more developments in the rainbow room

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

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

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

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

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

Storycards...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Rainbow room continues

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

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

Raw planning...

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

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

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

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


NOTES

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

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





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

Transformations... (Rainbow Room)

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

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

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

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

water and bubble exploration

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

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

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

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


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

snowfoam....

climbing into the bubbles...

rainbow shower

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

Paint - whole body experience...

Today we took the paints outside and went crazy... and with their only being two children that turned up today, they had lots of time and space to fully explore the paints...

I filled to big plastic boxes with water so the children could use them to sinse themselves off at any time - these became very popular to climb in and out of and add an extra layer of wetness to the whole art experience...

We looked at the colours of summer.... and started off with green, blue, white and yellow (more colours would come later)...

A huge piece of paper was taped to the ground - the bottles of paint were put close by... and the children were given free reign to experience and create with the paint (a few encouragements here and there, to challenge and deepen the experience).

At first one of the children was not keen on getting messy and asked for a brush... but I kept to the plan of it being sensory and said no to see what would happen... and it did not take long for the child to watch the joyful sensory experience of the other child and give it a try himself... and enjoy it too.

The paint was experienced with the whole body, and I got to see (just about) a whole body print being made...

Just before lunch I took the art in, as I suspected it might rain... and just as well I did as the heavens open with a big thunder-storm. The children slept through it...

In the afternoon I mixed paint, washing liquid and a little water together in pots and got the children to blow bubbles.... the idea being the bubbles would create new patterns - and also be a work-out for their mouths and aid pronunciation. It was an experiment to do it directly on the paper.... usually I catch the bubbles on a paper from a above (and that I think is much more successful when it come to capturing the bubble patterns) - but today was a different experience... One of the pots got knocked over , so the pool could be blown on to make splashes and rivers... and at the end we threw the foam and last bits of paint onto the paper with our finger tips to make wonderful raindrop sounds... (I was filled with paint then so I didn't get any photos of that process... to much having fun with the children too)

So now I will let the photos do the talking...

squeezing out the paint... this was VERY fun

moving on to experience the paint with hands

and then feet

making footprints

lying down and swimming in the paint.... like a mermaid

the thick layer of paint was perfect for topping up the paint layer...

and when there was enough paint you could clearly see the joy of spreading the paint over the body, and then the arms too...

making body prints

and taking the time to check them out...

they were in and out of the water the whole time... this was very much a part of the sensory process

glorious painted tummies... then it was time to get in the warm shower and clean up

blwoing coloured bubbles

it was not so easy... a little practice of blowing tissue paper around the floor first to help the blwoing skills (and to avoid the sucking skills)

the painting so far... starting to get some ideas about where we could take it... but will check with the children first...