Materials, Learning and Technology

If you have not seen the series on Story Workshop on youtube produced by Opal School of the Portland Children's Museum and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, please stop right now and take 6 minutes to watch this one.   We are confident that viewing this short film will enrich the way that you imagine what is possible with materials, the school environment and learning. There are six videos in this series on Story Workshop and how this approach is inclusive, inspiring, socially constructive, beautiful and empowering.  You will find the whole series listed once you watch the first.  One of the most powerful pieces of the narration is:

I expect the environment to communicate what I believe about children.  They are all competent and capable.  They come to this work full of experiences and with stories worth telling. When given the time and tools to do so they will readily and eagerly take every opportunity to share those stories, those pieces of themselves.  They will do so because that is what we do as human beings from the moment we are born.  We share our stories to make sense of this world that we live in.

In our work, Ashley and I are often asked to help teachers rethink their environments and to help schools to redesign their spaces for learning.  This approach requires that we start with what we believe about children and learning, what we know about well-designed spaces and the well-being, focus, motivation and meaningful student and teacher work that they support.  In the municipal schools for young children of Reggio Emilia, aesthetics are understood as an underlying thread that holds everything together...our relationships, our interactions, our learning and our work.

This morning I found another link through a friend with another great resource on environments and materials linking it to children's use of technology...Thinking with Things.  They feature some inspiring videos of children working with materials, loose parts, recycled and natural materials.

There are so many resources out there in the world to support our work in these areas! Let us all keep sharing them as we discover them and as we design beautiful, well- stocked environments that reflect the best of what we believe and know about children and ourselves.

Materials

I am about to co-teach a course: Environments and Materials in Reggio Inspired Teaching and Learning at Lesley University and about to see the second edition of our book, In the Spirit of the Studio: Learning from the Atelier of Reggio Emilia come out next week... so, I have been thinking a lot about the whole idea of materials and what they mean to me and have come to mean to many with the perspective of the work in Reggio Emilia. A central thread in Reggio Emilia is aesthetics and the power of materials...paint, pens, pastels, clay, stones, shells, sand, earth, leaves....to hold meaning together, to prompt connections, stories, exchange, pleasure and wonder.  Playing with the stuff of the world... the pigments, the earth itself, the fibers and filaments, the graphite and charcoals...all of it of the earth and from the earth, gives us human beings the chance to make marks and make meaning in many forms.  This is never so clear as it is in Reggio Emilia, Italy in the municipal schools for young children.  What a wonder to live now and to take inspiration from Reggio Emilia as many of us do all around the world.

Vea Vecchi's book, Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia is a must read for those of us who want to peek into the real world of aesthetics and learning as it has evolved in Reggio Emilia.  Margie Cooper's chapter in the newest and third edition of The Hundred Languages of Children, "Is Beauty a Way of Knowing?" synthesizes and interprets a talk by Vea Vecchi that is the foundation of much of the work in Reggio Emilia.  All of the publications from Reggio Emilia communicate in myriad  ways through many learning stories the power and pleasure that materials of all kinds hold for students and adults.

We have shared a list of basic materials in different contexts and for different reasons. We are now sharing it with the students in the Lesley course that begins this weekend.

We share it here to remind you what you might need and what you could look for.  The list is not complete by any means but it is a good start.  Have fun and never doubt that some good pens and some soft colored pencils in the hands of children, over time, will inspire and amaze you.

Suggested Materials

These are basic suggestions for ordering materials to use with children.  Several sets of colored pencils should last a class of 20 children a school year if they are treated well. You do not need to order a set for each child.  Soft, high quality colored pencils are a pleasure to use and produce results that do not compare to low quality, hard student sets of 12 pencils.  The same is true of other materials.

These are brands that we find reliable and good.  There are others that are also fine. Experiment and have fun.  It should not cost so much more in the end, and you, as a teacher or parent, will become more educated and refined in making choices. Remember that these are beginning basic suggestions and only suggestions.  We order most of our materials from Dick Blick: 800 828 4548, www.dickblick.com

 Drawing:

Fine line black pens: Permanent black Sharpie pens

Prismacolor colored pencil-set of 36 or more

Pentel fine markers-set of 24 or more

Drawing pencils in HB, 2B, and 4B (hard to soft)

Kneaded erasers

Painting:

Pelican Gouache-12 color set

Water color sets-16 color set

Dick Blick medium grade tempera (Order as many colors as you can afford           and then mix new colors. We use jelly jars to mix colors.)

Brushes:

Economy camel hair for tempera, sizes 4, 6, and 8

Assorted sizes of brushes for watercolor and gouache

Sponges for blotting

Papers:

Basic white drawing paper in 9x12, 12x18 for drawing, and 18x24 for tempera    painting

Textured grays, and off whites

Vellum for painting, marker, qouache and colored pencil

9x12 Biggie Junior watercolor pad

tissue assortments

foil assortments

origami paper

decorative collage paper

corrugated cardboard and other mat board scraps for collage and paper sculpture

Glue:

Elmers gel glue

Glue stick

Hot glue for heavy objects

Wire:

Twisteez colored wire

Aluminum, copper, brass, fine and medium gauge from local hardware stores

Beads, buttons, sequins, shells, yarns

Beautiful Stuff to collect with children and families:

Sequins

Unmarked envelops of all sizes

Stamps, wildlife and others

Unused postcards, cards and stationary

Beads

Buttons

Fasteners (paper clips, brass fasteners and grommets)

Hardware (rubber and metal washers, screws, nuts and bolts)

Clean rubber or plastic tubing, clear tubing

Snaps, zippers, eye hooks, thimbles

Cord, tassels, threads

Ribbon, lace

Lace

Interesting wooden pieces

Rubber stamps

Old keys and charms

Silk or dried flowers

Leather strips

Dowel rods

Plexiglas or mirror pieces

Springs

Doilies

Colored straws

Corks

Cellophanes

Twigs, acorns, seedpods, shells, dried leaves, flower petals

Sources:

Basements, junk drawers, garages, sewing boxes

Flea markets

Hardware stores

Craft supply stores

Gardens and woods

Party supply stores

IKEA

Craft supply stores

Beautiful Questions

Ashley and I just read an intriguing book, A More Beautiful Question, by Warren Berger. We first heard about this book through our work in inquiry-based learning with Oregon Episcopal School.  We have always been struck by the thoughtful and powerful questions that drive the work at Opal School of the Portland Children's Museum.  The images in this blog post are all from Opal. In his book, Berger quotes some staggering statistics.  On average, children between the ages of 3 and 5 ask  300 questions a day! And what happens? Then, they stop. Because of lots of reasons including this one: school and teachers are usually looking for answers from children not questions.

Berger's main message is that framing questions and wondering why? what if ?and how? are among the critical skills of our time.  We need to cultivate the natural curiosity and questioning disposition that children have in schools.

I always think of Pedagogical Consultant to Reggio Children, Carlina Rinaldi's, advice to parents.  When your child asks, "Why is there a moon?" Instead of giving her some kind of answer, ask her what she thinks and imagines.  What theories does she have? In this way, you start a wondering conversation with your child where you are investigating together and enjoying the pleasure of that search.  This is a good idea for teachers, too.  Children are full of theories if we ask them and wonder with them.  It is the search and the questions that are the most important part of life, not answers, that for the young child, may not stick or make sense in any case.

This is the heart of inquiry-based learning: learning that comes from real curiosity and a desire to uncover meaning and knowledge that can all hang together and last inside of us so that it changes our perspective and our way of understanding the world.

This is real learning, the kind we would like to see in schools.

Did you know that our brain does not really like answers? We much prefer puzzles and unsolved mysteries.  Just try to watch your brain sometime and you will see.

We highly recommend this book, especially Chapter Two, which is all about children and schools.  If you read it, tell us what you think and what new questions you have.

You can watch this trailer about the book to get a taste.

Winter

Wow.  I am looking out at a true blizzard, snow blowing and whirling in the wind, wildly waving trees, the sound of fierce wind turning the corners of our house and whipping over the stone walls.  Inside it is warm, the fire flickers, the one we usually do not light during the day. Today is the day to do whatever makes the house warm and cozy.

Friends have been giving me winter inspiration now for a few weeks.  Our  illustrator friend, Penny Dullaghan (who designed our new website), wrote a blog post about about the Danish concept and word Hygge (pronounced ‘hooga’ or ‘hyooga’).  She says…”it is hard to translate but basically means…coziness, togetherness, well-being, warm tucked under blankets, candles lit, good conversation, snuggled up and happy” all in the middle of winter.  I love that idea!  Looking for and creating the wonderful things that are available during this time of year.

Speaking of that, we have been in Vermont for a few weeks and have been spellbound by the winter wonderland on walks and cross country ski expeditions.  The soft snow perfectly balanced on tree branches and twigs, the intense blue sky, the crunch of dry snow underfoot.

I have been taking another oil painting class this month and how delightful to immerse myself in color surrounded by young, enthusiastic college student painters whose boldness has rubbed off on me.

And then, I want to go after color and compose it and smell it and taste it inside while outside is all white, brown and gray.

Lastly for this post, another dear friend gave me a Mary Oliver poem all about snow that seems perfect for today.

May your winter be filled with Hygge and your shoulders covered with stars.

"Walking Home from Oak-Head" by Mary Oliver

There is something about the snow-laden sky in winter in the late afternoon

that brings to the heart elation and the lovely meaninglessness of time. Whenever I get home - whenever -

somebody loves me there. Meanwhile I stand in the same dark peace as any pine tree,

or wander on slowly like the still unhurried wind, waiting, as for a gift,

for the snow to begin which it does at first casually, then, irrepressibly.

Wherever else I live - in music, in words, in the fires of the heart, I abide just as deeply

in this nameless, indivisible place, this world, which is falling apart now, which is white and wild,

which is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith, our deepest prayers. Don’t worry, sooner or later I’ll be home. Red-cheeked from the roused wind,

I’ll stand in the doorway stamping my boots and slapping my hands, my shoulders covered with stars.

Storytelling and Classrooms

Here is a poem from the January 6, 2015, Writers’ Almanac, a favorite daily web newsletter.  Stephen Dunn gives us pause in our digital (formerly analogue) age, to remember the power of oral story telling, both for the teller and the listener. Stories by Stephen Dunn

It was back when we used to listen to stories, our minds developing pictures as we were taken into the elsewhere

of our experience or to the forbidden or under the sea. Television was wrestling, Milton Berle,

Believe It Or Not. We knelt before it like natives in front of something sent by parachute,

but when grandfather said “I’ll tell you a story,” we stopped with pleasure, sat crosslegged next to the fireplace, waited.

He’d sip gin and hold us, his voice the extra truth beyond what we believed without question.

When grandfather died and changed what an evening meant, it was 1954. After supper we went

to the television, innocents in a magic land getting more innocent, a thousand years away from Oswald and the shock,

the end of our enormous childhood. We sat still for anything, laughed when anyone slipped

or lisped or got hit with a pie. We said to our friends “What the hey?” and punched them in the arms.

The television had arrived, and was coming. Throughout the country all the grandfathers were dying,

giving their reluctant permission, like Indians.

"Stories" by Stephen Dunn from Local Time. © Quill Press, 1986.

For Grandfather, to tell a story was to embrace an act of imagination that transcended reality…with the help of some gin.  Through his story he expanded his universe and probably, to some extent, escaped the pressures of his reality.  On a deeply intra-personal level he connected with his best beloved grandchildren.

For the children, grandfather’s stories became the extra truth beyond what we believed without question.  Grandfather transported the children into an imaginative world that invited questions and wonder; that suspended the reality of facts to be believed; our minds developing pictures     as we were taken into the elsewhere     of our experience or to the forbidden     or under the sea.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are sitting on the couch with a couple or three brothers asking Grammy to put the picture book down, and tell us another rabbit story.  With a twinkle in her eye, she would; and off we’d go into the woods and fields, into vast networks of homes in tree trunks and burrows; confronting unlimited joys and terrors.  She’d anticipated Watership Down by forty years.

Dunn holds this marvelous creative environment in stark contrast to the television, something sent by a parachute.  Somehow the moving pictures of the worlds of Milton Berle, Believe It Or Not, and certainly, Oswald, left little to the imagination.  The humor invited mindless mimicry and the news was simply shocking.

The purveyors of the world of creativity and imagination, grandfathers, the wise ones, didn’t give up...but, they did die.  And with their deaths came “reluctant permission” to dwell entirely within the reality of television.  The grandfathers, the older generation, were “like indians” surrendering to the inevitable domination of the other, in this case, television.

As teachers, we can revive the world of grandfathers and grandmothers, the world of imagination.  We can create environments in our classrooms that embrace storytelling.  This is not to say that reality is to be avoided; much is to be learned in the hundred languages we need to understand in order to survive in this world.  However, it is to say that there is much to be discovered in the extra truth beyond what we believed without question so that we can thrive and continue to imagine and to create a world where we all want to live.