Images from an Atelier

Beautiful work from the Williamsburg Northside Preschool's Flickr page.  Plus, I'm a sucker for a beautifully written backwards name.  

Weekend Links

Industrial and Toy Designer Cas Holman has created this incredible kit of movable parts for High Line Children's Workyard (a public park on the unused elevated train tracks on the west side of Manhattan).

The website says patent pending, so hopefully this can become a reality in more places than just this park - I can see these being an asset for many outdoor classrooms.  (via playscapes)

I love this flickr stream of photos taken by a fifteen month old.  I have yet to break out the cameras in my current setting because we don't have the means to print proof sheets or reflect on the pictures except right in the camera, but that shouldn't deter me, right?  Because photos like this are totally priceless:

Process not product, right?  Its all about learning how to use the medium - and we learn a lot about what interests children at the same time.

For something a bit more "serious", we are talking about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in my coursework right now, and I'm pretty fascinated.  Its all about looking ahead, seeing things from different perspectives and planning for success while understanding that every person has their own needs and learning style.  There is  a wealth of information on the website of the National Center on Universal Design for Learning.  I'm just getting to know the ideas surrounding the theory of UDL, but I'm interested to keep learning more about it.  Do you have any experience with UDL?

Happy Weekend!

Homemade Watercolors

I have seen a few things here and there about homemade watercolors, and the time came this week to make some - we were desperate for them in the classroom!  I made them at home from a "recipe" that I found on Whole Living.

I had bookmarked the watercolors from One Golden Apple about a year ago, and I still plan to make those ones.  Those are a bit different, using Fantastix (which are sitting in my amazon cart right now), and we'll be trying those soon.  We'll probably use the ice cube tray again, putting a bit of color from a tube into each part of the tray.

Anyway, I made the paints at home and let them set overnight, and then the children used them the next day.  I was almost giddy when I saw the results!

The paints create vivid colors that drew the children in, some of them remaining to paint page after page .  One thing I have noticed with children and watercolors, especially twos and threes, is that they sometimes get caught up in the water aspect, ignoring or using a minimal amount of paint, and they disengage from their painting because they don't see anything on the paper.  With these paints, I showed them to the children at our morning meeting, making a few marks on the paper myself and modeling how I put paint on the bristles by swiping the brush back and forth a few times.  the texture of the paint deep in the pods is almost magic muck-like, acting like a solid until it is penetrated, and then allowing a paintbrush to dig in deep.  As the morning went on, more and more paintings had a bit of a grit to them, adding a bit of texture.

Overall, I love these paints, and I hope that you'll try them out, too, and let me know how it goes for you!  you can get the recipe over at Whole Living.  With small groups of children or classrooms with extra adult hands to work with a small group, I would definitely recommend making these paints with children, perhaps making them in egg cartons so that children can have their own set to take home.  

Playing Golf

For ten minutes yesterday, the classroom was a small golf course, complete with instructors. Perhaps the box will become a golf cart.

How to Tell Stories to Children

I got a very thoughtful gift from my Grandmother this holiday, and I'm excited to share a few photos and quotes.  This book is called How to Tell Stories to Children, and it was published in 1905.  The book belonged to a relative of mine 100 years ago.

I am an avid reader outside of teaching, and I loved looking through this book.  As I read about the writer's personal philosophies about storytelling and thought about why she thought it was so important, her justifications were not too different from what I, or others, see as the reasoning behind using storytelling as a tool in the classroom.

"...storytelling is first of all an art of entertainment; like the stage, its immediate purpose is the pleasure of the hearer,  -- his pleasure, not his instruction, first."

The book is mainly focused on the art of oral storytelling.  So many of us encourage children to tell us stories - to dictate stories, to write their own stories - but I know that in my case, the stories that I tell are usually in picture books.  There are often anecdotes and small stories, but not planned in a way for an audience.  I put a lot of energy into reading picture books and engaging children through those, but I have not attempted the oral story.  I have seen children's engagement with stories on tape during rest times, so I'm not sure why I have not considered modeling storytelling and bringing it into the classroom as a more respected art, and as a larger part of the curriculum.  One quote in particular has me thinking about storytelling as an art:

"A story is essentially and primarily a work of art, and its chief function must be sought in the line of the uses of art.  Just as the drama is capable of secondary ses, yet fails abjectly to realize its purpose when those are substituted for its real significance as a work of art, so does the story lend itself to subsidiary purposes, but claims first and most strongly to be recognized in its real significance as a work of art.  Since the drama deals with life in all its part, it can exemplify sociological theory, it can illustrate economic principle, it can even picture politics; but the drama which does these things only, has no breath of its real life in its being, and dies when the wind of popular tendency veers from it direction."

The "classics" that we know any group of children will love might be different for each of us as teachers or parents of just people who love books, but the same underlying reasons define why children like and love them year after year and want to read and reread them.  There are universal and timeless messages in those stories, and themes that children crave.  Sara Cone Bryant (the author of the book) shares that "no one can think of a child and a story without thinking of a fairy tale."  They are the perfect stories (for reasons we can delve into another day!)

The stories that I hear children tell in the classroom are not so different from fairy tales.  Even if they are about the car ride to school or a movie they saw, they are important to the children, and contain themes and ideas that are important to every children who is listening to me read a dictation or to a child reading a book they have written.  Sometimes it is more about trying literature on for size, sometimes it is about trying characters out or working though anger.  We know what children's faces look like when they are engaged, and there is no time of the day with as much full group engagement as when there is an excellent story being shared by an adult or a child.

I'm thinking a lot about the role that storytelling and imagination plays in the classroom.  Not just mine - I think there is something universal about it.

"The message of the story i the message of beauty, as effective as that message in marble or paint.  Its part in the economy of life is to give joy.  And the purpose and working of the joy is found in that quickening of the spirit which answers every perception of the truly beautiful in the arts of man.  To give joy; in and though the joy to stir and feed the life of the spirit: is this not the legitimate function of the story in education?"

Not-A-Box

These are some images from the end of last week - I put two large cardboard boxes in the classroom, and there was action around them for 90 minutes.  Some children came and went, but others stayed with the boxes for extended periods.  The play was about jail, mommies, babies, tigers, cats, amusement parks, and much more that I probably did not catch.

Today, at the start of the week, small groups were using the box as a location for playing with materials from the classroom - for example, two children spent about 35 minutes building with Magna-Tiles in the box.

Tomorrow, I am moving the box to where more of the dramatic play items are, and I'm interested to see if there is a shift in how children use it, and what for.  I have been watching carefully and I have loved to hear the children talk about their plans and see how the box transforms throughout the day, depending on moods and keywords overheard and growling prompts.  Totally fascinating!

Weekend Links

I somehow ended up on this page from the University of Vermont, watching/listening to a video of Barbara Burrington talking about documentation.  I have been pitying myself for a general lack of resources at my current center, and things like this help center me again: we need to remember why we teach and how we can best support children, despite the details.   [The video is about halfway down the page.]

The New York Times announced the sad passing of Simms Taback, a Caldecott winning illustrator who wrote and illustrated books that are loved by many children and teachers, myself included.  If you're not familiar with his work, take a little trip down to your library this weekend and see for yourself.  You can also sit back and enjoy Cyndi Lauper's undeniably excellent narration of There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.



Teach Preschool shared a guest post about making a light box, and the plans are affordable and doable. I am envisioning having a few small light tables in the room for different purposes: tracing, exploring colors, exploring materials...

Lastly, I've been thinking about wire, and there was a post on the subject this week at PreK+K Sharing.  I have yet to use wire (besides pipe cleaners) with children, and I'm inspired by the words and photos in that post.

Next week, I'll be sharing more about boxes as we continue to explore them in the classroom, and I'll also be over on the Turtlewings blog, sharing about light.

Happy Weekend!

Box Ghost

I could not help but laugh as I watched this, but reflecting on it, I'm trying to imagine what the experience must have been like for F inside of this ghostly box, sailing around the gym, as he peered out the small flap on the side.



Now I'm thinking:  what is the overarching interest with these boxes?  I'll be sharing more documentation on the boxes next week.

Boxes and Ladders

We have a large gym space at the center where I work, and the children play there for about an hour each morning.  There are mats, bikes, slides, a balance beam, basketballs, cones, trampolines, and more - but yesterday, the main attraction was enormous cardboard boxes that were in the corner.

The images above are just a few from a 30 minute period during which two children, Ja and Jo, continually challenged themselves to get in and out of the boxes using the ladder on the wall.  The climbed up alongside the box, moved over to be above the box opening, an then dropped themselves in.  Ja was exploring this independently at first, and it took him almost 5 minutes to get out of the box the first time.  I talked to him as he tried, giving him ideas about where to put his hands, but never physically assisting.  Jo saw him and hopped in the same box herself, and Ja modeled how to get out.  Each time they both found themselves on the outside, they clapped and cheered at their success!

I wonder what possibilities these boxes might offer in our classroom?

Using Our New Space

A few images of the classroom to begin the new year!  It was an exciting few days planning and creating the space, and I'm pleased with the way that it looks.  I'll take photos with more details soon, and we'll work out the kinks as the children get to know the space as a place to work and play.

Do you have any new plans for your space this year?