Painting by letters... testing boundaries...

The idea for this session in the atelier was born in the discussions with Suzanne Osten after Södra Teaterns observations of our first Moroccan inspired fairy land painting, where we talked about limits and for the importance for children not only to test limits but also to know how to keep within them. (see "Painting Morocco") To find out about what is allowed and what is not allowed, To discover that everyone has their own set of limits, and that we need to learn about these as part of our social interactions. That just because it is OK for me to get paint on my hands does not mean it is OK for others, and while I am happy for paint to get on my hands I am not so keen to get it all over my clothes - so yes, I too have a limit (and yes accidents will happen). Listening and following instructions is an important skill (and I am not suggesting that children should follow blindly - but that there are times when safety comes before children's wants and also by listening to others we get to learn and to deepen our own understanding of the world around you - so its not just about listening to the adults, but listening to everyone... and to understand that you are listened to)

In the atelier, the children (3x 4yrolds and 1x 3yr old) discovered paper with tape on it - the tape forming a leaf-like pattern. I each section of the leaf was a letter - the first letter of each child's name. They looked for their own letters (as there were severla dotted around the leaves). We then mixed personal shades of green - how much yellow to add to the staple green, then a choice of blue or white... which was not easy if you are a child that says yes to everything and then cannot work out why two children are getting white and not yourself... careful re-explanation of why that happened and about how it ws a choice of blue or white (so that there would abe a variety of greens - and also for the children to practice making choices and not just saying yes to everything regardless of what was their original plan)

then it was time for the tricky business of filling the leaf sections with paint - but ONLY the sections with your own letter. At first the children just put blobs of paint on one of their letters and then wanted to move to the next letter... but after several explanations they understood the technique and were able to proceed with little assistance - except for one child (one of the reasons for doing this process). This child found it difficult to work out which letter was theirs - and also had a great difficulty to paint just inside that one section as that brush just wanted to glide all over the paper...

but with help from me, and friends they filled in all the sctions of the leaf

next it was time to create the trunk of the Moroccan palm inspired tree (since fairies live in trees). The long paper was sectioned off, again with first letters of their names. RED was added to their green paint to transform it into brown - a bit of fairy colour magic!

Different techniques were seen - one child went up and down as far as could be reached then went round to the other side to finish off. Another child painted the edges of the boundary and then coloured in the middle section, the third child painted small pictures that eventually filled the section and the fourth child that had struggled with the boundaries chanted a mantra "paint near the tape paint near the tape"

despite the mantra is was SO difficult to not let that brush slide over into someone else's section - and this happened on all three sections that were painted. Sometimes self control is just so hard, no matter how hard you are trying to work on it... BUT at least this time it was just a small slip of the brush and not the huge gliding strokes that had occured during the leaf part of the session.

clearing up and looking after utensils are an important part of the process - ALL four children dumped their smocks on the floor and just left their pots and brushes when I said it was time to clean up when they were finished. I looked at them and said they needed to hang up their own smocks and also to wash the utensils - which I helped them show HOW to clean the brushes properly so to keep the bristles nice and also to ensure all the colour was removed.
I can still find my head shaking in disbelief as I think how all four of them took off their smocks dumped it at my fett, and when I pointed out that it needed to be hanged up they promptly tried to give it to me to do the job!!!

In the afternoon the tape was peeled off to reveal beautiful leaves - the children really ooo-ed and aaah-ed at this, finding it magical - and who can blame them, I was also totally caught up in the magic of the moment...

I cut the paper with the brown shades into a slightly more palm trunk shape and put it up on the wall next to the Moroccan spiced painting and the sugar-blue sky, adding three of the leaves that were ready. The rest of the brown border painting I have put up on the right side - to look like a smaller tree (not seen on the photo as I took this before I put it up) as the children have repeatedly said that fairies live in a forest, and therefore there needs to be more than one tree.
There is a table just in front of this fairy background - and I am tempted to use our forest excurion on Thursday to look for tree like twigs and branches so that we can use clay and the twigs to create a mini-forest display.

We also need to make some fairies to fill this fairy landscape...

Fairy Doors and a bucket of magic

The fairy door was well and truly discovered last week - in the middle of telling a story using the story cards (the cards selected are chosen for their magical theme at the moment). There are about 50 cards and the children pick one out of the pack - and once all the children have picked a card out I shuffle those cards up and then tell a story using the pictures as guides to where the story is travelling... the children LOVE these stories, as they are always so proud when "their" card is part of the story.

This week one of the story cards chosen was the picture of the fairy door... and one of the few children who have discovered the fairy door on the wall made the connection... suddenly the room was filled with raw energy - the story was abandoned as we had urgent business to discuss - how were we going to get through that door.

• we need a key
• but we are still to big to get through
• we need to be made smaller
• but how
• we need to make a magic potion so that we become smaller
• a fairy needs to come through the door so she can magic us smaller and then we can go back with the fairy
• we need a knife to open the door
• no, not a knife, it might hurt the fairies behind
• then scissors
• no, no scissors they might also hurt - we need to use magic
• Shall we go outside and see if we can find some fairy magic in the Snail Park to help us through the door?
• YEEEEEEEEESSSSSS

The children were excited about the prospect of finding magic. But what did it look like - and what about a key - maybe we still needed to look for a fairy key as well, just in case the door was not opened by fairies for us...

we took a bucket outside with us to collect magic

There was a lot of focus on wands - and after the children had exhausted their hunting magic energy the children returned to the bucket to start using the wands to cast magic spells...

and to be honest by the end of the day I was rather relieved that I was allowed to come home in my human form.

Virgin Forest Exploration

We are lucky living in Stockholm, as we are always close to nature...
... we are also a short drive from a Virgin Forest - which my children learned about yesterday as we visited Sweden's most southern virgin forest - a forest not interrupted by man - so the trees are allowed to fall and rot, nature's cycle is allowed to proceed. There are plenty of trails going through this forest - so it is hardly untouched by man... and when we visited this forest last time, when the girls were 3 years old it was clear we needed to stay on paths... this time it was clear that no-one seemed to bother about that anymore - and there were small obvious trails going off the main trails all the time. This made it difficult to explain to my children about one way to respect this forest was to stay on the trails... even harder when we could see families picnicking here and there off trail...

It did mean by the end of our walk we were not keeping exclusively to the path, but that we WERE treading with care and respect. Afterall my children are used to exploring the forest (as are probably most children in Stockholm) and keeping to the path was something rather strange and limiting...

BUT it is an interesting thought - how our human feet impact the nature around us, and how we should be behaving so that we can preserve the glory and diversity of nature at the same time as igniting the enthusiasm of young children in preserving nature through free and guided exploration...

exploring the rotting trees for bugs... we saw a few trees close to fallling and listened to the noise they made!

sometimes nature falls down on you - this fat caterpillar just about landed on me, so Michael rescued it, so that it was not in the middle of the path

the forest providing a blueberry treat!

and lingonberry treats

making music with grass

a bit of risk taking - "can I climb down the cliff face?"

fallen trees provide lots of exploration... ancient fairy writing? or insect trails?

and sometimes things look so incredibly wornderful that you HAVE to touch and feel... the desire to lie down in this moss made my children liken it to clouds...

and to my son's great joy - there were frogs and toads in the forest

sometimes a big open space just screams RUN - and you simply have to obey!

a beaver damm

swimming snake

there were LOTS of spiders and glittering spider webs in the forest... even though we had mosquito repellent with us the only use we had was to transport this spider so that we could all have a look - as the last part of our walk three of us power-walked and the other two took it easy (allowing them to discover more treasures)

climbing - every rock, every opportunity - it has to be climbed!

many areas of the walk are boarded to protect the forest floor, and also because many areas are mire and marshy - allowing us to see the diveristy of floor types in the forest... there were signs all through the walk so we could learn more about the forest and the animals living there (Tyrestö National Park)

and of course no trip to the forest would be complete without meeting a troll or some other magical creature of the forest!

Week 3 of Fairy Philosophies

This week our philosophical dialogues took a slightly new format. Instead of a warm up question we handed out their name labels and placed two images of fairies in the middle of the circle. The children were asked to place their name next to the image that they thought looked most like a fairy and then were given time to think about WHY they had made this choice. On this week's second session the children were asked to put their name next to the image (2 new images) of the fairy they would like to be - and again time was given for them to think about WHY they had made this decision...

session one - which image looks most like a fairy?

6 children chose the image to the left (L)
3 children chose the image to the right (R)

Why

•  because they are in love with each other. Is it a girl? It's a fairy. (R)
• it is a girl, a little girl that can fly /(L)
• one card and one card /(L)
• because it is beautiful. I chose it because I chose it. The other one has string round its leg - and the other (L) is smaller than that one (R) - /(L)
• that one is a knight (R) - /(L)
• because it is the most beautiful. Because the other one is an Indian and a fairy. /(L)
• it is a princess and dances with the king. And it has wings and dances with the king. /(L)
• - but that one is a girl - and that one is a girl...
• - they are both princesses
• both are princesses, and both can fly. But they are not the same. Both have pony tails and that one has a dress and that one does not. /(L)
• it has a pony tail (R)
• because I like it (R)

the second session - which one would you prefer to be?

 Half of the children chose one, the other half chose the other. (V) on the left and (H) on the right

Why?

• because I want to be it, because it is beautiful and because it has fins and is a mermaid /(H)
• that is the one I chose, yes, I want that one. /(V)
• I want that one because it can fly.. and I would meet her. She can fly and be angry. /(V)
• because I like it. Because it can fly. /(V)
• because I like it... because I like it... /(H)
• because I liked it... I like it now. Because I want to be inside. /(H)
• because... because... because I like it and want to be her - because I like the picture /(H)
• I like it. I want to be it /(V)
• because I like it. Because I like it (using a different Swedish word for like). I cannot tell you any more. /(H)
• I love it. I like it. /(V) (even though half way through the session she wanted to change her choice)
• it is a boy ... because it does not have coloured wings and does not have a skirt one (but I do not have a skirt on, does that mean I am a boy? Look around EVERYONE is wearing trousers, are we all boys?)  .. if girls wear trousers it doesn't matter.. It's a boy because its wearing skeletons and girls don't wear skeletons - and because that one has coloured wings and girls have colour...

The last part of the dialogue went fast and it was hard to get down all the thoughts on paper... but it was certainly interesting that girls are more colourful, and that this observation could be made from black and white images!
Again the fairy project is waking gender stereotypes so that we can see what the children think makes a girl and a boy - and by finding out more about WHAT THEY THINK we can then work towards ensuring that there are no walls built between these stereotypes and that the children feel able to dip into any inspiration, activity etc that interests them and do not feel limited that their gender confines them to behave in a certain way...

At the moment it is clear that the children are able to make choices about what they like but need more practice to articulate as to WHY they like it and why they have made a particular choice. Again we need to remind ourselves of the fact that these children are aged between 2 and 4 - and that some of these children are new to the group, so the group is still working on finding its "we" feeling. We have talked about next week offering just one image so that we can discuss this - and to take an image of a fairy that could be a boy or a girl and to see how the children discuss this - what choises will they make and why - and if there is just one image and something more familiar to them (being a boy or a girl) then maybe it will allow the children to expand on their thoughts more...

There was no specific idea for using black and white images except for that is what Ellen had available as a printing option at home. But I am really glad that it was in black and white and that I got to hear about the comment about colour - that at least one of the children could "see" colour in the black and white images - I found that VERY interesting, and I am rather interesting in exploring this  more at some point.

We still haven't presented the images of the children "magicked" into fairies, but I am sort ofthinking that this could be a great surprise for the fairy tea party - or as part of the invitation to the fairy tea party on the 20th September - just 2 weeks away now!

And time is flying by so fast that we have not yet even started to entertain exploring flight yet... but there is yet time, and there seems to be a great deal of possibilities before the children tire of this project!

Fairy Sky... painting with windpower

sugar water

Last week we made the desert part of our Morocco inspired fairyland - and I thought we were going to be making the sea... but a conversation with some of the children lead us to creating the sky instead... since fairies fly, not swim!

Our group name is "Vinden" (The Wind) - so I thought it would be fun to incorporate the wind into our art creation...

The idea was to use mini fans to blow paint across a layer of sugar water, I also had some straws to blow through - and selected the children who had not painted last week, to expose them to a creative session - as well as a couple chosen due to using straws - as it is great mouth gymnastics to help with pronunciation.

We started with the layer of sugar water - each child allowed to dip their fingers in the clear liquid to taste... and the suprise in the eyes when they tasted it was not water... It was later described to another teacher as fruit juice!!

As you see above - I was a little frustrated by the fact that the brushes had not been cleaned properly before and that one of the brushes "bled" red paint... ho hum, its the way it works sometimes, and I just had to use it as a learning example of the importance of cleaning brushes properly afterwards...

A selection of blue shades

Three different shades of blue were added to the paper and sugar solution - and we started to blow and use the fan... the min-fan was of no use whatsoever - it just didn't move the paint at all... but the straws did - even though we had to blow hard. And if you blow hard for a while you get a bit dizzy (I soon discovered that as we all moved around the table blowing and blowing).
I like it when we are standing doing art like this, as it encourages the children to move around instead of feeling they have to belong to just one part of the art. I noticed in this session that they are now really getting the hang of not keeping to one specific part - instead they move and flow together in and out and sharing each other's experiences.

 We soon discovered that either the table or the floor is not entirely flat and that there is a slight angle which meant everything was slowly flowing down the paper and drip drip dripping off the table into a nice sticky puddle!
I put a bucket at the end of the table and just hope that it was not all going to flow off the paper!!

In the afternoon we returned to the atelier and decided it need some fairy glitter to make it a bit more magical - as it was still wet, we relied on the sticky property of sugar and just threw handfuls of glitter onto the paper - like glitter rain! Seemed appropriate since it was the sky.

EVEN later in the afternoon we saw that it was not dripping anymore but that there was a big puddle of sugar solution in one corner... so we experimented again - "shall I lift the table and make it drip?" A nod back... and a few lifts later...

and then our sky looked like this... more rain than clouds...

BUT it should dry sometime this year now at least - LOL

Well this did not turn out like I expected... I was really hoping that the fans would work - but I have not given up on that thought yet... just have to rethink - and maybe just thin water paint to roll over greaseproof paper - or some other paper and not use the sugar solution. Maybe the fans and black ink or water colour would make some interesting winter trees?

The children enjoyed the process, it was three short processes as blowing through the straws was pretty intense and can only be done for a short time.
Do I feel satisfied? Yes and no...

• Yes - because I saw that the children were interested and were exposed to a new way of using familiar materials - and I feel that is important for their own creativity - to see that things are not just used in one set way.

• No - because the fan did not work the way I had hoped. And also because the session was so short there was not so much time to extend and reflect (but this was also due to one of our new children suddenly having a missing mummy moment, and my much needed attention to this child also meant that these 2-4 year olds lost their focus on the painting, and their focus became - how was Suzanne going to solve the missing mummy moment). 

To think about -

• it would be nice to have pipettes - it would make it easier to put small amounts of paint onto the paper - and at the same time work on their pincer grip strength and control. 
• that some children combinations will result in a crazy approach to the art and a total lack of helping to clean up afterwards ... and yet as individuals are fully able to be responsible for their materials and tools. That by choosing the right combination of children in the group can actually enhance their own feelings of competency... that yes, it might be an art session, but it is always always a social session first!
• since the sky has become a bit more rainy than anticipated - maybe a rainbow would be a good idea... the children have also talked about rainbows and fairies.
• that wallpaper paper might not have been the best paper to use in this project - yes it is great for holding its own against large amounts of liquid, but I am wondering whether this capacity actually worked against us on this one and contributed to the coloured sugar solution waterfall!?

Well that's it for now. I am interested to see how it looks tomorrow - whether it has a nice glossy look from the sugar - or whether we have sugar crystals instead...

adding more magic to the magic forests

putting glue onto the magic forest - ready for glitter highlights... using the left over glitter from the wand-making last week.

adding generous amount of magical glitter

working on fine motor skills to peel off the paper on the glitter stickers

the magical forest - ready for the wall... now to find a place that will inspire play...

another completed forest. The tricky part is the place I first thought of might just be too tempting for the toddler fingers to pull to pieces... BUT, there is nothing that cannot be fixed.... THAT could be a part of the magic - parts disappearing and re-appearing?

Getting excited about the International Fairy Tea Party

So it's September
Not just the month where I turn another year older... but also the month where we will celebrate the first International Fairy Tea Party...

The last few weeks at Filosofiska Preschool here in Stockholm we have been exploring fairies from a philosphical perspective and have been learning more about what the CHILDREN think fairies are and where the come from...

and we have also been getting creative in a fairy fashion - making a magic forest, a huge fairy background and fairy wands...
there has been lots of fairy role-play indoors and outdoors and a fairy door has even popped up in the preschool.

In three preschool weeks (in 19 sleeps) we will be having our fairy tea party at the same time as others around the world... already people from Iceland, UK, New Zealand, Canada and Australia have signed up and acknowledge where they are from and that they will be joining in...

if you plan to join in - click on this link and write where you come from, it will make it even more exciting for the children participating to know where all the other children come from too...
come and join the International Fairy Tea Party

fairy flying in the forest

small world play in the forest

collecting fairies

finding fairy wands

fairies for all

this coming week the children will get to see themselves transformed into fairies... how are they going to react to that?

discovering fairies in the forest - and becoming fairies

philosophical dialogues about fairies

the fairy door

the magic forest

creating a Moroocan inspired fairy background based on the philosphical dialogues with the children

making fairy wands in the forest....

finding the key to fairy land - indoor fairy play...

Why not check out all the posts with Fairy Tea Party label - that way you will be able to find out in more detail what we have been up to....