they get to know each other and learn how to communicate with the children... to communicate a joy for learning. The downside is that there are many educators out there in the world saying you need to have this or that, or get rid of this or that for it to be truly "Reggio Emilia" inspired... and yet there are no images to say this is right or wrong, just word of mouth that seems to have been distorted over time - where no plastic, or natural baskets or loose parts or nature are the must do or the must have in order to be Reggio...
Start with the children.
Your relationship with the children.
How do you view childhood and what they can do, should do? How is this reflected in your learning space (indoors and outdoors). How do you communicate with children? How is this reflected in the space? What is the intention of your learning space? How does this impact the room?

What about sound, light, smell, touch - and why not taste... how do these all fit into your room? Do these elements hinder or enhance learning... what can be done to ensure that the room enhances learning rather than hinders, considering all the senses.

we also need to think about how the room communicates inclusion.
Does every child feel welcome?
Can every child feel they can identify with the room or elements of the room? ie does a child with a foreign language have access to her own language through books for example... even if you as an educator cannot read them, their very presence in the space says that her language is valued.
Does the learning space require that some children need extra help? Why do they need this support? Can the room be designed so that all children feel competent.

I have been seeing this image going round facebook the last few weeks, and it made me think of education... (in fact there are several versions that can be found if you google equality, equity and justice meme - so I included a few here)

What I feel we should be aiming for in our classrooms is the justice or liberation - the sad fact is the education is mostly set up for equality which means those that can thrive, those that struggle struggle more... there are schools and educators that strive to ensure that there is equity, that the children get what they need to be able to achieve... but really what we should be doing is designing our learning spaces so that all can be who they are and thrive and achieve and not have to conform to a school norm with standardised learning and tests that is so exclusive.
The really sad part is that reality seems to be going to some kind of extreme that there are those who have that keep getting more boosts and opportunities to achieve and thrive, while others get more taken away - not everyone is getting the chance to rise to the height of their own potential.

So designing your classroom and what it communicates is an incredible complex task. It is so much more than beauty.

How do you include the neurodiverse? Children of different colour, culture, language, religion etc? How do you include families that are not the norm... where the norm is seen as a mother father and children... not all families look like this... does your learning space make all children feel welcome, that all children can find their personal identity reflected?

is the room designed so that the children follow orders, learn obediently, or is there space for joy, laughter, care? What feeling/emotion does the room communicate... does it communicate an openness to learn and explore?

Then there is language?
Language to communicate?
Is your space set up to create a space that encourages children to communicate with each other, verbally and non-verbally?
Do you have words hanging over the room on shelves, walls and the floor, down from the ceilings? Why? Who are they for, especially for pre-readers? Does it overwhelm or enhance the children's desire to read? Or do they become invisible to the children... which in a way is devaluing the written word in the eyes of the child?
Are there other ways you can support language and communication? For instance Soledad at her preschool in Norsborg (see link below) has lists of words for the educators, they are tucked away, but visible enough to remind the educators to diversify their language - to not just rely on the same stock phrases. I like to hang question samples in the documentation room/office to remind educators that there are many many questions that can be asked... to the children, and ourselves as we make changes in the classroom and write up our observations...
Get the children involved in the documentation process so that they see that their words can be written down... this has far more power than vocabulary hanging from the ceiling or on shelves. The children's own words.
Are you communicating your expectations of the children by hanging these words... or the ideas and potential of the children by sharing their words? And this is not just an either or thing... both can work together... it is about mixing things up to create a space that works for you in your context.

Below are some links to posts that might be useful...

The story of communication part one
Open ended materials vi closed ended materials - this posts looks on the materials used and offered to children... do you avoid plastic, why? What is an open ended material? Are closed ended materials bad - always? Why?
The Political Nature of Reggio Emilia - this post is here to remind you that this is NOT a pedagogy about beautiful materials... it is a pedagogy of communication of rights, values, and respect.
The benefits of BIG play - a post to remind you that BIG play is important... how are you designing your learning space so that children can learn with their entire bodies?
Visit to Anden preschool in Haninge
The story of eating together - a post to reflect on WHY to you serve the food the way you do? Is there a more correct way? How does culture and context play a part in all of this?
Story of a word - looking at language
A visit to Aspen preschool in Norsborg - this is Soledad's preschool, as I mentioned above
Inspiration not cloning - please always be inspired by the posts that I share, the images I share... but always always always reflect and think why is this meaningful and relevant for you and your children?

Some images

The learning in a story

Today I worked for the last time with the advanced group. After playing and exploring the learning and then creating plans together they were given the challenge to read a wordless book and explore what ideas could be found for play and learning.

The group was divided into three groups... and the books used are

Flotsam by David Wiesner
Sidewalk Flowers by Jon Arno Lawson and Sydney Smith
Journey by Aaron Becker

There was 45 minutes to explore the books and discover the play and learning potential. The idea was to find as many as possible - to look closely at the images, at the ideas, at the details and to see how we could interest the children as well as follow their interests by providing materials and play/experiment/exploration opportunities.

The idea was to practice making plans, to be able to create play opportunities and to better understand the learning that happened within them... to not only increase their own knowledge of how play and learning walks hand in hand... but also to arm them with the knowledge they need to let parents know that play-based learning is real... that there is no such thing as just play - and just for laughs is no "just" thing either... as laughing is essential - to create safe relationship where there is trust, to create a relaxed atmosphere where a child can feel safe to learn and also laughter boosts the immune system, so keeping them healthier.

I was great to see how the educators used their knowledge of the play we had participated in the previous days - the play allowing them maybe to see details in the book that they would otherwise have missed...

and things like birds and flowers have become more of thing for many of the educators because of my fascination with them... I am continuously stopping to take photos... bird nerd that I am... no expert just love to watch and learn

myna birds watching the city of Jenin

At a later date, when my notes of this meeting are put into more oder... I will create the activity/play/learning plans that we came up with on this blog for all to take part in.

Illustrating learning and play

Today will just be a brief post... because I have been busy all day and I need to rest... but I promised myself a post a day... even if it was just a short one.

Yesterday I wrote a children's story based in Jenin with the idea of introducing magic, imagination and also points of learning...

I read the story today to the advanced group and then with their shadow playing skills from Tuesday they were asked to illustrate the story in six scenes.
First they needed to agree on which scenes from the story should be illustrated, and then each chose a scene.

I provided materials for them to choose and they explored light and shadows again to create the illustrations, which we then took photos of.

Afterwards we explored the learning... but also how this one story could offer months and months of exploration... I helped them break down each scene into science and geography explorations... into philosophical inquiries, into art projects and biological investigations - as well as language and literacy and math... we basically had the curriculum covered...

It is always so much fun to see how much learning and play can be found in a story - and my illustrating the story they found further learning and play  potential.

It is unlikely you will be able to work out "our" story from these images... but maybe you could make another story?

Pippi Longstocking inspired role-play area

There is a surprise waiting for the children on Monday... the role-play area has had a make-over...
Now we have a Pippi Longstocking inspired area...
and for several reasons...

1.   Pippi Longstocking turns 70 this year
2. We have plans for a Pippi celebration on National Preschool Day - which is actually Pippi's birthday too. Pippi activities on the square.
3. The Pippi stories celebrate childhood and the competence and strength of children.
4. From a gender perspective Pippi stories share a strong female role-model. 
5. The children in Molnet are in the middle of a project about "same and different" and they have been taking a closer look at the "room where you eat" - sharing with each other a photograph from each child's place of eating... so of course Pippi's place of eating was a natural addition to the play possibilities of this project.

It will be interesting to see how the children react and play... and more things will be added based on our observations of the children's play... to deepen and extend it.

I painted some extra shelves on the background with the hope that some of the children will be inspired to draw more things to put on the shelves and therefore contribute to the look of the role-play area.

There are also intentions to get scrubbing brushes that the children can attach to their feet so that they can play cleaning the floors, just like Pippi does.

Light play

Sometimes there is time for me to play... rather unexpectedly, when there are many children on vacation or sick or both - and many children that come a little later than usual too... this creates a moment for exploration...

The children are interested in writing, and I want to be able to give them different experiences where writing and play weave together - and also other learning elements and discoveries...

I put a clear plastic box on the overhead and then put a mix of lentils and coloured rice into the box. The idea was to be able to draw and create shapes in the lentils. I loved the colour and the texture, but it was just not really working to create light shapes - you really need to swoosh your finger round and round to make it defined... and when you tried to make details the gaps soon filled up with lentils again.

So then I tried some coloured salt (light blue and mixed with some glitter - the glitter though does stock to fingers, which I found a bit irritating later in the day as I picked bits out - and no matter how I washed my hands (which was very many times as I got quite messy with papiermaché later on) there was still bits of glitter.... but I guess that is glitter for you.

Only a very thin layer of salt was needed to make the wall black - and it was very easy to write and draw in - of course there is that great surprise that it is upside down on the image on the wall.

With a slight shake you could even the salt out and start again. it did require a bit of technique in wrist action to get it evenly across the base of the box though...

A child (age 3) came in to watch what I was doing... just after I had drawn a circle and a triangle... the child exclaimed that it looked like roads...

Then he started to play - creating roads and parking houses(apologies for the filming... my focus was on the child and not on the filming quality)

and then he started to write words - making symbols and sounding them out... and then he started to count...

The child looked at the wall more than at what his hands were doing.

Storycards revisited

Its now been about 2 months since I created the storycards for my work... and it has been interesting to watch how they have been used...

I have lined them up and told stories based on them... by either careful selection beforehand, or completely randomly with the children... I have seen them do the same thing.

I have also seen the children in much the same way they would use small dolls and figures... a kind of small world play with the storycards... telling/playing elaborate stories in small groups...

The cards have been taken into the atelier as inspiration for the children's drawings.

They have also been used for specific storytelling practice..

With the prompt phrases...
There was once....
Every day...
But one day...
Suddenly...
and then...
Since that day...

The storycard has been the inspiration to the story - the card is photocopied with the text that is written down as the children tell the story... the teacher using the key phrases to prompt the story further...

This technique has not yet been used by my group, but I have observed the 3 year old group doing this.

The story cards have been added to... as the 3 year old group have been exploring ghosts I added ghost cards and haunted house cards to the collection... fat ghosts, scary ghosts, happy ghosts, sad ghosts... again the idea is to not just give one view point of what a ghost is, or how it behaves..

Molnet is now going into an exploration of fear (a natural development) - so I feel I will be adding more images soon... but luckily they have fallen into the idea of Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wold... and various images are already represented - including kind wolves, happy wolves, small wolves and big bad pigs....

The idea is that the storycards can be added to all the time to fit in with the projects the children are working on and exporing... and then the children have the power to combine the old images with the new images.. to mix the stories together... to combine their previous knowledge with that they are learning now...

AND most importantly I strive to create cards that represent all of society and not just the norms...

the importance of the spoken language...

We have embarked on a collaboration with Stureby Preschools, a collection of 6 city-run preschools. They have been working with a norm-critical thinking apporach, where the focus is not looking at those who are different and helping them to become a part of the "accepted norm" but to look at what the accepted norm is, to question that, to understand that an to see how that can be changed to welcome ALL in. It is about inclusion, acceptance and respect.

We at Filosofiska have the opportunity to learn more about this norm-critical thinking approach, and we will share what we have learned about using a philosophical approach.

We met yesterday briefly. The questions were great and I can see the benefits of being questioned on such a deep and meaningful level... but I also saw the problem in this kind of approach too.

The focus is of course we share what we know about philosophy for/with children - so of course everything that we do at preschool is not shared... we magnify the philosophy, which means there is a focus on the spoken language when we talk to others about philosophy.

sitting watching the water run into the drains... other children saw, and came to sit and watch too, sharing ideas without verbal communication

We were quite rightly questioned on this focus on the verbality of the dialogue, and that not all children learn this way, and that learning requires the children to experience, to have a hands on approach...

Which of course we do... everyone who has been following my blog will know that we have a very hands on approach to learning, there are experiences for the children to try out with their bodies, their emotions etc and opportunities to talk about it, play it... the dialogue part of the philosophy is a small part of what we do... the philosophical approach is there all the time as a guide for how we as teachers work, with the children, with the third teacher (the setting environment), with our colleagues and with the parents... it permeates everything we do. We need to question the what, the why and the how, so that it is always meaningful.

sometimes there has been no play possible, because the children have not been able to communicate anything except "mine". Through play we have been able to support the "community of learners" approach.

So, I begin to wonder, how it is possible to share what we do philosophically without making it seem like that is all we do - sit in a circle and talk...

ready for dialogue

How can I be better at communicating that our "pre-philosophy" does not have that focus, but that our focus is on children communicating ideas with each other, and learning as a community.... THAT does not require a spoken language... especially when you think that the youngest of our children do not yet have a spoken language but are fully capable of communicating with us and with each other... all teachers who work with the VERY young will witness this non-verbal communication.

this child had the idea of painting with feet and communicated this to other one year olds how much joy there was in this experience... two other one year olds expressed non-verbally that they too wanted to try this out, and also got the opportunity to do that... they experienced it completely differently and not with the same joy...

So easily we are focussing on the spoken word, and of course on reading and writing... something that is given so much priority as to what learning is... that a child is clever if it learns to read and write early... and a child with advanced social skills or motor skills is not given the same status as the reading and writing child... why is that?

What I have seen is that all children will learn to read and write IF they are taught when they are ready... trying to teach a child to read and write before they are ready can be disastrous, and can lead to problems much later on, when everyone thinks they should be able to read and write and the correct support is not given. Also when I ask children about when they will start school, it is always about learning to read and write... not about any other form of learning... why is other learning not given the same importance? (I am not saying that reading and writing is not important)

When I look at many websites and literature about philosophy with/for children there is ALWAYS the focus on the verbal communciations as well as on the written communication; children keep logbooks and write down their ideas etc...

reading stories together, acting them out, children learning to communicate directions/story and children learning to listen and act them out, books open to interpretation... each "director" brought their own twist to the story.

In a preschool the focus is on learning, on play, on a whole-child-development - individually and together. The philosophy we have been doing has not been just sitting down in a circle with a focus on the what is being said... YES, we do this, as children will benefit from this skill, but it is one skill of many. We have focussed very much on listening - when we are in dialogue, but also in our play, with the very popular bubble game, with pretending to be mirrors and copying what the person opposite does, with playing board games, with making constructions, listening to stories, playing tag etc games outside, by observing nature... everything we do supports the children in their listening, in the social interactions, in the learning... and as teachers we support the children to think critically... to look closely and wonder.... this does not need a spoken language to do. Sharing ideas can be done through art, play etc... but that kind of sharing is also much more subject to interpretation... the spoken language helps us get more detailed about our ideas... where we can confirm whether another person has interpreted your idea correctly or not... or whether their interpretation allows you to deepen your own understanding, change perspective, or make you more sure of your own thinking...

art as an exploration of ideas... perspective... why do I see things differently from you... how come the fruitbowl looks different depending on where you are sitting even though it is the same fruitbowl?

out in nature... do the snails want to be carried around, do they all want to go to the "snail Party" the children have arranged - if they attend to they HAVE to stay... many thoughts can be explored in nature, even silent ones as the children just explore and learn from their experiences.

limits... what are my limits, what are your limits, can I stay within the limits, what happens if I don't... ideas explored as part of an art session. (this was a part of the fairy porject last year)

It is not the spoken language that is the most important... it is the communication of ideas that is the most important... the spoken language is one of the tools that we use.

playing with shadows... why are they so big, is there a dinosaur on the other side of the wall, can I climb on the dinosaur

Of course, by having these philsophical dialogues we can also support the children in their language development... there is a clear structure of listening and talking, of taking turns, of being respectful... wonderful tools to build a language... and a speech therapist that has observed one of our sessions confirmed that the structure was beneficial for children to get a concrete grasp of how spoken communication is constructed.

the Together paintings... a way of exploring how we can work/play together... how we can share, how we can give time and understanding to the needs of others. There are lots of posts about the Together Painting if you want to find out more about this term long project.

the children PLAYING philosophy dialogue

Collaboration is important... not just the kind that everyone nods and agrees, but the kind that questions to get a better understanding of what is going on... to open up the possibility to a deeper understanding even for those who are explaining... learning is marvelous.

story cards in the window

Yesterday a few of the children explored the leaf pegs that hold the storycards on the line by taking them apart... just about all of them... hmmm... they are now fixed, but it is getting me thinking, are the pegs the right way to go? Sometimes they are a bit fiddly to get onto the line... but at the same time it is offering great fine motor practice...

Today two children started their day by dumping all the cards onto the floor, so I explained that the cards were not really to be used that way and promptly started to pick up cards to help them tidy up... at the same time I started sorting out some of the fairy cards onto the window sill. The four children that were in the room at the time (all aged three) saw what I was doing and started to sort out fairy cards too, we started placing the fairy dwellings on the window itself. The children started to pick up cards and say "this is me when I am a fairy"... some of those cards being fairy cards, and some not, but did seem to have a magical feel about them...

They soon filled up the window...

What I noticed was that because these three year olds were focussing less on the motor skill of hanging up the card there was a lot more talking and rearranging of cards, which certainly has its benefits when wanting to have a dialogue about what does a fairy look like....

These cards are certainly getting the children talking...

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...

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)

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...

reading stories

Sometimes the best thing to do is to just hand over the book and let one of the children read for the group.. especially a book that we have not read since last term... a book that the children knew inside out last term... but now required more interpretation of the pictures to be able to tell the story... with the occasional line being totally intact (and not always the line you expect either) - and the best part is seeing yourself in the children, seeing my deliveries and my enthusiasm for stories being captured, and interpreted by the children "reading" for their peers. It was a humbling experience.

But my favourite part is when children look at the pictures and interpret them totally their own way... I am, secretly laughing at the funny but logical connections, but glowing with pride , that the children don't feel inhibited by not knowing the story, but can create their own... and when you get to this page (below) and look at the picture of Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson I bet you never expected that "...and then her legs were magicked away... "where are my legs, they have gone?"" would be what you get to hear. It took me totally by surprise but made perfect sense...

A bit like yesterday when we were rhyming with names... not with real words, just rhyming for fun... and I told them how at another prechool the children rhymed my name Suzanne with Lasagne (no "e" sound at the end in Swedish) -
Suzanne-lasagne
the next thing I knew was one of the children rhymed his friend's name with "meat"
name - "meat"
- of course it didn't rhyme at all... but he had made the food connection.... it was one of the highlights of my day.... and yesterday had quite a few highlights!!

I love how children can make connections that we forget to make. I hope I stay open to them and get to share them and never lose that ability to see life from many perspectives... (and hopefully get to learn many more perspectives on the way)

The Together Painting

We have now been adding to the "Together" Painting for seven days and I am beginning to feel that this is is as much as the paper can deal with... and next week new paper should go up on the easel... with new colours.

I have experimented with the number of children, the number of colours and techniques available to the children...

I noticed that the sponges were popular as an idea and got some different children interested in coming to the easel BUT they did not keep the children at the easel for very long... once they had explored and experienced the sponges dab dab dabbing on the paper they put them down... there has been a definite preference for the paint brushes...

I have also noticed that for some of the children their concentration has really, and I mean REALLY grown. From just a few strokes in the beginning to now being at the easel for 10-15 minutes and interacting with friends, sharing colours, sharing the stories behind what they are painting. The TOGETHER painting really is bringing the children TOGETHER.

Today there were four colours available... meaning four children could work at the easel at the same time. This was no problem at all... there was no competetion for space, or colours... but co-operation and an openness.

Starting with just two children and very controlled in turn taking by me.. to now being totally free for the children to come and go and for there to be four children collaborating TOGETHER - in just seven days. It feels quite satisfying to handing some control of the atelier over to the children. As the children become more confident in their negotiations at the easel then it will be time to let them get the paints out themselves... this IS a group that needs adult interaction to help them. So I am in no hurry, I want them to learn how to swim before casting them out into the deep end! AND to have a whole heap of fun splashing in the shallow end as they discover their own compence!

As you see... this time there was a big interest in writing letters, and words... especially writing names - I put out the name labels so that she could be independant in her exploration of name writing rather than depedning on me... which I was happy to do, but when I realised that she wanted to write all the names it seemed better to give her the control and a method of how to find out how to spell things.

This is how the Together Painting started

Inspiration ping pong

I love it when children are inspired by what we do, which can inspire more children and can then inspire me to meet their needs with an idea I had not yet had for this group yet!

One of the children wanted to take notes during the philosophy session - she had brought her own notebook and pen from home to do it.

I thought it was a great idea to support her budding interest in writing/mark-making, although i did wonder what the other children would make of it... and yes, they were VERY vocal about it - and was she ALLOWED to have that with her, where did it come from... and then they asked her can you buy me one too.

Seeing all the children interested in documenting I asked if they would all like an notebook for our project days to jot down ideas, thoughts and sketches. There were big nods - and so for next Monday I will have to find notebooks for the children...

I feel the notebooks will be better for the project days rather than the philosophy days as we ARE trying to work on listening skills and part of that, at the moment, is showing with our bodies that we are listening. ALTHOUGH it would be interesting to see if those who jot down what others are saying are then able to "read" back the notes... hmmm, will have to give that a try... as the jotting down might actually HELP the listening...