Just another day...

After playing outside in the morning at a nearby playspace with a ship climbing frame in it - and several of the children using their winter hats to cover one eye to transform themselves into pirates, the afternoon was filled with creative activities in the atelier...

using beads and googly eyes to create art...

and tidying up can invlove a spot of role-play...

beads and wire. The interesting part had been in the morning I had been question about the suitablity of this material for young children... and here is a two year old busy concentrating. As yet all of the children who have worked with wire have shown great respect for the material... BUT the are not left to their own devices - I do let them know that they need to be careful because the ends can feel sharp - and they explore the feel of the ends with respect - there are four places set at the table - and they respect that four children at a time can work with wire...

the afternoon produced enough wire sculptures to start a wire exhibition. The key word for the wire session was "problem solver" - one child was struggling and wanted me to fix it... I said she had a problem and needed to be a problem solver... she looked at the wire again, and she tried something and it worked - "Look", I said, "you have fixed the problem". there was pride and the rest of the session was "I have a problem, how am I going to solve it... hmm, let me try this... no...hmmm... oh this works... I am a problem solver"

happiness is when the atelier is used the way I hoped it would be. The children took down materials from various shelves and started to create...

a theatre no less - the children involved - all from one to four children at various times (all 3 yr olds). There was lots of singing as the theatre "performed".

 It was definitely wonderful to see the atelier being used in the way I had hoped - it means that the third teacher and I are speaking the same language to the children. The adjacent room (the orange room) was a hive of activity too, with role-play, building, small-world play - all completely freely - as it is not ALL in plain view, BUT I can hear what is going on in the room (and to hear the wonderful positive play). This does allow the children a freedom in their play - they know where I am, they know they are safe - and they can immerse themselves in their play. It was the 3-4 year olds in this room - the age the room is designed for...

Through the Eyes of the Child... part 2

Sometimes amazing things happen... and these things happen because of amazing people!
I had an idea which a shared... but others have helped take it to a whole new level...
Laura Painter, Pre-School Phase Leader at Ghyll Royd School has been bouncing ideas with me - and lucky for me her husband Simon Painter works with IT - Simon likes to make things; Lego, wood, electronics and web applications are some of his favourite building blocks. His day job is looking after the network infrastructure for a FTSE 100 company but that's not as fun as tinkering with JavaScript. - Or a Raspberry Pi.

And lucky for this project, he has been building a website so that information can be shared and also when the time is right - for people to register their interest and also to download their photos ... on the day that will be decided later on as we fine tune the project...

The project will be focussing on CHILDREN taking photographs of what is important in their day... and opportunity for the adults around them to gain an insight in what their children like/feel is important - and why...

I will go into more details on the website blog at Through the Eyes of the Child

So why not pop over every now and again ... and see how it is progressing...

Through the Eyes of the Child...

While out shopping for notebooks and diaries/calendars etc to start planning this year of learning - my own development... I saw a book of photographs that was full of images from just one day - from around the world...

It made me think that I would LOVE to do the same thing - collect photographs of children from around the world, that was taken on the same day... by the time I had left the shopping centre my mind was whizzing as to how I could do this, would it be possible - and the phrase "Through the Eyes of the Child" was established in my train of thoughts...

By the time I got home I was exploring that phrase... what does "Through the eyes of the child" mean? Would it mean that we as adults would make an observation of children - their play, the exploration and their interactions with the world around them... does it mean that we should hand over the camera to the children and let them take photographs and see what THEY see in a day... or does it mean that we get down to the height of child, we abandon our adult perspective and try to see the world through the eyes of the child?

I like all three ideas...

• I like the potential of gathering observations of play and children's interactions from around the world with an opportunity to learn more about why this observation was chosen, what can be learned from it and where it can take it...
• I like the potential of seeing whether children around the world are connected to each other through the choice of subject in their photos? Why did they choose to take a photo of THAT? What importance does it have - and Why THAT particular photo is shared with others and not other ones?
• I like the potential of challenging myself (and others) to think differently to take of the layers of adulthood and see childhood - and to challenge adults in their thoughts about WHAT childhood is today...

my son documenting his visit to the Butterfly House in Stockholm - there were NO photos of butterflies!!

BUT if there are others out there interested in participating in a project like this let me know... maybe it IS worth setting up... and to TOGETHER choose the purpose of the project ...

leave a comment here... or on my facebook page... Interaction Imagination  if you are interested in being a part of this...

My New Year's wish...

Eh, I am not going to wish for the right for children to play and learn, and to be heard and valued etc etc... that's my drive - not my wish... that is why I work with children, and why I blog...

My wish is much more selfish...

I want to travel...

I want 2014 to be filled with opportunities to travel.

I want to learn. And over the years what I have learned is that to learn more you have to share... so i want to go out and meet other who are working with children and who inspire me in the work that I do... that allow me to pause and think... that challenge my thoughts and allow me to think deeper.... that share amazing pictures of their settings and their activities that inspire and trigger more ideas...

I want to meet as many people and see as many places as possible... and blog about it!!!

So as much as time and money will allow me... I am going to make an effort to travel and to meet others... close to me in Stockholm, in the rest of Sweden... and it would be rather nice with some trips across the planet too!

It would be also amazing if others could come and visit here in Stockholm... sharing sharing and growing together...

THAT is my wish for 2014

might need a different mode of transportation though... lol

 

The ATELIER - a work in progress

Filosofiska has been open just over a year now - and it's hard to think that the premises I work and play in every day used to be a post-office as we and the children make the place more and more our own... but making it our own is a PROCESS... and we are in no hurry to get it finished - in fact we will never be finished as it will always be changing with the children in order to meet their needs...

Here is the journey so far of ONE area of the preschool - the atelier...

Many of the rooms are large and spacious with BIG windows (in the photo above my back is to the windows as I take the photograph).
There is soemthing quite amazing about BIG rooms - BUT it does say to the children RUN; RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN ALL OVER THE PLACE... this urge to run was hardly conducive to exploration.
Where the mat and pillows are used to be the construction area, but we moved that over to the window to make way for a library/quiet area. The words "Filosofi - kärlek till visdom (Philosophy - love of wisdom)" has been moved to above the documentation board in the library area (that is also under full development to encourage sitting and reading and a quiet place to reload with enrgy and thoughts). Where I am standing was a table separated from the construction area by shelving - on this table we had playdough etc.

The atelier that was already in exisitence at this point was in the adjacent room - and was quite small but placed next to the fantastic windows. It did not have easy access to water though.

So we made a decision to create an extra atelier making a divide between the posts that you see here - with the floor colour change being where it cornered off to create the atelier in the far right of this room.

This is what it looked like the other day - after a whole term of being used and not really being used the way we would like it... it got often chaotic and I felt there needed to be some sort of way that the room TOLD the children (and my colleagues who cannot read my mind) how the atelier should work, and where things have their home - as I was spending lots of time trying to keep things in the right place and sorting and resorting. The room should TELL the children how to do this (with help from us).
The tabes have been arranged in a variety of ways - this table constellation is the left over from the light table art we did and the table needed to be moved closed to a power outlet...

I pulled everything off the shelves and started from scratch. We moved a easel from the "orange room" to the atelier and raised the documentation board at the same time. (The rooms have been given different names by colour so that in the future their purpose can be changed and we will know which room we are talking about - at the moment the blue room is for BIG construction, movement and music - and also rest time, the yellow room for construction also the library, drawing, the red room for games, puzzles, drawing, playdough, the mini-atelier, the green room is for water play, the toilets and nappy changing area are here too, the orange room which has smaller things for the older children (we have mostly 1-2 year olds) and this room is developing more and more into an exploration/experiment/sensory room, and the rainbow room is for role-play. We have three groups of 10-14 children in each group - and we all have access to the whole preschool.
I am not finished here with my sorting - but this is how I left it after a day of sorting - at one point I flt it was never going to get finished...

This is how I left it today... the table closest to us is the clay and wirework table, the easel for painting and the table for drawing and crafting - and probably painting too - big open floor space so that we can paint BIG on the floor too! To the right is a shower so that we can clean up the children in the big messy art sessions!! - There are also three sinks low down for the children to wash their hands AND to take care of the tools and materials that they are using...

My aim is to have small pictures/symbols/label on each shelf to help the children feel competent about where toput things back - and also to support my colleagues to understand MY logic of the atelier...

I am going to also fix some inspiration photos and artwork to put up on the wall to get the children more inspired to create and not JUST experience the various materials - although there will be opportunities for that of course...
The big boxes either side of the easel contain tubes and boxes etc for junk modelling - as yet none of the children have shown a great interest in that... but I think this up and coming project might just introduce them to such possibilities...

The artwork on the easel I did TOGETHER with a child this morning as a way to support language and also to support concentration - the owl is sleeping - in fact there are about five different songs bound up in that art pice - so it might look like black splodges on what could have been an owl... but it does tell a very specific story with songs with their lyrics changed to fit the art and to challenge and increase the child's vocabulary...

Not the most clear photo in the world - sorry about it's fuzziness.. but this is taken with my back to th easel. Here you can see the partition and on the other side are the BIG windows that face out onto the SQUARE - you will probably hearing a lot about that square during 2014!! By the left hand window is the construction area - it was moved from the other side as it was close to the door that was used to go throw away the rubbish at the end of the day... it meant that saving the children's constructions was not always easy if tyou waned to be able to open the door and get out! So we swapped windows... and now there is the possibility for the children to save their constructions if they wish... which is no easy feat with 22 one and two year olds who have a mission to knock things over... But we do manage - and there WILL come a day when all these 1 and 2 year olds no longer have that need and we have a whole load of contructions being saved. At the moment to compensate the constructions being at high risk for being knocked over we take photo documentation of as much as possible...

The brown partition is going to be painted white (at some stage) - the chest on the white shelf is filled with "treasures" and will be something new for the children. The aim is that when they are creating that we can open up the treasure chest to see if there is anything they need in there... well it will suffice until I can get my hands on a whole load of glass jars to display the treasures that are in there...

There is a vase next to the flower thing... they are the children's wands!! Behind the big white shelves on the right is the library...


So as you can see we are entering a new phase of the ateliers journey... it is just a case of waiting for the children to see how they interact with the room and the material there ... and also how easy it is for my colleagues and I to use the room too... it has to work for all of us...

Now that there is more space in the orange room, since the removal of the easel, my mind is turning to how I can expand the possibilities for the children there - so that they can really explore... and also sorting out some other shelves that have become dumping grounds (you know what I mean) so that they too talk to both children and adults!!

In the last week we have been open 3 days - and we have had children on all of those days too - so all of this has to happen at the same time as taking care of the children. There have been very FEW children as most are spending time at home - but so are most of the staff too...

today I my children came to help... (for extra pocket money) here is Michael washing the chairs - he cleaned every one - and made enough money today to buy some lego (of course) that was in the sale.

Russia and the Winter Olympics - collecting inspiration

What with the Winter Olympics coming soon I am starting to look for activities for a week long Olympics and Russia exploration - with most of the focus, for us, being on Russia as we have a child and her family that come from there, so it would be a wonderful and natural way to introduce her culture to the rest of the group...

This is a post full of links... here I am gathering ideas - as yet I don't know  how or IF these ideas are going to be used - but I gather lots of ideas and then see where the children are in their interests and then introduce the activities I think will meet the children's needs and interests...

So here are some of the things and some of the ideas I have had so far...



The Imagination Tree - Salt dough Olympic medals

 Making flags - not just a great excuse to share the Russian flag, but other flags too - hopefully a whole string of flags from all the coutries represented at the preschool...

 Put some music on and pretend to skate - either speed skating in sock feet indoors, or figure skating - we might need some squares of carpet to make it more slippery and fun. It would be great to choose Russian music - not just folk music but all forms of their music - maybe check out the Russian entries of Eurovision song contest over the years!!

The official Winter Olympics mascots - here you can see the mascots - there are also short films in Russian with English subtitles featuring the mascots.

Snowball activities - who can throw it the furthest, throwing them into buckets - if you don't have snow why not use white beanbags or rolled up white socks.

During the 2010 winter Olympics instead of curling I made up a game where the children wafted newspapers to make round pieces of paper move across the room and try to land in the circles taped onto the floor at the opposite side... this game proved to be VERY popular.

Using ice-cubes to build with. AND other various forms of ice sculptures

Ice-hockey/bandy (a Swedish game done on ice - or indoors not on ice) - can be done with or without ice of course

Use toilet rolls dipped in the olympic colours to create the Olympic flag - and Olympic inspired art - let the child go wild with those circles - I usually try to do two paintings - one where the child tries to copy the olympic flag - for the mathematic value of it - and then to do a separate piece of circle artwork.

Sledging - use a piece of cardboard on sand or grass - or slide down wet plastic if you are somewhere hot! One year I built a snow obstacle course for sledges - that I ended up mostly pulling the children over as fast as I could so that they would fly over the jumps...

Toddler Approved - indoor min ice-hockey

Toddler Approved - hands free pingpong (with links to some other Olympic ideas - but they are of a summer feel rather than winter feel). The great thing about this indoor sport is that it really does train up the mouth muscles which is wonderful for language development and pronunciation.

Meet Kandinsky - born in Moscow Russia - Art and Design Technology for Kids - why not look at Russian artists - and of course the circles lend themselves so well to the Olympics!!

Russian Folk Music on Youtube - lots and lots of Russian folk songs - do take the time to browse through the various clips of music and dance... some are really old, some are new, some are cartoons for children - there is a real mix here.

is this dancing or gliding? Another youtube clip -  can you glide like this dance? Would be fun to see if we could all do this as part of a music and dance session Russian style!

Cossack dancing - on Youtube - this  makes my thighs ache just watching

more recent filming more russian dancing

Tchaikovsky - another famous Russian - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Nutcracker Suite


Having Fun at Home - several Russia inspired craft activities

The Educators Spin On It - Seven ways to use Russian Dolls

National Geographic Russia facts from Kids National Geographic

Russian For Free learn Russian for free... some odd sentences to learn - just pick out the positive ones!!

Russian for Everyone the Russian alphabet - with the facility to listen to the sound of the letters... looks very appealing too!

Olga's Flavour Factory lots of food ideas...

Of course this is just a start... there ARE lots of things out there with worksheets and colour in pages... but that is not the sort of thing you will find on my blog or page (there are plenty of other sources for you if that is your sort of thing though...)... so for now that is what I have found so far this evening that seems like it can be of inspiration... if you come across any other Russia or Winter Olympic inspiration please drop by my facebook page and link them... many thanks

Interaction Imagination Facebook Page

My 10 favourite posts of my first blogging year!

As my first full year of blogging comes to an end I have been going through some of my posts and adding some reflections - and I hope to be doing this with most of my posts (time permitting) - as part of the reason for blogging is self development - so returning to re-read my posts and to reflect upon them should be an important part of my process.

I realise that I am a blogger that uses a lot of words and has a lot of thoughts - this is not the kind of blog where you will find  templates and preschool plans of what to do - but HOPEFULLY it IS the kind of blog that makes you think, that gets you questioning what you do, and how you do it, and why you do it. I hope that this blog does offer you inspiration...

So here are my favourite 10 posts - and they are not all the most read posts - in fact my most read post does not make it onto my top 10, as although I DO like the assignment I wrote for my masters it does not have the same feeling of a post - it was a lot of hard work - and something like 200 books and articles were read before writing the assignment - BUT it was just pasted in and somehow that just doesn't count!!! BUT I am glad that there are many taking advantage that it is available to them!

 I would REALLY appreciate it if you could take the time to add to the comments what YOUR favourite post has been and why!!



 so here goes - in no particular order

 1
    Do Templates Kill Creativity

This post finds itself on this list because it WAS one of those posts that challenged ideas... I made the mistake of once making a comment on a page about some Easter bunnies that were being presented as an idea for children in preschool where it was very obvious that it took longer for the adult to prepare cutting out all the parts than it did for the children to glue them on to the form to create a rather scary looking bunny. I asked if there was something that could be done to make the bunnies more individual and for the children to "own" more of the process... I was absolutely slammed by a whole load of people including comments about "I hope you don't work with children"... to this day I still cannot work out WHY I deserved THAT comment for wanting the children to be a bigger part of the process but there you go - it made me realise that THAT page I did not want to be a part of. It also made me realise that my blog and my page is not going to be BIG like that page was because I do not put up suggestions to fill the children's time with products - as I am about the process - BUT that does not mean that I see templates as an evil either - which I have been a part of MANY discussions where there is such a black and white view of templates when I feel the world of templates, art, crafts and creativity is more grey....



2

Its the Process Not the Product

 The last post leads me nicely into this post - the process. I am so much about the process - and there are times when others might not see the process at first as they only see the product - and that is why documentation is so important - to share the process.

 3

Spaghetti Painting

This is the first of the spaghetti painting posts - and technically belongs to last year - but I am including this as part of my first year of blogging as I started at the end of last year! Over this last year I have done various spaghetti paintings - and I have also used thread as well. I have also had THAT comment about "you shouldn't use food in art" - but I have also written a post about that - and how I feel about that too... I just love when a great sensory experience creates a fabulous product too... I also like when I can do a spot of research in my observations - this time to find out more about gender differences/similarities


4
Dragon Skins

Another post from last year and my previous workplace - but I really loved this whole process of experimenting and testing - and being aware that what I am placing on the shelves and making available to the children is also influencing their thought and their choices - and that was the reason for then putting things on the shelf that I did not think would work or did not think the children would be interested - to allow the children to choose and not for me to make all the considerations about what would print great dragon patterns...


5
The Art of Listening

Listening is such an important part of what I do - I listen not only with my ears but with all my senses - and it is hard work and tiring to listen - and I understand why the children don't always want to be active listeners - especially in preschool where there are larger numbers of people, more ideas and opinions to negotiate and more compromise is necessary - if you don't listen then you get to do what YOU want - BUT in the long run listening DOES get you what you want - as others will also listen back... Its a complicated thing to learn... above is an image of the talking ring - the idea is that when you are holding it you can speak and when you are not holding it you are listening - it was VERY important NOT to just say when you are not hloding it you are quiet - because being quiet does not mean you are listening - it just means being quiet...


6
Outdoor Surfaces

My trip to Boulder, Colorado was fantastic - I got to visit two fabulous preschools there and participate in a summer conference. I had for some time been interested in the texture of the surfaces that we walk on - as part of my passion for sensory activities... so it came as no surprise that many of the photos that I took in Boulder were of various surfaces - both indoors and outdoors. I often feel that the learning potential of the outdoors is often overlooked in comparison to the indoor environment - so I focussed this post on outdoor surfaces - it turned out that I was not the only one interested in outdoor surfaces!!


7
Inspiration not Cloning

As I shared more and more images and thoughts from my trip to Boulder I got more and more concerned about the responsibility I had for ensuring (to the best of my ability) that these images of inspiration were being used for just that. I strongly feel that images like this of other settings are valuable and so incredibly inspirational and this is why I share as much as I can - but I DO hope that I share in a way that provokes thought and allows you to think about HOW and WHY you are developing the environment at your setting... my connection to the Reggio Emilia Approach feels that if I do not URGE you to take the time to think and reflect on why, then you are missing an important part of the process ... and just as with the children - it is the process that is important - THAT is where the learning happens - so if you just hop over to the product then you also miss out...


8
Philosophical Flowers

9
 Gender Dialogue


 This is something that is important to me - equality in all its forms - but I do feel that gender is often discussed in a way that excites a lot of emotions - and rolling of eyes. This is a photo of my son as a toddler who always wanted to dress up like his sisters when we danced every Friday evening to loud music!! He has had his own dolls to play with his sisters, just as his sisters have had their own cars and trains... but they have always shown their own preferences... in a typical girl and boy way - the girls went through their pink phase which I embraced despite my own dislike of pink since being a child and Michael has gone though his car phase...

10
Scaffolding

This is a post about my musings on why do we have rules and routines in preschool - and I think this is a VERY important discussion to have - why do you have the rules that you have? How do they affect the children - support them and allow them to be competent or restrict them by saying no (without them understanding why)?




oops couldn't keep it to 10

 Snail Party

Snails HAD to be included somewhere in this top ten - they have been such a big part of our year - we even named the small garden/park between the preschool and the metro station "Snail Park". This post really allows you to see how animals can give you the opportunity to talk about social relationships and develop their empathy




The sad part of this post is not being able to include so many posts that I have enjoyed writing and participating in - the posts about using philosophy with children, or International Mud Day, or painting with flowers, or the posts about risky play and "what is play" - the post about the Morocco painting is a favourite too as are all the sensory posts including my search for allergy/eczema friendly sensory experiences...
I think one of the things that I am proud of this year is the fact that I have not celebrated any of the traditions  in a traditional way but have always asked the children what THEY have thought about these traditions and built upon their knowledge and their experiences. I am looking forward to next year to see how their thoughts about these traditions have developed - and how they react when they find out about their thoughts from a year ago! ONE year is a long time in a preschoolers life!