As I write this my children are back in virtual school after two weeks of winter break. During the break, my four children (two grade school-aged, a preschooler and a toddler) engaged in deep imaginative play. They wrote, designed costumes and sets, and performed plays; built a freeform Lego Hogwarts (all the while constructing a series of cars for the 2-year old to keep him occupied); and busied themselves making endless little trinkets for one another as gifts. Outdoors, they developed an elaborate imaginary game of warring kingdoms. Each child constructed a fort in one corner of the yard and met in the middle for swordplay and council meetings. As a parent, I make a practice of observing them with a critical eye, noticing all they are learning and working through in play. As I watched them over break, I was struck that this play seemed both so familiar and typical for them, but also that it had been a long time since I had seen them play in this way.

What started as a small nugget in the back of my mind during break, became obvious when school resumed. Now my older children spend their mornings on zoom, and the afternoon is mostly taken up with reading quietly in their beds or maybe playing in their room. This was what I became accustomed to seeing since school started and why their play over break had struck me. After a morning online, there are no sweeping imaginative games that engross all four kids for hours.

The tenor of my childrens’ play changes on distance learning days. They seem lethargic, tired and spent from their morning online, while simultaneously vibrating with pent up energy. I push them outside, but they struggle to get into the same wonderful play groove they previously enjoyed. There is more fighting as siblings struggle to remain on the same page or some will want to play while others do not. They do not seem able to problem-solve their differences in play ideas. Rather than being motivated to work it out simply to ensure play continues, they give up and retreat to read alone in their room. Meanwhile, my little two happily play with one another, but they also yearn for the bigger ones and do not understand their absence.

I deeply appreciate and marvel that my children can self-regulate in this way. I know that after a stimulating morning online perhaps an afternoon of quiet reading is just what they need. Also, I want to provide the caveat that I am thrilled with how their teachers structured distance learning and know that my kids are primarily happy, engaged and learning. Still, I wonder what these play changes signify and watch my children for clues as to their mental health and how they are weathering these times. We are all walking through this global crisis together for the first time, and no one knows how to navigate past every hurdle. I am finding value in this Reggio-inspired practice of curious observation and allowing my noticings to affect how I respond to my children’s changing needs.

-Reba Batalden

Reba Batalden co-founded and currently serves as Board Chair of St. Paul School of Northern Lights, a Reggio-inspired K-8 school. She holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and during her graduate tenure developed and taught inquiry-based, interdisciplinary science curriculum for St. Paul Public Schools and professional development courses for middle and high school science teachers. In a pandemic, she is mama, teacher, chef and playmate to 4 children, ages 10, 8, 5 and 2.

by Meredith Dodd

As lead teacher at the University of Chicago Laboratory School, Meredith’s teaching is structured to build young children’s democratic dispositions through social emotional learning, mathematics, symbolism and ecological systems approaches. Meredith loves to help people understand the power of documenting children’s learning in ways that reveal children’s growth in comprehension and understanding - and inform teachers’ decision-making.

The goal (of educators) is to better understand and reflect on the capacity and skills and way of thinking of children.
Magdalena Tedeschi, Pedagogista

The Reggio Emilia Approach views interactive, kinesthetic mediums as languages children use to express their knowledge. At the November Network Gathering, Sandy Burwell presented a rich tableau for how light and shadow are such languages. Her examples of children enthusiastically engaged in playful, creative ways demonstrates a natural and yet intentional approach to learning.   

Burwell’s presentation reminded me of the 2020 Reggio-Children E-Learning Webinar, Children and the Digital. Teachers in Reggio Emilia are intentional in the integration of materials into classroom learning spaces. In fact, they view their spaces as living environments. Their classrooms grow and change to reflect children’s developing interests and acquired knowledge.  The webinar presenters, Magdalena Tedeschi and Simona Spaggiari, described three important concepts that guide the Reggiani educators thinking, decision-making and planning: agency, beauty, and time. They use these concepts to thread together images, anecdotes and the idea that digital is a place for expanding upon languages to interact with each other.

The language of light and shadow naturally lends itself to support children’s agency. Burwell’s examples for exploring light and shadow invite children to independently construct their learning about the world around them. Children enter into a magical world of light and shadow intentionally constructed by teachers to create deep, feelings-based relationships with the language. Children have space to actively explore the language and begin to use it with their own intentions. 

The Italians believe beauty is a necessary condition for learning. Beauty, in our interpretation, is not a characteristic to just be added. It is a crucial condition. It’s part of our DNA in the construction of the environment so that children and adults can feel at ease and can support each other.  Tedeschi

The images shared in Burwell’s presentation and the Reggio webinar were environments of simplicity. Children’s use of open-ended materials with the languages of light and shadow emerged due to an absence of distraction. The beauty of the spaces appeared because the children could clearly read and interact with the materials presented by the teachers. There is not too much, not too little.  Burwell states, “What matters is the intention you have for the materials. What are you thinking or focusing on with a few materials?  What are you and the children excited about? Keep it simple.”

In their webinar the Italians describe that time is experienced differently as an adult and as a child. “We found a sort of oxymoron in the construction of the culture of the adults around technology…As adults, we speak about time as a dimension that passes by very fast.” Thus, the adult’s intention for a language may be at odds with how children desire to explore and utilize the language. “Children can really just lift up the dimension of time by unzipping their mental steps and by slowing down their reflections.” Tedeschi’s statement focuses on the dichotomy between a child’s use of technology and an adult’s understanding of the purpose of technology.  The adult views technology as a tool to accomplish tasks faster. The Italians found that children’s use of technology can be a tool for slowing down time. Children use technology to look closely at an object, an idea, or to bring together many languages to express their understanding of the world around them.

This idea of using a language for different purposes as a result of one’s experience of time resonated with me in one particular example in Burwell’s presentation. Like Burwell, I love the overhead projector as a material to explore the language of light and shadow. The projector provides so many possibilities for individual and group discoveries. Burwell shared an image of a child’s assembly of mixed objects illuminated on a white wall:  transparent, colored plastic alongside and on top of opaque letters and necklaces. I have seen images such as this in my classroom. There are moments when I question my purpose for offering this exploration of an overhead projector and loose parts. Why do children seemingly always create a mound of materials onto the projector? Am I not listening to the children correctly? Have I provided too many loose parts? Is this language of light being lost?  What happens next? The following quote from Burwell brought me comfort, gave further insight into this “oxymoron,” of time’s purpose, and reminded me of why I love what I do. She states, 

There is a tendency of children to keep intentionally and carefully placing objects on the overhead until the whole thing is a pile and you can’t see the light. I wonder what problem they want to solve? What wonder!

Agency, beauty and time are all found in this image of a child’s first experiences with an overhead projector. Burwell’s presentation challenges us to explore languages alongside children.  In doing so, the adult needs to model patience and curiosity. It is the responsibility of adults to reflect on their assumptions of children’s purpose. We need to consider the meaning of a child’s use of a language as a part of their relationship with time. Burwell ends with a gift for early childhood educators during this time of separation due to COVID-19. She reminds us of the power we have to influence generations of human beings. We have a commitment to play with children in the ever-growing environments we co-construct. 

We need stories of hope. These stories can nurture our spirits for a future of joy. We get to be a part of it!  

“Children build knowledge of the world with their bodies. Their actions precede and follow one another in an unfolding process in which children continually create new actions. So many of those actions are non-verbal. Because mind andbody are one, those actions are imprinted in the brain kinesthetically and lay thegroundwork for later thought.”   -Tom Bedard ​

I did not grow up with plans to be an early childhood educator. The thought never even crossed my mind until I was 30, so anything I have learned has not come from a master’s degree or even a bachelor’s. All my knowledge has come from the three-, four-, and five-year-olds that I am lucky enough to spend my days with as well as information I have acquired from books and blogs by play-based educators and any others who share my pure joy and passion for the field.

One of the magical aspects of our senses is that they are universal, they cross language barriers and completely disregard race or gender. The conference featured Tom Bedard, who creates wonderful and thought-provoking experiences in sensory tables for his students. He does not hold preconceived notions. The installations are there for children (and adults) to learn, problem-solve, socialize and have fun! As I watched the videos in his presentation I could imagine the learning taking place as his students explored the oobleck dripping down through the pegboard and the sense of wonder when things disappeared into the hidden compartments.

3,000 sense receptors in each fingertip!

As we observe our students’ learning we often think about what they are seeing, what they are hearing or even what they are tasting or smelling. When reflecting on myself I know that more often than not I forget about touch! And when I say that, I am saying that I am forgetting the experience of 3,000 sense receptors in each finger, that’s 30,000 sense receptors at the very tips of our hands. As adults, we have lived with these receptors for decades and have grown to take them for granted, whereas the children we are teaching have only lived with this experience for a few short years or some only months. Take a moment and imagine how it would feel to experience thousands of grains of sand cascading over your hands for the first time or if the feeling of water flowing between your fingers was a complete unknown. Better still, collect a cup of sand and a cup of water, close your eyes, hold your hands out and ask someone to surprise you by pouring one of them over your hands. That feeling is the beginning of fluid dynamics and solid mechanics, something which, when studied, can take you into what I think is one of the most interesting areas of science.

Tom Bedard explained that building varied sensory table apparatus is his creative outlet.  I would love to invite children from my class to help brainstorm, collaborate, design and build with their peers, teachers and even parents, to come up with their very own sensory experiences that we could all explore together. We miss details when we become too involved, instead of quietly observing and noticing clues such as - the interest in gravity from crashing down blocks or curiosity about water that appears from the student who waters the plants each day. From moments like these we can elaborate our sensory tables, in collaboration with our children, to ensure that we can all explore together, growing the many languages of children.

Tom Dodd grew up in the North of England and after studying sustainable engineering and working for eight years ineconomic development as an architectural, planning, and design consultant, he moved to Grand Rapids, Michiganwhere his career changed paths completely. He has spent the last three years at Grand Rapids Early DiscoveryCenter, a Reggio Emilia inspired early childhood school, as a teacher, and a few months ago took on the role of pedagogista.

Kristenza Nelson is a lead teacher at Dodge Nature Center Preschool. She earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and is working on her Master Degree in Environmental Education from Hamline University. Working with children in nature combines both of her passions. She considers it an honor to foster these connections.

In early March of 2020, the children at Dodge Nature Center Preschool were tapping maple trees in the woods. Together we stretched our trunks and reached our fingers toward the blue sky. Children gave thanks to the Pancake Tree as they whispered, “Wake up!” Spring is a magical time together. The children were relaxed and comfortable in the March thaw. Hope returned with the light and the earth began to squish beneath our feet.

Then, news of Minnesota’s first COVID case came. Within days our joyful preschool fell silent. Our school doors closed as COVID arrived. It was heartbreaking on so many levels. 

How were our young children and families coping in isolation? How could we continue to cultivate the many relationships we’d fostered? Could we engage three, four and five-year old children in ZOOM meetings?  These were trying times, a far cry from being together on the trail. How could we bring children’s voices back to the center? The project that follows emerged from those days of isolation. 

During the closure we invited families to stay connected to our classroom community by offering twice weekly ZOOM meetings that included songs, stories, and time to share. We reached deep to find ways to stay connected. I knew that screens were not ideal and wanted to continue to support their connections to the natural world. I encouraged the children to choose a nearby tree that spoke to them. I asked them to create drawings to share in our virtual spaces and newsletter. We created our own forest, as amazing and unique as each child. How would we continue to grow in place? Perhaps like trees. This was my proposal to families:

Hello Beautiful Spruce Families,

The last time we were together at Dodge we were learning all about Maple trees. Tasting the sweet sap and noticing the buds emerge on the branches.

 We are proposing a long term project that begins with choosing a tree to observe over an extended period of time. You don't have to be experts to learn together. There is magic in discovery.

Begin by having your child make a drawing or take a photo of a tree.

Write down one observation a week to share with the Sprucies.

What does your child notice?

Remember to ask open ended questions.

• Who lives in a tree? 
  
• What do you think is happening?
  
• Where are the leaves?
  

• Do trees eat?

• There are never any wrong answers!
  

  With my whole heart I believe that nature is the best medicine for whatever ails us. Encouraging families and children to go outdoors to observe their trees brought them outside and brought us together. We came together through art, nature and observation. We came together while staying apart, just like trees in the forest.

      

This fall we are grateful to be welcoming children back to Dodge Nature Center Preschool. COVID is still present in Minnesota, but we have learned spending time outside is the safest way to be together. For that we are grateful. It is beautiful to see children back on the trail enjoying the autumn glow beneath the beautiful pancake trees.

 

Reflections on Retirement: "Nostalgia for the Future"

by Patti Loftus

"gestures and dialogues of peace are still possible"

As friends and colleagues gear up for a new school year, the shape of which, because of Covid, is still being determined, I am happily unhinged from the contingency planning and restructuring. Since the end of May, when my final eight weeks of distant teaching ended and my retirement commenced, my brainspace has been entirely taken up with how to live in response to the death of George Floyd (and many others) and the seismic opportunity for awareness and change that seems to have emerged.

Although the following piece by Loris Malaguzzi to parents and children in Reggio Emilia is over 25 years old, it’s remarkably relevant this summer of 2020.

"To the parents and children of the infant-toddler centres and preschools.

It has been a difficult summer for the world, for Europe, for Italy. Because of wars, sometimes invisible and often "forgotten", because of terrorist attacks, because of earthquakes – "attacks" by nature of enormous proportions – tragedies added to tragedies. In our Countries we are witnessing a human exodus. The rights of many are betrayed... starting with children... starting with the right to life and to safety.

Those who work and live with children have a duty to renew hope in their daily action: a message of trust we must embed within us, educators and parents, in order for changes to be generated. In fact,​ ​we would like to hope, believe and communicate to the children that gestures of dialogue and peace are still possible,​ always possible, and that these are the foundation of human relations.

Education to respect for a life and ideas different from one's own, the determination and capacity to dialogue with differences, compassion, and solidarity, are the conditions for a stable peace, capable of halting appalling "holocausts" and giving voice to human reason again.

At the start of this new school year, what we ask of each one of us, we who are parents, educators and citizens in educational institutions, is a daily commitment to reaffirming the right of every person and every society to life and to a future, to education, to safety, to beauty, to play and to relations; continuing​ ​"to give a human and civilized meaning to existence... to feel nostalgia for the future, and for humankind".

(Loris Malaguzzi). Infant-Toddler Centres and Preschool of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia - Reggio Children - Reggio Children Foundation" ​found at Sightines-Initiative.com – “Change is Everyday”

We in the U.S. are in similarly troubled times this summer with the losses and uncertainties that Covid-19 has brought and we are in a time of social earthquakes with renewed calls that “Black Lives Matter,” that racism be named and rooted out. Will this moment of heightened awareness move a critical mass of us to new ways of living so that next generations will no longer replay the same injustices that are still deeply established?

I believe that educators and parents have the potential of leading the way. Malaguzzi wrote that “gestures of peace and dialogue are still possible”​ ​and calls them the​ ​“foundation of human relations.”​ ​He named educators and parents as having a duty to​ ​“renew hope.”

So what are “gestures of peace and dialogue?”

Here is one example.... In our Pre-K classroom, we engaged 4 and 5-year olds in conversations about fairness, skin color, who makes the rules and the big idea that “everyone counts.” I am convinced that if we begin when children are young, we can teach them to “dialogue with differences.” In the book, Nurture Shock, in the chapter titled, “Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race,” deeply held but false assumptions about young children are described – that children are color blind and that it’s better not to talk about race but, instead, simply expose children to diverse environments. Both of these have been found to be myths.

“The same way we remind our daughters, ‘Mommies can be doctors just like daddies,’ we ought to be telling all children that doctors can be any skin color. It’s not complicated what to say, it’s only a matter of how often we reinforce it...Explicitness works.”

Pre-K teachers at Blake let parents know in advance that, as part of our social studies curriculum, we would be talking with the children about differences and similarities, fairness, inclusion (“welcome” in Pre-K terms) and that no one is inherently better or worse than another because of their skin color. Each year the teachers drew from a lengthy list of book titles and selected those that best led to conversations. We believed it was as important for the white children to engage in conversations about skin color, fairness and civil rights as it was for the children of color. Each year’s work varied and unfolded in ways unique to that particular group and in dialogue with the parents. We shared conversations with the parents in our daily journals, encouraged them to look at the books we read to their children and provided additional titles for parents, particularly those who identified as white, to expand and deepen their knowledge about identity development and U.S. history.

Malaguzzi’s hope (and mine) for children’s “right to life and to safety” and the “capacity to dialogue with differences” will require of teachers (and parents) the determination to be and remain open and curious, to learn more about the difficult racial history of the U.S. (that we adults did not learn in school,) to introduce books, experiences and conversations into classrooms and homes so that children can grow up to be comfortable talking about differences, race, fairness and inclusion. Malaguzzi described a ​“nostalgia for the future,”​ a yearning for a world better than today’s, which holds the possibility of ​“reaffirming the right of every person and every society to life and to a future, to education, to safety, to beauty, to play and to relations.” ​With a renewed focus on justice and change building in our country, I feel hopeful that a better world is indeed possible for all, if teachers, parents, and children make a priority of having these vital conversations together.

Books for Children, including books about “change makers”

One​ by Kathryn Otoshi

We Are All Alike We Are All Different​ by Cheltenham Elementary School

Kindergarten

The Colors of Us​ by Karen Katz

All The Colors We Are​ by Katie Kissinger

Skin Again​ by bell hooks and Chris Raschka

Whoosh​ by Chris Barton

Mae Among The Stars​ by Roda Ahmed and Stasia Burrington

Ron’s Big Mission​ by Rose Blue and Corinne J. Naden Wilma

Unlimited​ by Kathleen Krull and David Diaz

Queen of the Track​ by Heather Lang

Dolores Huerta​ by Sarah Warren

A Splash of Red​ by Jen Bryant

Wonder Horse​ by Emily Arnold McCully

My Brother Martin​ by Christine King Farris

Back of the Bus​ by Aaron Reynolds and Floyd Cooper

Fly Bessie Fly​ by Lynn Joseph and Yvonne Buchanan

Ruby Bridges​ by Ruby Bridges and Grace Maccarone

In The Garden​ with Dr. Carver by Susan Grigsby and Nicole Tadgell

Resources for Adults

Waking Up​ White Debby Irving

White Fragility​ by Robin D’Angelo

Stamped From The Beginning​ by Ibram X. Kendi

Note: May, 2020 marked the end of Patti's 36-year career in early childhood education - 28 years as a Pre-K teacher at Blake School in the Twin Cities area and eight as a Montessori and ECFE teacher. Patti’s status is “retired” but she is available (at no charge) to share resources and ideas with anyone interested.​​pattiroseloftus@gmail.com

The changes that have come with the Corona virus have disrupted everyone’s lives, relationships, routines and expectations. President of Reggio Children, Claudia Guidici said (regarding COVID), “This completely unknown and unforeseen situation obliges us to rethink our daily way of life, our work and our relations, our way of seeing others and everything that surrounds us.” Uneasiness increases when we add inequality and civic unrest.The structure of care and education for the coming year is uncertain, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future.

While there is a plethora of sources for parents and teachers to access to support relationships and learning for both children and adults, we have been moved by the civic generosity of Reggio Children in making their current work freely available and translated into English. There are several kinds of offerings. 

The first, via Reggio Children, offers a collection of small proposals “to develop ideas and initiatives, for us to stay together, play together, and make school together.” The accessible provocations are loosely organized: stories, sounds, drawing, number, digital, etc. 

https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/athomewiththereggioapproach/

For many years we have wanted to better understand the work of the teachers in Reggio. While inspirations from Reggio Emilia are not intended to be copied, educators from Reggio Emilia are regularly making distance learning experiences visible, which serve as powerful examples. The Reggio Children – Loris Malaguzzi Centre Foundation (Fondazione Reggio Children Centro Loris Malaguzzi) promotes the Reggio Approach around the world.

"These are proposals that, despite the difficulty of not being able to attend school, going out, meeting friends or playing outdoors, allow children to investigate, think from different points of view, graphically represent, explore with the imagination to support their curiosity and desire to know."   

These online documents give us a glimpse into teachers’ thinking and planning which deepen experience, not only in the context of the digital environment. They provide intriguing starting points for distance learning.

https://reggiochildrenfoundation.org/onlineactivities/?lang=en

Please regard these online provocations as a framework and consider how they might affect your planning. The breadth, depth and accessibility in the workshop design are remarkable. 

Reggio Children is also offering, for the first time, live webinars at relatively modest tuition, presented by teachers, pedagogistas and atelieristas sharing narratives, images and videos of projects from their educational project. The webinars are structured very much as presentations during Study Tours. Webinars are in Italian with simultaneous translation voiceover in English. There will be a new schedule of events for the fall. 

https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/e-learning/webinar/ 

We would like to encourage everyone to document and reflect on your experiences as we adapt to our current circumstances and would love to gather traces and reflections inspired by Reggio Emilia. We are interested in working via any of the distance platforms with you, at any step along the way. It’s a fresh opportunity for collaboration. Contact Lani Shapiro at lani.shapiro@gmail.com and/or send an email to reggioinspiredmn@gmail.com

 -Lani Shapiro

At St. Paul School of Northern Lights, relationships are fundamental to our work. By developing respectful relationships, our teachers facilitate a deep sense of belonging amongst their class and the entire school community.

Because children’s sense of connection derives from feeling welcomed and valued, much time is invested in establishing and nurturing safe and positive classroom environments, which contribute to meaningful learning.

How might this deep sense of belonging be actively nurtured while students are learning from home?

With schools closed, our school community needed to see the potential in learning from a distance and develop necessary skills and understandings. Our faculty researched different online platforms to find ones they felt would best reflect the values of our school, support our students staying in relationship with one another, and provide possibilities for children to think together. Just as teachers organize learning environments at school to invite interactions, connection and learning among children, we wanted similar possibilities for offsite learning.

In addition to continued access to academic content, our teachers promoted connection by creating Distance Learning Bags. All SPSNL students received materials to enable them to participate in two community projects – The Bean Growing Project and The Loose Part Project.

As with the Finnish Education System, our teachers were driven by the desire to “do whatever it would take” to provide authentic experiences. Continuing the values of SPSNL, teachers identified ample opportunities for play and exploration both indoors and out, and sought to incorporate time for student reflection both independently and with their peers.

Since the launch of distance learning, our teachers have integrated elements from their existing practices that support the value of belonging. Every morning, video messages are posted that include rituals and routines to provide familiarity, connection and belonging, which is especially important during this challenging time. Students can see their teacher’s face, hear how classmates are being genuinely missed, and are warmly invited to explore the learning invitations for the day. 

But how could opportunities be created for students to feel like they are thinking together, something that is deeply valued by our school?

Teachers schedule Zoom calls with their students, sometimes as whole class experiences to listen to a read-a-loud or to introduce much loved pets to classmates. Sometimes video calls are set up for smaller group chats where students are able to think together about a particular project or how they are navigating distance learning. Flipgrid is serving as our school-wide community platform where students across classes can think together and hear others’ points of view.

At SPSNL we also strive to build community through kindness. Even at a distance, students continue to leave birthday wishes, sing songs and create drawings for classmates on Seesaw. They record comments in response to something a peer may have posted. Some students have written letters to each other and to their teacher, sending them through the mail. Others have written poems about kindness. SPSNL children have also shown ways they are extending kindness to others beyond their class community, by putting messages and bears in their windows to warm the hearts of people passing by. Some children have created thank you cards and paper hearts for their parents, recognizing that even their parents appreciate support during this time. 

In addition to nurturing the relationships between children and teachers, and among the children, our teachers continue to think about how to help parents feel supported and valued during this unprecedented time. As parents and teachers are experiencing distance learning for the first time, we seek ways to be active partners in this new endeavor. Together with each child’s family, our teachers are striving to create learning opportunities to support each child’s growth and well-being while learning from home. 

As we hope this time of social distancing will soon pass and that those whom we know and love will remain safe and well, we are reminded of the significant value of being part of a caring community and the joy of being able to think together. Forming and nurturing relationships with others contributes to one’s sense of belonging. May we all look forward to being in the physical presence of one another again with renewed appreciation.

- Kate Arbon

Learn more about School of Northern Lights here: https://www.schoolofnorthernlights.org

Collage and Printmaking with Young Children Gathering

by Emily Benz

This January’s Collage and Printmaking with Young Children gathering was a hands-on textural feast in the art studio at The Blake School. Kim Lane, Blake’s lower school art teacher at the Hopkins Campus, led the group through a joyful exploration of collage and printmaking techniques for three hours. As an adult often busy with the responsibilities of life, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to be a student in the studio for the morning and became so thoroughly immersed in the process, I could have happily gone on for a couple of hours more.

We began the morning with tempera paint soaked in felt and simple tools; a textured wheel from a toy, ridged cardboard triangle, a wooden block with string tied around the middle were some examples, and we used these simple tools to create patterns on brightly colored sheets of paper. Some made simple and clean patterns, others made highly complex prints with layered colors. Colors and tools moved from table to table, and people did, too, when they felt moved to try another hue. The process was simple and the results were bright and surprising. I felt bathed in color and light as I saw our prints on the drying rack. It was easy to see how very young children could delight in this kind of printmaking

Then it was time to cut out shapes to create printing plates. We used white card stock and cut it up and glued it onto cardboard plates to create our plates. Some were experts with the scissors and created intricate patterns inspired from nature, others made bold and abstract work with thicker pieces. I myself cut many different small lines and then let my image show itself to me as I played with the tactile lines on the cardboard. It turned out to be a stick house, inspired by the many similar structures my children built and played in at Dodge Nature Center and Blake.

Kim then offered trays full of colorful piles of paper individually painted to use for collage. In her studio, children mix these complex colors and paint them onto paper first during one class period. Then, the next session, these same painted papers are offered for collage, giving the work a different depth. Again, scissors in hand, we quietly snipped the satisfyingly textured paper and ideas emerged both abstract and realistic as we lost ourselves in the process. After finishing our own collages, we took the time to see some of the Kindergarten collages in the hall; my favorite was an elaborate collage of an exploding ice cream shop, with many tiny red and orange pieces intricately arranged to fashion the explosion dramatically on black paper. Ms. Lane pointed out, pieces don’t even have to be cut to make collages like this, they can be torn instead.

We ended the morning seeing some examples of cardboard collage puppet animals, (a lemur in a beret was a standout) and then creating our final print plates by drawing firmly into Styrofoam plates and then rolling them with black ink and pressing them into bright sheets of paper. The process was crisp and satisfying.

I was struck again and again by the simple materials offered and the visually arresting results that came out of our guided exploration with them. As a parent at Blake of a fourth grader and a first grader, I’ve long admired the projects that my children bring home from Ms. Lane’s studio. But to be a student in the studio myself opened up a whole new appreciation for all of the subtle magic that happens for the children there. To go through that process as as adult, whether as a parent or an educator, is invaluable. It allows us to see the potential for making art with ordinary objects, to savor the gift of slowing down time, and to experience the knowledge through exploration of materials. The time and space and materials to make art – whether in a dedicated studio, a spot in a classroom or on a kitchen table – encourages quiet meditation, critical thinking, collaboration, and playfulness. And as Ms. Lane reminded us very importantly, we don’t need much in the way of materials to create these rich and empowering opportunities for the children in our care.

 

The beauty of presenting loose parts to young children is that they invite the child’s powers of destruction and construction in almost equal measure.

In moving, joining, poking, sorting, naming, stacking, painting, and tinkering with loose parts, the child continually makes and ‘unmakes’ configurations. By adding, subtracting, pausing, persevering, evaluating, revising, concluding, and revisiting, the child increasingly and exponentially expands her/his powers of cognition and personal agency while simultaneously delighting in the fun of open-ended play.

The surprise inherent to using loose parts in early childhood classrooms is tucked into every individual and collaborative venture: the gift of witnessing the unfolding of a perfectly unique offering.

- Judy Hodder

Wandering and Wondering: Connecting the Joy of Loose Parts To the Early Childhood Setting

Featuring Carla Gull, nationally renowned speaker on the whys and hows of using "Loose Parts" with children of all ages to support creativity and inquiry.

• How can we respond to children's interests and needs by offering them open-ended materials?
• How can we use "loose parts" to make our classroom environments enticing, stimulating and appropriately challenging for children?
• How can we support children's inventiveness through our intentional, thoughtful presence and planning?

8:00 AM - Registration
8:30 - Welcome and introductions
9:00 - Keynote Speaker, Carla Gull
10:45 - Break-Out Sessions: Choice of smaller group workshops including:

• Using loose parts outdoors in nature
• Materials in the classroom: A conversation on getting started
• Rethinking Nicholson’s 10 Principles

12:00 - Lunch and networking; Book vendors: Red Leaf Press, Oleanna Books and Debra Fish Library1:00 PM - Group Reflection, Door Prizes and closing

Location:
Benilde-St. Margaret’s School
2501 Highway 100 S.
St. Louis Park, MN 55416

Register Online by Monday, September 30, 2019
Cost includes lunch and CEU’s