ice exploration

with there being so much snow and ice around, it becomes natural to wonder more about what ice is. Last week we asked the children how we could make ice and we placed the ice tray in front of them - they said it needed to be in the freezer. So we asked if it needed anything else? No they all said - so we put the empty ice-trays in the freezer! The next day they were surprised that there was no ice even though it did feel cold. But what was needed? The children wondered and wondered. So we returned to the documentation - there on the wall was the photo documentation of the previous week's ice/snow project. We had taken in snow and then waited - it had turned into water. We then put it into the freezer to see if we could make snow again - but it froze into ice. "We need water" We added various things to the ice-tray including the pine needles of the Christmas tree that had once stood in the square outside the preschool! The children we fascinated by the fact it felt soft.

Today, after a weekend in the freezer, we took out the trays to see what had happened. It was HARD and it was COLD - there was ICE!

We examined the ice on the light table - how things were stuck inside them; how some cubes were connected together with small twigs; how things started to fall out of the ice, and how hands got wet.

Fascinating to see how two cubes could be connected with a twig bridge!

all sorts of things hiding in the ice - including the left over Christmas tree bits, pine cones, beads, feathers and cotton wool.

Also fascinating to see how the cubes of pine needles held their shape when the ice had all melted - they collapsed the moment you touched them.

There have been talks about making ice-art. How we are going to do that....? Hmmm, time to think and observe the children. First will be our Love Tree art piece - and maybe this will trigger how to proceed with the ice-art!!

setting limits

Setting limits is not my favourite part of being a preschool teacher or a mother - yet I have learned that it is an important part of both roles.

I remember my dad telling me when I was younger that he had a lot of freedom as a child, and that he wished that he had had more limits. I came to understand that limits are needed to enable everyone to feel secure - like having a safety net. Without limits it can imagine it must feel like being in space - nothing to push against, just floating. My parents had PLENTY of limits for my sister and I when we were small - and yes, at times I found that VERY annoying, but I know they set the limits because they loved us, because they wanted to keep us safe - and also to allow us to be children...

As adults we have more life experience, we have learned, and hopefully understood, many of the social codes. Children are learning about emotions, about the world, about everything and therefore setting appropriate limits is necessary. Necessary so that all that learning does not feel overwhelming, necessary so that the child feels safe, necessary so the child feels seen and heard.

I see limits not as a certain shape - its not like we should put children in boxes, having the same expectations of each child. I see limits more of a Barbapapa sort of shape - it is flexible and changing to meet the needs of each child, yet remains the same size. Of course the size will expand as the child' capabilities and understandings expand, just as young fish leave the safety of a coral reef to seek adventure in the ocean. In the beginning the reef offers enough adventures within relative safety where skills can be learned - just as limits can offer children the relative safety to play and learn before having to encounter the vast adult world...

Of course children do not always like limits - in fact sometimes limits can feel like a battleground - and that is why the Barbapapa-shape limits is so important - to learn to pick your battles. Sticking to limits just for the sake of it is not really that meaningful if it has no benefits to the child or children involved. BUT sometimes a tantrum is unavoidable in establishing a limit - and that can feel exhausting - as they need to be set firmly but with tenderness - and that can be tricky sometimes when there is a child screaming and kicking because they refuse to walk back to preschool after an excursion to the park. It is not acceptable for me to leave the child there, or to drag the child along who refuses to use their legs - the success of excursions relies on the fact that the children follow the rules, therefore establishing limits of behaviour in other situations paves the way for more play and fun.

Its a process. Its not something that happens overnight (even though it would be nice if it was!) And the children NEED to test and test and test to be able to feel the stability of the limits. Once they know where the limits are they can get on with playing, discovering and interacting with the world around them.

Setting limits about how children treat others gives the children the knowledge about how others should treat them. A child learns that it is not acceptable to hit others when angry, jealous or wanting something anymore than it is for others to do the same to them... it is a process of learning about emotions and how they are suitably expressed and how energy can be positively channelled (whether or not the energy is positive or negative).

sky's the limit - maybe great for imaginations - but children need limits to feel safe and seen.

Setting limits does not mean time-outs - BUT it does mean being consequent, being aware of exactly of what you are saying - not asking questions when you're actually expecting them to do something e.g
"Do you want to play outside?" when you mean "Now we are going to play outside"
...it also means that if you say there will be a consequence it has to be something you are capable of doing...
"...if you don't come now then you will not be able to come on an excursion again" - is that feasible? Is there an opportunity to leave the child with another group? Or is it just an empty threat? What are the benefits - is the benefit just a temporary one that gets you back to the preschool or a longer lasting one?
My usual phrase when children do not want to come is "Do you want me to help you to come or do you want to come by yourself?" - it allows the child to make an option, it is giving the child some power in the situation at the same time as achieving the desired outcome (I usually have a little chat about trust too once we are on our way - a reminder to the WHOLE group that we need to trust each other to be able to go on excursions).

Setting limits means being aware of each child, of knowing how to support each child so that more time can be spent exploring and playing and less time is spent testing the limits.

Colour experiments and fine motor skills on the lightbox

Size experiments - what fits in? This one year old spent at least 20 minutes at the lightbox testing out what he could fit in to the plastic cups and a bottle. Lots of fine motor skills going on as well as experimenting.

a three year old was intent on each glass having at least one counter in it - no-one was to disturb this process, and once all were filled she was ready to move on to another activity.

Experimenting with colour - another three year old checked to see what colour combinations could be made.

sorting

one year old stacking - this was NOT easy - it was a long process of trying to work out which way the cups should go to stack - and then finally finding the system and being able to stack and stack.

This was a very quiet light box session - the children played in silence, fully absorbed by what they were doing, and I respected this - only commenting when they looked up at me, supplying words for the situation for the one year olds and asking questions to the two and three year olds.

When the 2 one year olds were both fully focussed on putting the counters in the cups and bottles and shaking them and then emptying and then filling again, over and over, I was filled with that sense of "I am watching something special" and was so happy when a colleague came by to have a look - as it was one of those moments that had to be shared.

Today was filled with so many things - ice theories, snowman making, play dough experiments, light box - it was not easy to choose what to share. BUT its been a while since I shared anything about the light table - so the rest will just have to wait!

what is love - ideas coming together

 Today I have asked the children about love again.

I read to them what they said last time, and asked if there was anything else they wanted to say about love, and to also give a chance to the child who was not with us last week to give comments.

I wrote their ideas and thoughts down as we drew together - I could see that they were inspired by me writing their words down as they all practiced pre-writing skills on their paper as well.

It means that I have an idea for an art project - based wholly on their thoughts of what love is...

Love is a million-big tree with eight branches, on it grows oranges, hearts, stars and butterflies. The leaves are "pappa" coloured (which I was shown was a orange/beige sort of colour - although I have not noticed any of their father's being that particular colour).

During our outdoor play we went on a love hunt - could we find traces of love?

I was expecting the children to point out the hearts and the red and pink in the shop windows - but wonderfully they totally surprised me...

traces of love

look, look my love tracks change when I run (you can see a skid mark behind the footprint) another child carefully placed their traces of love next to the first one.

After a while they discovered they could make traces of love with their hands too - as well as snow angels .

 I was so happy that LOVE was created by themselves.

This has inspired me to use boot prints as part of the artwork - as well as handprints. So now I am looking forward to creating a million-big love tree with the children. I am afraid you are going to have to wait until next week to see the results....

learning from each other

 Taking inspiration from the children is an important part of what we do as teachers, to support their learning through their interests and to capture their imaginations by helping them develop them further.

This was supposed to be an art session about painting a picture of your own house, as a part of a Stockholm project (we had been visiting each child's front door and taking a photo of their home). The children, though, were far from inspired - 16 wrinkled noses looked back at me - OK, what about a dream house painting - 13 happy faces looked back - three of them decided painting their own house was in fact a good idea.

The first three pictures represent the first three children who worked on their dream house. You can see how the above painting was inspired by the below painting - adding a flower annex to the house as well as sun and rain.

 The below painting, a circle house with a rainbow roof (sorry the painting is on its side) and circle windows and feet, also came from the same session as the flower houses. These paintings were mounted on the wall and the children were able to present their dream houses to their friends the following day.

 In the next group one child made a skyscraper with flame designs on the side - the flat roof was chosen "because there is not room to make a triangle roof on the paper"...

 As we did not have any permanent black pens to draw the details the children drew their designs in pencil first and then used liquid water colours (I made this by adding water to some ready mix and presenting them to the children in small glass jars). The children learned how to use their brushes carefully and how to wash and clean/dry them between dipping them in a new colour - or after they had mixed the colour on their paper. They had a choice of wide and thin brushes so that they could learn about the differences - how the thin brushes were better for details and the wider brushes better for painting bigger areas. I then asked the children if they would allow me to go over their pencil design with a black pen to allow their designs to stand out. It would have been more child-centred to have allowed the children to use permanent markers and not to require my support in the process - but sometimes it's a case of making the best with what you have - the children were pleased with the result - and they could see that I respected their drawing enough to want to highlight it - so it had its positive side too.

In the third session one of the children made it quite clear where their inspiration had come from. "I want to make a round house with feet and circle windows too" The child also made a rainbow roof, but when the paint brushes came out creating a rainbow was no longer important. The "squiggle" at the top of the page is the child writing about the house. The child had seen me writing down everyone else's words about their houses and was inspired to do the same.

I like being able to offer the children art sessions in very small groups (2-3 children) - as it gives me the chance to support all the children, to see all the children and hear all the children - and to encourage the children to take the time to see and listen to each other too. If the children never have access to these small sessions then it is harder to support them in the larger groups. The small group work is an investment to enable large group work to be effective, fun, and inspiring for everyone.

It also allows the art to be so much more than a creative session - it becomes language support, maths, social skills, fine motor skills, science, technology, learning about the world ... in fact the whole curriculum is allowed the time to permeate the session. And once it has permeated with an entire group of children then it is easier to include more and more elements of the curriculum in all the art and creative sessions regardless of the size of the group.

Sensory play with tapioca

the girls and I ate at an Asian restaurant yesterday - a huge buffet of delicious food including a tapioca dessert - that got me thinking. Maybe it could be used in sensory play?

in one bowl I just added some hot water - it soon soaked it up so I added some more and left it to absorb

it turned into a glutinous mass but still has small hard balls that massaged the hands when you played with it

I also boiled some in a pan with lots of water for a about 10-15 minutes - adding water as I felt it needed it (if there had been instructions on the pack I would have followed them). The mass became more transparent and the balls were softer

it had a sort of wallpaper paste feeling - so I could definitely think of colouring it and adding glitter for extra sensory experiences

Michael was not at all keen to play with this - just too messy for his taste - but the girls liked it. The one that had just been soaked was more popular as they liked the sensation in the hands - as well as they thought it looked more pleasing as it was whiter - the other they thought looked like frog spawn!!

it was easy to wash hands after wards too. Now I will see how it stores - I imagine it will have a short shelf life with it being food, but we shall see. I am looking forward to trying it out with toy frogs etc - could work well!

the language of play

Just a very short post about my observations today.

We have friends over from Berlin, Michael's godfather and his 6 year old son.

The two boys have four languages between them (English, Swedish, German and Spanish) yet no common spoken language

NOTE that I wrote no common spoken language!

They DO have a common language. The language of play - it is quite amazing to see these two boys playing and interacting with each other, waving their arms and using facial expressions to communicate - as well as the language of lego (and bubble dough - which we have just discovered, thanks to Creative Playhouse!)

soft squishy bubble dough - not quite as expected - check my facebook page  for more details 

I remember as a child, visiting family in Austria, playing with all the children there - play never seemed to be a problem despite not understanding a word that was being said, so really I should not be at all surprised about how well these two boys are playing together.

It is also interesting to talk with another parent with feet in two cultures - to hear opinions on children's play in both Spain and Germany. Sometimes it can be hard to reconcile two different play cultures - but I guess it is about taking the best from all cultures to offer our children...

Might be thinking more about how play differs depending on where you live...