Yo-Yo Reggio!

Change for the New Year!

2011-12-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

It's a good change, I promise! I'm transitioning my Yo-Yo Reggio work to a new place, for the new year. I'm making the move to WordPress, and decided to take the opportunity to reconfigure a lot of what I'm working on. In honor of change and growth, our new name (at least for the coming year), is the Family Lab for Inquiry and Play - FLIP for short!

Sam likes 'flip' because it makes him think of 'flip your lid'. I like it because it makes me think of flipping an attitude around - turning an old standby on its head! And of course there's the pancake connection - mmmm...

Yo-Yo Reggio will still be living at this address, if you ever want to see an old post or photo. If I can figure out how to flip some of the posts over to WordPress, I'll let you know!

The Family Lab for Inquiry and Play will fully launch on January 1 - we hope to see you there!

Gingerbread and Robots

2011-12-14T21:22:00.000-08:00

After the flurry of daily postings last month, December is providing the chance to reflect and reboot.

Gingerbread happened this year - and it worked! I remembered the debacle of 2009, and simply used less flour, with tasty results.

Not necessarily neat and tidy results, but we did have fun. And both kids enjoyed using KNIVES to cut shapes from the dough. Just looking at the photos, I realize how much all of us have grown and changed over the past year.

I also saw growth when Sam sat down to draw robots every evening for the past week. Last year he wanted to use tracing paper to do drawings like this (or he'd ask me to make drawings for him). Now he's the primary illustrator - he got some initial ideas from a book about drawing robots, and then he created his own. He's starting to think of himself as an artist, which is pretty cool for a five-year-old.

Any gingerbread or robotic creations to share out there?

Documentation Day 29 - How did 30 days go by so quickly?

2011-11-30T20:06:00.000-08:00

The official month of documentation posts has come to an end, though I'm sure I'll be writing about the same subject in the future. Overall, I really enjoyed the process of writing with one area of focus, over many days. It helped me to think and reflect more about documentation, and I hope it sparked an idea or two for others as well.

Just a few concluding thoughts... While I think that the documentation of learning is wonderful and important, whether in the home or in the classroom, I hope that parents and educators don't get overly concerned with the documentation, at the expense of the children in front of them. Balancing time spent documenting and time spent actually being with our children is vital.

Because eventually, our children will leave us. The documentation that we so carefully gathered will be an interesting piece of history for the child and the family. Actually, the documentation might not even survive - computers crash, paper disintegrates, and life marches on. It's the lives of the children that will serve as the true documentation, of the learning journey you accompanied them on.

How do they love and care for those around them?

What passion and joy do they bring to the world?

How does their learning result in greater good?

I look forward to experiencing the answers to these questions, with my own children, and every child I've ever had the honor of learning with.

Thanks to everyone who has tuned in this month. I've got some ideas cooking for 2012, that I'll share soon!

Documentation Day 28 - What's on your documentation menu?

2011-11-29T20:43:00.000-08:00

Over the past month (!), I've written about a variety of documentation tools and processes. Of course, it's just the tip of the iceberg, and just as there are '100 languages' of children, there are hundreds of tools to capture learning.

Below is a menu of documentation tools, divided into very general categories. You might categorize the choices differently, and you might add many other menu items. I've only written about some of the menu items during the past month, but hope to spend the many years exploring more!

Visual Documentation (2-D):

Sketchbooks
Notebooks
Photographs
Lists
Evernote
Pinterest
Pages or Word Documents
Documentation Panels
Power Point Presentations
3-ring binder
Gallery displays
Projecting using a document camera or overhead projector

Audio Documentation:

Cassette Recorder
MP3 Recorder
Transcribing
Evernote voice note recorder
Dragon Dictation

Video Documentation:

iPhone video capture
Camcorder or other small video recorder
iMovie, for editing video
YouTube

Social Media:

Blogs
Pinterest
Facebook
edmodo
Twitter

I think it's probably common to rely on a few methods, more than others. For our family, sketchbooks, notebooks, and photographs are our staples. The blog is the other tool that I use most frequently, as a way for me to document my own learning process, and to see a visual and written record of our learning as a family.

What are your staples?

Is there anything new you've tried, outside of your 'normal' documentation menu? How did it work for you?

Documentation Day 27 - What's the difference between...

2011-11-28T21:31:00.000-08:00

documentation and scrapbooking? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject. I'm off to document my dreams :)

Documentation Day 26 - Volcanoes and Drawing

2011-11-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

Here's another way to approach documentation panels - this formatting idea is courtesy of my brother Shaun. I was talking to him about documentation and apps and ways to make compiling documentation easier - he reminded me of a very simple solution. Within Pages, and I'm sure in Microsoft Word as well, there are all sorts of easy to use templates. The one I used for our volcano work is called "Science Fair Poster Small". I was able to drag and drop photos from iPhoto and add text, very quickly.

Depending on how you want to share documentation panels, the work could live on your computer, be projected in the classroom/home, be e-mailed to families, or be printed, at whatever scale works for your space.

The poster below is from the Pages template "Garden Project Poster Large". So far, this method of quickly bringing together photo and text for documentation purposes is more user friendly than the pinterest method, for me. I'd love to hear what others think!

Documentation Day 25 - Documentation Panels

2011-11-26T22:04:00.000-08:00

I'm still exploring this, so there's not much of a visual for you tonight (crayon photo, courtesy of Sam)! I think there are many great examples of documentation panels out and about - I don't quite feel comfortable posting someone else's work here, because of privacy issues for children. If any readers would like to share links to amazing documentation panels, please do!

I started putting together a mock-up of a documentation panel on my pinterest account today - it works to do this from my iPhone, because I can be in pinterest, take a photo, and post directly to the sample documentation panel, or I can choose photos from my current library/camera roll on my phone. I still need to play with adding text, but I'll certainly keep you posted.

In the meantime, I'm also going to check out zinglewaga, a site that my brother found and sent to me. It looks like it's aimed at parents (more like a digital scrapbooking tool), but I could see it being utilized for documenting learning too, either in a school setting or at home. Anyone out there using this tool?

Documentation Day 24 - Making Learning Visible

2011-11-25T23:04:00.000-08:00

Today I was thinking about documentation panels. In Reggio-inspired schools, teachers and children, make learning visible, by posting large panels, filled with photos, text, and artifacts, showing learning. This is a way for children to revisit their own learning, and see what friends are up to. It allows family members and others in the community to easily see what's going on in the classroom. And it allows teachers another view, of a specific child or the group as a whole.

In our home, I haven't created documentation panels, but I'd like to. Both kids love to look at photographs, but we usually look at them on a computer. I'm playing with pulling specific photos into albums within iPhoto - you can view them on one page, or convert them into a slideshow very easily, but I still think it lacks the richness of an actual documentation panel. Maybe this is akin to me reading books from time to time on-line, but ultimately loving the feel of turning the pages of a real, honest to goodness book - I feel like a documentation panel should be something the learner can experience more directly, with all of the senses.

I was also thinking about the feasibility of creating documentation panels within pinterest. Since you can pin any photo, you could take photos of any artifacts and texts that you'd want to add to the panel, then pin those, along with actual photos. I was going to do exactly that, tonight, but I'm having trouble with the tech side of things. Which is a reminder of why it's important to have multiple ways to document, including some that don't involve internet connectivity, electricity, etc.! Now I have a project for tomorrow - create a pinterest documentation panel. And then figure out how difficult it would be to print the pinterest board, as large-scale as possible...

The problem with writing late at night, is that it's very difficult to sleep, once all of these ideas start running around my head!

I would love to hear about your documentation panels - what materials do you use? How are your children involved in the creation of documentation panels? Where do you display the panels? What works for you and what is difficult?

Documentation Day 23 - Mil Gracias!

2011-11-24T20:34:00.000-08:00

Today the documenter was documented! Sam was in charge of getting some photos today, during the cooking melee. This is my favorite shot.

I hope you had the chance to appreciate the blessings of life today, where ever you are in the world.

Documentation Day 22 - Slowing Down and Taking Ownership

2011-11-23T20:23:00.000-08:00

I've been fortunate to be in more classrooms over the past few weeks, so I've been taking lots of pictures. I carry my iPhone with me, and use it to capture photos, videos, and sometimes voice recordings. There are two things that I've noticed, when I ask a child if I can photograph what they're working on - most children begin to slow down and many children seem to take more ownership of the project.

As soon as I snap a photo, I ask the child if he'd like to see the picture. Every child I've worked with is very eager to see the results. The child looks closely at the photo, and then returns to play. Most of the time, if I'm still nearby, the child will ask me to take subsequent pictures, as the work progresses. I've noticed children who were rushing, begin to slow their play/work down a little. They'll make a change in the configuration, then ask for another photo, in order to see the subtle change captured.

The project seems to become more valued by the child, and I don't know whether this is because an outsider has noticed the project, or whether it's because it's been captured on 'film'. Or, maybe the project would have been just as valued, regardless of the camera or outside influence - it's difficult to know.

I wish there was a way for me to quickly and easily print out photos in the classroom, in order to leave the documentation with the child. I know that I can send them to the teacher later, but it's the immediacy of seeing the photos during centers, that seems more powerful.

My favorite sequence came from a small group of boys, who were experimenting with ramps and cars. One boy in particular, M., wanted me to capture the cars in motion on the ramp. I would love to get more cameras, for kids in our classrooms to use - I know M. would've been very interested in trying to capture the images himself.

Documentation Day 21 - The Dance

2011-11-22T21:35:00.000-08:00

How do you balance observation with interaction?

I think it's a misconception, that you have to choose one or the other. But I hear this sentiment a lot - either, I'm too busy teaching, I don't have time to observe... or, I'm too busy observing, I don't have time to teach... I definitely don't mean to sound glib - whether you're doing this work in a classroom or in your home, it can be really difficult to find the right balance for each learner.

When learning is going full speed ahead, there's always going to be a dance between observation and interaction. Since no two moments of learning will ever be exactly alike, there's no way to prescribe the perfect ratio of time spent observing the learner and time spent interacting with the learner.

In general, my goal is to tip the balance toward more observation, because sometimes when the 'teacher' steps back, more discovery and authentic learning can happen for the child. My goal is also to work toward the interaction side being less didactic and more inquiry-based.

Although... Sam asked me a question this morning, and I responded with another question - to see if we could figure out an answer together. He responded, Mom, will you just tell me an answer for this one? I don't want to make more questions today. Fair enough - there will always be situations in which 'just the facts ma'am' are exactly what we need. The dance continues...

Documentation Day 20 - A Tale of Three Turkeys

2011-11-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

Alright, I didn't think I was going to post anything related to American Thanksgiving, but then a few turkeys caught our eyes, as turkeys inevitably will.

First, there was Sam's traced-hand rendition. He made it by himself this weekend, and he was very proud.

Then, there was this wonderful blog post, written by a group of kindergarten students in New Jersey. Heidi Echternacht is the amazing teacher supporting their work. I know I'm getting a little wild with the adjectives tonight, but I love the fabulous documentation work the kids are doing via their class blog.

Why did the turkey blog post stand out? The photographs and authentic inquiry made it very compelling - to me and Sam. Drawings of turkeys are fine, but real turkeys are beautiful!

Finally, we happened upon a very cool documentary on PBS last night - My Life as a Turkey. It's the re-creation of the story of Joe Hutto, an illustrator and naturalist who raised sixteen wild turkeys. Sam and I watched this together and we might have to watch it again on-line. This morning, Sam woke up and started talking turkey, just like Joe Hutto. He's appalled that I've bought a turkey breast to roast on Thanksgiving, and says there's no way he'll eat turkey this year.

Watch A New Mother on PBS. See more from NATURE.

Documentation Day 19 - A textbook definition

2011-11-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

From Early Childhood Education Today- George S. Morrison (2009):

"Documentation. Transcriptions of children's remarks and discussions, photographs of their activity, and representations of their thinking and learning using many media are carefully arranged by the atelierista, along with the other teachers, to document the work and the process of learning. (p. 159)"

That's all I've got tonight, though there was lots of documentation action all weekend.

Documentation Day 18 - Bella's iMovie Trailer

2011-11-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

Another iMovie trailer, just for fun! I showed Sam the trailer from yesterday, and he wasn't that interested. Maybe it was the documentary style trailer? He has been watching a lot of video clips from when he was a baby, and he's fascinated by those.

Without further ado, here's Bella's movie trailer...

Documentation Day 17 - iMovie trailers!

2011-11-18T21:41:00.000-08:00

I really didn't think I'd have so much fun with iMovie! I started playing with the movie trailer function tonight -it's maybe veering into the realm of cute, but it made my husband laugh, so that's worth a lot in my book. It'll be interesting to see what Sam thinks of it in the morning, and if he'd like to make some 'movies' too.

Documentation Day 16 - video work, continued

2011-11-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

When I asked Sam which photos and video clips he'd like to put into a movie about the things he's interested in, he replied, "All of them!" The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Tonight we watched some old video footage - recorded in Hawaii, on my old digital camera. I played with pulling a few clips into iMovie - nothing fancy, but it's a start. It was very easy to use iMovie - the biggest con is waiting for it to download into blogger. For real use, i.e. Sam being able to see the clips, it's doesn't take much time at all, so I'm happy with the tool. The clips from Hawaii are saved in an .m4v format.

We also did a short video clip of last night's science experiment - making slime using corn starch, water, and food coloring. This one is also saved as an .m4v, but it's just one clip, so it was even easier to save.

Anybody have video tips to share? How do you organize your clips? If you work with many children, how do you organize and share large quantities of video footage?

Documentation Day 15 - High Tech - iMovie - the experimental stage

2011-11-16T21:19:00.000-08:00

Well, it was the logical next step. So far this month, we've gone from two-dimensional visual stuff, to audio stuff, and now it's time to combine the two.

Disclaimer - I know next to nothing about video documentation. If you're here to learn about how to use iMovie, you might be disappointed. Really, this is just documentation of me learning about documentation - thanks for joining me for the ride... I'm definitely in the process side of things right now - I can't even get an image to go with this post - so imagine you're seeing a video montage of kids working on various projects... I hope to get a real example up by tomorrow night!

Documentation Day 14 - The David Elkind Interlude

2011-11-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

I'm doing a lot of reading for the courses I'm taking, and tonight it's all David Elkind. I'm reading a short article called Educating Young Children in Math, Science, and Technology (1999) - you can find the full text here. There are many ties to documentation - consider the following...

"If we want to teach young children math, science, and technology, we cannot start from some reflective analysis of the task, but rather we must actually observe children attempting to learn the task."

Later in the article, he gives a great example of the importance of observation in the classroom, dovetailed with his own keen awareness of the importance of social learning:

"...I observed a group of children gathered around a computer that one child was operating. They were working together and making suggestions to the child at the keyboard, who seemed to appreciate their help. The teacher, however, intervened and suggested that they needed to take turns and to let the child at the keyboard have his turn without the other children bothering him. This example shows how a well-intentioned teacher nonetheless ignored the necessity of observing children before making an instructional decision. The children were working cooperatively, not fighting or competing to be at the keyboard. Young children may approach technology in this way; they may find it less intimidating when approached as a group project. That at least is a possibility that should be investigated."

There's a lot to think about, in the entire article - so I'm off to do just that!

Documentation Day 13 - Low Tech - Library Lists

2011-11-14T20:01:00.000-08:00

We go to the library a lot, and we check out a lot of books.

A side note - our closest library branch is called Smiley Library. We were headed there this weekend and Sam said, "It's the best name for a library. It makes me feel so happy to say it." :)

Anyway, we probably check out too many books. But it results in great happiness and feelings of abundance, so we're going to keep on checking out stacks and stacks.

To keep track of some of our great finds, we've just started using our on-line library list feature. I'm guessing that most public libraries have this feature now. You can easily mark titles that you've checked out, or that you'd like to check out, and they pop right on to a list, complete with bibliographic information and a picture of the cover.

It's an easy way for us to document Sam's interests, and how they change over time. The one guideline that I'm following, is to only list the books that Sam truly loves. It's not a list for books that I hope he'll love. This list is his.

I think this low tech form of documentation is probably easiest for families, but I'd be curious to see if it could be used with a whole classroom of students. It would sure make book logs more fun and user-friendly for kids in a classroom - I've seen too many students laboriously copying down book titles in book logs - by the time they're done, they have no inspiration left for further writing and reading! I've also heard educators joke - if they had to write down every book title they ever read in a book log, they'd start feeling pretty grumpy. Only do this type of documentation if it's fun for you and your kids. Forced documentation is just not worth it.

Here are some other ideas for making low tech book lists, that can document interests over time:

Make book lists on amazon.com
Take digital photos of book covers and insert them into a text document
Take digital photos of book covers and import them into Evernote
Find book covers on Pinterest and create a favorite book pin board
Take a photocopy of the front cover and store it in a binder or sketchbook
Create an alternate cover for the book - this still involves writing or typing the title and author, but you can engage more creativity by making the new cover design

What ideas would you add?

Do you keep track of the books that you've read and loved? Do you notice trends in your own interests?

Documentation Day 12 - How do we know if we 'nailed it'?

2011-11-13T15:18:00.000-08:00

The photos above, from this site, make me laugh every time I see them. I think many people have made something like the melty Cookie Monster cupcakes, in this age of DIY. It's easy to think you've totally nailed some so-called easy craft or baked good, but the reality is not that pretty. A little documentation would probably help the baker get to a closer approximation the next time, right?

When I checked out the comments on the Cookie Monster photos, one read, "Well, the cupcakes on the bottom probably taste just as good." I thought this was an interesting perspective. If the purpose of the baker was to make something delicious, maybe they did get it 'right'. Or if the purpose was to simply have fun baking Cookie Monster cupcakes (it's the process!), then they could have nailed it in that respect. It all goes back to purpose.

When anyone is learning and trying something new, approximations are so important. We all need the time and space to make and enjoy melty cupcakes. We can document the process and we can LOVE the process. Then, we can return to our documentation and see if we want to change part of the process, to come up with a new result, possibly a result that matches some outside standard. If we can take the time to reflect through the process, we can make our own decisions, about whether we want to match (or exceed!) that outside standard, or if we want to take another direction entirely.

What are your thoughts?

Do perfect cupcakes matter?

Documentation Day 11 - Higher-Tech (?) - Adventures with Dragon Dictation

2011-11-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to Sam, because we laughed so much during the process of trying Dragon Dictation. I thought he might draw a dragon to add to the post, but he wasn't interested, so you get a photo of a young dragon instead.

Dragon Dictation is a free iPhone app that was recommended to teachers in our district, for documentation. Teachers in other districts have been using it to record anecdotal notes that they'd usually write during the course of the day. The spoken notes can then be e-mailed, and copied and pasted into any other document, saving lots of writing time.

It works well, but you have to speak slowly and e-nun-ci-ate! If not, the results can be pretty funny. I showed Sam how it worked, and he wanted to try, of course. But the dragon would not, could not recognize his voice. Every time he spoke, it would give us random, ridiculous translations. If he said, "I like to play with Legos," it would translate to "Yai, yaita have today this leg." We did this about twenty times, with various sentences, and it was always nonsense. Luckily he didn't feel too bad. On the contrary, he laughed harder with each crazy translation.

As with any tool, it will work for some purposes, but not all!

Documentation Day 10 - A Lovely Interlude

2011-11-11T20:53:00.000-08:00

It's not quite on the topic of documentation, but since today is 11/11/11, I hope you'll check out The Beckoning of Lovely feature film, presented by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and many other creative, amazing, love-ly people in the world. The movie is documentation - of life, of making connections, of finding joy and magic in the world, no matter where you find yourself. Thank you Lisa Coughlin, for reminding me!

Documentation Day 9 - a Higher-Tech Tape Recorder

2011-11-10T21:30:00.000-08:00

Just a short post today! I've been using the audio record feature in Evernote, and it's very, very easy to use. I can record notes into my own general notebook and then move them later, or I can record and save audio notes right into each kid's notebook. When I use it through my iPhone, it's very unobtrusive- it basically takes two taps to start recording a note, and then I can move my phone to the side, and the act of recording doesn't take away from the talk going on.

Here are a few things I caught this evening:

Sam talking about his complicated Lego building ideas
Isabel blowing bubbles in the bathtub
Both kids singing Isabel's favorite songs
Laughter :)

So I'm an Evernote fan, for sure! I'd love to hear how other parents and teachers are using the tool.

Documentation Day 8 - Low Tech - Tape Recorder

2011-11-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

I bought this little number about ten years ago, for less than twenty dollars...

I used it during my teacher training, and when I started work in the classroom. My first teaching job was with middle school students, and they LOVED to record all the class work and conversations they could, and then play it back.

The Optimus sat on a shelf for a few years, and then when Sam was a baby, I brought it out to record his sweet voice, just for fun. It's less intrusive than holding up my phone to record audio. We can push record while we're working on a project and just forget about it - so we end up with more realistic conversations, rather than something that feels like it's 'for show'.

It's also virtually indestructible - both kids like to play with using the controls - pushing play, record, fast-forward and rewind. This means that we get some strange juxtapositions of recordings, but that's fine. I love hearing the play back, but it's not so precious that I'm heartbroken if a section is erased. Like my middle school students, both kids are fascinated when they can hear their own voices played back.

I know I could easily transfer the cassette recordings to a digital format - that might be a project for winter break this year. I'm trying to record their voices digitally from the start, more often (more on that tomorrow), but we'll definitely keep the old Optimus recorder out and available.

Do you have cassette tapes lurking in your life? Any good mix tapes from the 80s/90s left? I lost all of my favorites, and I wish I had transferred those to a digital format!

Documentation Day 7- No-Tech -Transcriptions

2011-11-08T21:40:00.000-08:00

Have you ever tried to capture a conversation in writing? Word for word? If you haven't done this lately, I'll give you a heads-up- it's not as easy as you might think!

Not only does it take intense concentration, but you can wind up with some serious hand cramps. And when you're feverishly writing or typing, you sometimes miss all the other nuances of what's going on around you. Accurate and meaningful transcribing is a skill that takes a lot of practice, but the payoff can be huge.

Transcribing the exact words of children is a powerful tool for reflecting learning back to children. Their actual words are captured, and can be revisited, again and again. It also gives you as the parent and/or teacher important information about how and what the child is thinking.

That said, there are drawbacks to this approach. I think that inefficient forms of transcribing are the enemies of documentation.

I've seen this in many classrooms, and I've done it myself, as a parent and a teacher. The eager transcriptionist jumps in, ready to document as much as possible. She dutifully carries her notebook where ever she goes, and maybe even has a separate notebook for every child. She writes and writes and writes. But there's so much volume that it's hard to keep track of all the notes. There are so many pages, that she becomes overwhelmed. And then she realizes that she'll need to take the five hundred pages of notes, and transfer all of them into some type of computerized system, so that what she's observed can be shared - with parents and with other teachers. And this is when documentation starts to sound like a burden, and the questions, 'how many notes?' and 'how many pieces of evidence?' rise up.

In the next few days, I'll write about some tech tools that can make transcribing easier - as technology advances and makes capturing voices easier, there's no reason not to take advantage of that. I still think you should also have paper and pencil as a fall back, but keep these tips in mind:

don't forget to jot down the date and time
come up with your own form of short hand and stick with it
take note of anything important regarding the context (i.e. location, other learners, prior conversations and activities)
if you're taking notes on a lot of students, use a form of labeling and organizing your notes that's memorable to you - Lisa shared a great idea in the comments yesterday - using a clipboard with a notes area for each child may work for you too

As always, I'd love to hear opinions on the subject!

Documentation Day 6: Wait, why are we doing this again?

2011-11-07T20:44:00.000-08:00

When I woke up this morning, I was pretty sure that I would write about audio documentation all week (this is completely driven by being with my 20-month-old daughter who is so full of words). But then, life happened, all day long, and I knew I wanted to tackle a slightly different side of documentation - the side of the classroom teacher.

First a little background information - we're in the midst of rolling out and supporting the use of a new documentation/assessment system for all of our district preschool classrooms - we're two months in, and it's been a bumpy process.

This is a difficult process, partly because it's coming from 'the top down' - from our state department of education, and we haven't had much time to learn about the new tool yet. At the same time, it's a tool that I support philosophically, because it's not a traditional assessment. It supports a whole-child approach, it supports play-based instruction, and it supports observation and documentation. If you've read even one paragraph of my blog in the past, you know that these are elements of education that I support too.

Some of the teachers in our district have already embraced this tool - they think it's fabulous, because every area of learning is based on a developmental continuum, and it's not just focused on literacy and mathematics (which is where many preschool teachers in our district feel pressured to focus). But other teachers are really struggling with the new process, and I hear comments like, "There's no time to observe and document and still teach," and "How many pieces of documentation do you anticipate the state will require from us in the future?" I feel for them - I've been spread way too thin in the classroom, and the pressure from all sides can be overwhelming. And through it all, documentation becomes a horrible word. It becomes a word that represents compliance and checklists and data that obscures the children in our midst.

I don't think we have to see it as either having time to teach or having time to observe/document. It's one of the hardest parts of teaching - finding the balance between instruction and observation. I'm not an expert at it, and I'm sure that's one of the reasons I'm so pulled toward Reggio-inspired systems. I want to work toward more observation, more documentation, and less 'sage on the stage' instruction. I want to work toward supporting students in owning their own learning and being an active part of the documentation process.

In regards to the quantity of documentation question, I believe that a teacher and child, together, should create and compile as many points of documentation as they think is necessary, to move forward as learners. That sounds kind of radical, huh? Moving toward a system of documentation that is truly child-centered and child-driven still feels far away, in our public preschools, but that's my biggest hope for documentation and that's why I'm here writing on Monday night.

If you've made it through this text-heavy post, where are you at, in the documentation debate?

I'd especially love to hear the perspective of parents. If your children go to a school, what do you hope the teacher (and your children) would document during the course of the day? If you homeschool or unschool, how much documentation do you and your children do during the course of an average day?

Documentation Day 5 - A toolbox, a menu, a...?

2011-11-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

When I decided to post about documentation through the month of November, I was excited about exploring a wide variety of tools. I jotted down thirty-some ideas, of different tools that we've either used in our home, or that I've been wanting to try.

After some reflection this weekend, I wanted to clarify a bit. Writing about thirty different documentation tools, doesn't mean that I'm using thirty different documentation tools at the same time. That would be a little crazy. Even, a lot crazy! Instead, I'm thinking of the list I'm creating this month, as sort of a toolbox, and sort of a menu.

The toolbox analogy is pretty common in the world of education, which is why I'm somewhat reluctant to use it. It's often said that teachers are constantly adding tips and tricks to their teaching toolbox. But in the case of meaningful documentation, my dream is to see the same tools of documentation available to both the children and the adults in the room. Therefore, it's the child and the adult doing the work of learning, rather than the adult who controls the tools and somehow uses them to improve the child. At any rate, when children or adults use tools from the toolbox, they can realistically use one tool at a time. I think it'd be very difficult to accurately use a hammer and a screwdriver concurrently, when building something, right? I need to do more thinking on this analogy...

You could also think of documentation tools being arranged in a menu format. You've got your no-tech options, low-tech, high-tech, and social. Or they could be arranged by written, photographic, audio, and video. There's a lot of different possibilities for menu categories! When I order from a menu in a restaurant, I don't order every single item on the menu for myself, as much as I might like a taste of everything. I also usually order from a few different categories for a given meal - I'd like a salad, an entree, and dessert, please! So that's also how I'm viewing these documentation tools - it's nice to have choices, because I'll be going back to that restaurant often, but when I do choose a meal, I'm going to focus on a few items that will really feed my soul and purpose that day. Again, I think I need to tighten this analogy up a little, but that's where I'm at on Sunday evening!

If you're playing with documentation, what are your thoughts?
Does one analogy speak to you more than the other?
What other comparisons would you make, to explain documentation tools to a friend?

Documentation Day 4 - Pinterest - mixed emotions and 'social' technology

2011-11-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

Today, I was mulling over the last 3 days of documentation themed posts - sketchbooks, photography, and Evernote. I had it in my mind that I would dip into writing about pinterest as a documentation tool this evening. I had to laugh when I read a post by Lori at Camp Creek Blog first, that happened to highlight a major con of pinterest - that it may be leading users to even flightier, flights of fancy (that's my own technical term there), rather than provoking a person to slow down and go deep within any one area.

I agree and disagree with this sentiment. When I first started using pinterest, I did move into a pretty manic state of mind - recipes! crafts! fashion! inspirational quotes written in clever fonts! And there were moments when I felt the pinterest depressive state coming on - look at all of the amazing things that other people are doing, and I'm just 'pinning'.

Luckily, my iPhone stopped talking to pinterest for a few months, which allowed me a little perspective. During the time that I had been checking in on pinterest each day, I found myself writing down ideas. Of my own! I started to write more, within that little pinterest vacuum. Now I can see pins on my phone again, but I'm seeing the site as just another tool in the creative process.

Sometimes I'll look at one of my older boards, to remind myself of a direction I wanted to take, or an idea I wanted to follow through on. It's an inspiration or vision board, rather than a 'make myself feel bad about what I'm not doing' board. Also, to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of pins out there, I usually only look at pinterest on my phone, rather than on a laptop. This allows me to see a more limited visual of what's out there, and zero in a little more closely on what's piquing my interest.

I'm posting this in the documentation series, because it's one way to document interests over time (your own or your children's). It's also a way to share ideas - there are many early childhood education proponents, teachers, homeschoolers, and unschoolers pinning inspiring ideas, blog links, and images.

What are your impressions of pinterest?

How do you use it?

Why do you use it?

Documentation Day 3 - Higher Tech - Evernote

2011-11-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

Evernote is an on-line organizational tool that launched in 2008. I love the Evernote elephant logo, so I had to include an old photo of one of the elephants at the Honolulu Zoo.

Anyway, I heard about Evernote last month on a twitter chat called #kinderchat (which is an amazing group of tech-savvy, and just all-around-brilliant teachers - if you're on twitter, check them out on Monday evenings, and if you're not on twitter, take a trip to the kinderchat blog!). Teachers were writing about using Evernote to keep track of student work and assessment data, throughout the school year, which sounded great to me.

It's easy (and free) to set up an account, which you can access from multiple computers, iPads, and smart phones. Once you're in, you can set up separate virtual notebooks, and once you have a notebook set up, you can store any type of information you can imagine, within that notebook. You can type in notes, upload word docs, photos, scanned images, web-site and audio clips. And probably more things that I don't know about yet! I'm really at the tip of the iceberg, as I learn more about this tool, which is pretty exciting.

Right now, I have a notebook for me to experiment with, a notebook for Sam, and a notebook for Isabel. I'm also creating separate notebooks for a small group of kindergarten students that I'm working with this year. My challenge for the weekend will be to see if I can set Sam up to work with his notebook - to do some of his own documentation, of anything that's meaningful to him right now. Here's a screen shot of the two kids' notebooks, with the few notes I've stored so far:

This is one way to combine the sketchbook/notebook and photographic strands of documentation. The major pro is that it's a way to gather the loose pieces of paper that may plague your life, especially if you're an abstract-random sort of person, like me. If you have a scanner, you could scan in every piece of paper that piles up in your home or classroom, conveniently storing all receipts, recipes, articles torn from magazines, etc. in one easily accessible spot. The con, is that it's a medium that needs power, and if you're the type that's not into backing up your hard drive, all those gathered notes could be lost.

Another thing to consider - the free application allows a somewhat limited number of notes each month. You can upgrade to Evernote premium, where you'd have a lot more storage space. If you've got a full class of students, this would probably be the way to go.

I'd love to hear any tips and tricks around using Evernote - especially for documenting kids' learning, and I'll continue to post as we experiment.

Documentation Day 2 - Low Tech - Photographs

2011-11-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite forms of documentation is photography. For me as a visual learner, the cliche is so true, that a picture is worth a thousand words.

We have an nice SLR in the house, which I like to play with, but these days I usually use my iPhone for day to day images. I'm trying to let Sam use it more too, so the photos on this post were all taken by Sam. While some of the shots he took this day were random, others were purposeful. He wanted to photograph the things in our backyard that caught his eye, that felt important to him on that day. And isn't that documentation?

My own next step is to organize our photos a little better, and to make them more visible. Right now they are organized by date, but they only live on my computer. I remember that I loved to sit and look at family photos when I was Sam's age - I could see some of the stories of my family, even the stories that happened before I was born.

We've used the Apple photo book service a few times, and loved the results, but I've also seen great photo books from Snapfish and Cafe Press. Ah, disclaimer too - I don't get any endorsements for my little blog, so when I say Apple, it's just because I like Apple :)

So, a few photo documentation questions for you!

Do your children or students take photos? If they do, what themes do you see emerging, from what they choose to capture?

How do you organize your photos?

Documentation Day 1 - No Tech - Sketchbooks and Notebooks

2011-11-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

It's feels a little silly to start documentation month with something so basic and obvious, but sometimes it's the basic and obvious elements of life that are actually very powerful.

As I write about documentation tools this month, I'm thinking about how children can use them to capture and keep track of their own learning, and how adults can do the same. I always have sketchbooks and notebooks floating around the house, possibly too many. I realized that Sam and Isabel were both doing a lot of drawing work on loose sheets of paper, and I wondered how the work might change, if it was in a bound book.

The composition book above is mine, but Isabel really likes to make marks in it too. The sketchbook with the parrot is Sam's new book, and I'm excited to see what he thinks is worth capturing there. This is what he was working on tonight:

Tracing his hand. Somehow that triangle in the palm is very dear to me...

Making a visual list of his Halloween candy stash. He started to write "Baby Ruth". He went on to start this drawing three more times, then got frustrated and stopped. He like the idea that there were plenty of pages, and that it was no big deal to start over. He also has a plan to glue actual candy wrappers in the book. Hooray for mixed media!

I've heard different schools of thought about whether younger children should use lined or unlined paper. I really don't have a strong opinion, one way or the other. We happened to have a lined sketchbook for him to start this week, and he doesn't mind drawing through the lines.

Sketchbook/Notebook Pros:

Portable
They don't require batteries or electricity!
Relatively inexpensive

Sketchbook/Notebook Cons:

I tend to start too many separate books, and then lose them, so my documentation isn't very organized or easily retrievable

If you use sketchbooks or notebooks for documentation, what do you do to keep yourself and your children/students organized?

Do you or your kids refer back to the books very often?

Do you keep the books, or do you let them go after a certain amount of time?

30 Days of Documentation

2011-11-01T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hello November! And hello to NaBloPoMo... That's National Blog Posting Month, and no matter how many times I think I've got the shortened form down, I have to go back to BlogHer to check my self.

The acronym (?) is complex but the concept is simple - blog every day in the month of November. I had semi-decided to do it, and I wasn't planning on telling anyone, but then I saw Lori's post on Camp Creek Blog and reached the point of complete commitment - and semi-public announcement.

It helped that I've been turning an idea over in my head for the past few weeks, an idea about documentation.

I feel like documentation can be such a misunderstood word, in the world of education. People hear the word and either fall into a narcoleptic stupor, or get their hackles way up. More on this later...

For now, here's my plan for November. Over the next 29 days, I'm going to spotlight a variety of tools used for documenting learning. They'll range from absolutely 'no-tech' (i.e. sketchbooks) to 'low-tech' to 'high-tech', with a little social media sprinkled in, to keep you on your toes. Keep in mind, I'll be using my own definitions of these categories, so you may or may not agree with how I categorize things.

Whether you're a teacher or a parent, a tech-phobe or one of those early-adopter types, an unschooler or a public-schooler (or something between or outside any of those categories!), I hope you'll join me in our documentation exploration.

The Essentials Series - #5 - Boredom

2011-10-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

I wasn't expecting to choose Boredom as an essential element of childhood. Why would we want our children to feel bored, particularly when that state of being is usually accompanied by less than desirable side effects?

It doesn't happen on weekdays very often, but long weekends at our house can be so boring. Boredom usually rears its head when I'm putting Isabel down for a nap. The house gets way too quiet for Sam, and he starts the litany... I'm so bored. There's nothing to do. Can I watch a movie? Can I play a game on your phone? I'm so, so, so, so bored.

Sometimes we give in immediately - we want to solve the boredom problem (and avoid hearing the whining that comes with it), so we cue the movie, download the apps, instigate the play date - whether to benefit Sam or just ourselves, we jump in and provide the solution.

But sometimes, whether it's a conscious decision or not, we ask him to figure it out for himself. It went down like that this morning. The boredom cry started early, and I didn't want to fall back on a movie or a game on my phone. Yeah, you're really bored - that's the worst. I can't help you right now, so you're going to have to figure it out for yourself.

And he did.

I'm definitely not advocating for ignoring or neglecting children. But we can allow them to feel the discomfort of boredom, and trust that they will come up with something productive and creative to take its place. And it helps to have appropriate materials and supplies around, so that the creative solution doesn't involve mom's irreplaceable Italian jewelry and flushing toilets in the same story (that shout out goes to Margie Roth, and the 'incident' could just as easily have happened to me...).

It could be that the essential element here is really problem solving, but facing boredom is one relatively risk-free way to get at problem solving.

So tell me, have you allowed your children (or your self) to feel bored lately?

What solutions to boredom did they create?

If you're always the boredom savior, is there a way for you to step back?

What would you need to change, to let that happen?

The Essentials Series - #4- Creativity

2011-10-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 'essentials' series. I don't know how long or short this series will be, as my own essentials will most likely evolve and change.

Each post will focus on one essential element of childhood (and life in general). We'll usually approach the element through questions, photographs, links to other sites, and more questions.

First, a few questions for you...

Do you think of yourself as a creative person?

What do you do in your life that's creative?

What do you think of when you hear the word, 'creativity'?

I wonder if many adults think of themselves as creative, or if they're able to see their everyday actions as part of a creative process. I wonder if most adults think that creativity only references 'art', something that many of us feel removed from in our day to day lives.

One of my favorite things about being a parent, is being able to watch the innate creativity of my children (and all children that I meet). By watching their creativity in day to day moments, I'm able to reframe creativity in my own mind. We're creative when we think of a new way to approach something challenging. We're creative when we think of a new use for the materials around us.

Like painting with pine needles and water, on a cement canvas...

Along the lines of the pine needle paint brushes, Sam and I like to play an improv game of divergent thinking (if you ever watched Whose Line Is It Anyway in the 90s, you'll recognize this). Grab an object - the more mundane the better. Then just take turns coming up with different ideas of what the object could be or could be used for. This game stretches our creativity and is pretty funny to boot.

To build creativity, with your kids or for yourself, you don't need to buy anything. Your investment is time and engagement.

And just a mini-soapbox -it really does help to turn off your television, from time to time. There's television that I love (30 Rock! Glee! Project Runway!), but if I spend too much time watching others be creative, I don't have a lot of time and energy left to create myself. The same is true of time spent on-line, reading other blogs and following social media, like Facebook, twitter, and pinterest. I enjoy these resources and find a lot of inspiration, but there comes a point when I've just got to unplug and get on with my own process.

As always, I'd love to hear about your creativity... What are you making? What are you creating? What are your brilliant, light-bulb solutions to the everyday challenges of life?

I hope your week is filled with divergent thinking!

The Essentials Series - #3 - Time Outside

2011-10-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 'essentials' series. I don't know how long or short this series will be, as my own essentials will most likely evolve and change.

Each post will focus on one essential element of childhood (and life in general). We'll usually approach the element through questions, photographs, links to other sites, and more questions.

Oh, it's a beautiful, drawn-out autumn in Denver! I knew I wanted to write about spending time outside this week, and I began compiling lists of amazing web-sites, books, and other resources that promote outdoor play.

But then I realized, I don't want you to sit inside and read about being outside! All I want to do is to encourage you to get out there. No matter the weather, no matter where you live, find some fresh air and breathe it in, even for five minutes. That's what we did this weekend, in our little backyard.

Where do you go, when you spend time outside? What do you do?

The Essentials Series - #2-Curiosity

2011-10-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 'essentials' series. I don't know how long or short this series will be, as my own essentials will most likely evolve and change.

Each post will focus on one essential element of childhood (and life in general). We'll approach the element through questions, photographs, links to other sites, and more questions.

As I thought about the second childhood essential in this series, there were several top contenders. Play was a frontrunner, along with Joy. And you know they'll be traipsing their way across this space in the next few weeks, but this weekend, Curiosity wouldn't take no for an answer.

Because the state of being curious about something, anything, is what propels each of us forward in life. Wanting to learn more. Wondering why. Searching for answers. When we tap into curiosity, at any age, our experience begins to flow, we're vibrant and invested in the moment - even when the process of finding out isn't easy.

I began several college courses this weekend - they're classes that are necessary for my career at this point; classes that I probably should have taken about ten years ago, but for one reason and another, I never took. On Friday afternoon, before the courses began, I was starting to worry. Would I be able to handle the full 24 hours of face time that the three courses demand? The additional on-line discussions, rigorous assignments, observations, and research papers?

Within the first fifteen minutes, of the first class, I knew that I was going to be fine. Not because the expectations were any less rigorous than I anticipated, but because I was completely engaged and curious about the subject matter. So much to learn about, so many questions to pursue...

As is my custom, once I started thinking about the topic of curiosity, I wanted to ask my five-year-old his opinions on the subject. I was surprised to find that he had no interest in talking to me about curiosity. Maybe he's entered that five-year-old masquerading as a taciturn fifteen-year-old stage. The conversation went something like this...

Me: I was thinking about being curious about stuff. Like when you want to know more about certain things. What do you want to know more about?

Sam: Nothing. Except maybe how to build Bionicles better. (Bionicles were his big focus this weekend; he toted around a book about the Metru Nui, and built pseudo-Bionicles from legos).

End of conversation. No, that's not true. I tried to extend the conversation, told him about things I wanted to learn about and things his Dad wants to learn about, but I quickly knew that I shouldn't push it too much. Because you don't actually need to get all Terry Gross/Fresh Air on your kids, to figure out what they're curious about.

Over the past year we've checked out One Million Things: A Visual Encyclopedia from the library, about one million times. Finally we bought it for his birthday. That was twenty dollars well spent! He loves to look at the photos and drawings, especially the rocks, minerals, computers, and robots. He wants to figure out how to build things and how things work - and that's where his current Bionicles interest ties in as well. I think we could give him more chances to be curious and seek information. My own learning is based on just that - how to give him, and kids in general, those opportunities.

The toddler in the house is predictably right on track in the curious-ness arena. While she's curious about everything her senses can take in, I've noticed that she's more keyed in to sounds, language, and music, than her brother was at this age.

She listens to everything, very carefully. She wants to know more about the sound - where it's coming from, what the sound means, how to repeat the sound, how the sound draws the attention of others.

It'll be interesting to see where their different forms of curiosity take them in life.

No matter what age or stage you're at in life, I hope you'll take a minute to think about what stirs your own curiosity.

What do you want to find out about?

What questions keep you up at night?

What's one step you can take, to get started on or to continue, your own journey of discovery?

If you have kids, or work with kids, you could try the same questions with them. Or, you could just observe them in action and think about the following:

Who or what is the child consistently drawn to?

What action or activity captivates her attention?

What can you do, to give the child more chances to explore the things she's curious about?

The Essentials Series - Essential #1 = Love

2011-10-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first post in the 'essentials' series. I don't know how long or short this series will be, as my own essentials will most likely evolve and change.

Each post will focus on one essential element of childhood (and life in general). We'll approach the element through questions, photographs, links to other sites, and more questions.

So let's begin. With love, of course!

Like many parents, I hope that my children know and feel, how much they are loved. An unconditional love that transcends the daily grind that sometimes takes over our working lives. And a love that isn't based on performing a certain way.

Sometimes in difficult moments, it helps me to say out loud, "I love you no matter how angry or grumpy you are. I love you no matter what you do." It doesn't mean that I like being around the angry or grumpy person (and sometimes that person is me), but I still love them.

Sam and I had the following conversation about love.

Me: What does love mean to you?

Sam: I don't know. Love is just...love. Loving someone just means...that you love them.

Me: Who do you love?

Sam: You, Dad, and Isabel. And probably my grandmas and grandpas. The rest of the people I know, I just like.

Me: So what do you think the difference is between loving someone and liking someone?

Sam: Love is just for your close family, I think.

Me: How do you think people show that they love other people? What do you do to show people you love them?

Sam: I think hugging them, and sometimes kissing them. Well, just on my cheek. And being with my Dad, and when I tickle Isabel and make her laugh.

I love that!

The conversation also reminded me of a book recommendation from a friend - The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I haven't read it yet, but the basic idea makes a lot of sense to me - we all have different ways of expressing our love, and consequently, different ways that we expect our loved ones to show us love. Chapman's web-site includes a few short quizzes that help you pinpoint your own 'love languages'. The ones that rose to the top for me were words of affirmation and receiving gifts. I also checked out the very informal quiz for kids, and Sam's top languages were physical touch and receiving gifts. I think Isabel's a little young to determine her language of love (she loves to be held), but I do need to quiz my husband soon!

Love is certainly more complicated than all of that. The questions I posed to Sam are questions that we could all continue to address over the course of our lives...

What does love mean to you?

Who do you love?

What's the difference between liking someone and loving someone?

What do you do to show people you love them?

I would love to hear your answers!

I Second That Emotion...

2011-09-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

Emotions. I don't have any photos of Bella screaming or crying- the snapshot above is the best I've got - when her more volatile emotions rise to the surface, my first thought isn't to grab my camera to document the moment. But as I think about it tonight, I do need to document, at least with words, the very special toddler phase we're moving in to. I don't want to call it the terrible twos (but check in with me in 6 months, to see if I'm still so serene).

It's simply the beginning of will, of this person seeing and feeling what she desires in the world. She does not want to ride in car seats or bike trailers. She does want to go everywhere her brother goes. She does not want to wear certain clothes, that I'm overly attached to her wearing (sorry Mom and A.D.). She does want to be held as much as I'll hold her.

For the most part, I can roll with the emotions and desires. I can usually get to a place of seeing what the root cause of her emotion is. My personal challenge is worrying about what other people in the world think about her actions and reactions. This feels like a dumb thing to admit - if I'm sitting here writing about Reggio inspired family life, shouldn't I be... past that somehow?

Picture the scene - around 5 o'clock on a hot Monday afternoon in Denver. I'm picking Bella up at her child care. The reunion has been all joyous - hugs and kisses and smiling and talking. I've purposefully picked up Sam first, so that Bella won't have to suffer from extra time in the car, and two extra bouts of car seat buckling. We slowly make our way to the car - I'm not rushing, we've got all the time in the world.

Doesn't this all sound great? I thought it was - but I was definitely patting myself on the back for superb parenting skills way too soon. Despite the distractions of a stuffed animal and a drink of water and singing her favorite song, she got so angry about getting buckled into the car seat. Angry isn't even the right word. Furious, sobbing, full-body writhing and kicking, mad. So physical that I couldn't buckle the car seat.

I tried to buckle it a few times, but then took her out of the seat and held her in my arms. Rocked her, took deep breaths, let her wipe her nose on my shoulder. But then it was approaching 5:30, and we weren't in a hurry, but we did need to go home and live out the rest of our lives. Dinner sounded really good.

So we repeated the first meltdown. And she screamed and screamed and screamed. I did not scream. But I was dripping in sweat by the time I finally got the buckles to click in. All of the parents and teachers and kids in the world seemed to be in the parking lot at that moment, staring at us. And I was sure that any adult listening to us in the parking lot was going to assume that I was committing child abuse, her screams were so, so horrible. Then she cried all the way home (which thankfully only takes about five minutes, but on this day felt like five hours).

And of course when all was said and done, she was fine. We got home, she wiped her nose on my shoulder a few more times, and then she was ready to play. Phew.

The nice thing about parenting (and teaching), is that you pretty much get a thousand opportunities to try any given interaction again. When I picked her up today, I steeled myself for another bumpy ride, but I tried two things differently. First, I offered her more time to play on the big-kid playground, before going to the car. She only wanted to be held, but I think she appreciated the gesture. Then, when we got to the car, I handed her a new board book from the library and a plastic tiger that she loves. She was excited about the book, and started to look at it while I buckled her in. She was also excited about her tiger toy, and sang a song about him all the way home - Tigah...Ti-gah! Tigah...Ti-gah!

It's hard to say whether those variables really made the difference. It could have been that she had a longer nap today, or a snack closer to the end of the day, or her teeth didn't hurt as much today, or who knows what other minor change. My parenting isn't overly scientific, so I won't experiment by removing anything that seems to be working. I will keep our car stocked with a supply of board books, Clif bars, water, and magical Tigahs! So that we can catch more emotions like this:

But here's what I want to know from you - how do you rise above feeling self-conscious during challenging situations with kids? How are you able to ignore potential judgment or criticism of your parenting (or teaching) choices?

Denver Green School - Support A Local Urban Farm!

2011-09-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one week?! Unheard of these days... But when I heard about the Kickstarter Campaign that Denver Public Schools' own Denver Green School is pursuing, I had to share.

If you live in Denver, I hope you'll take the time to go visit DGS. They are an "innovation" school in our district, which means they get to operate outside-the-box in terms of curriculum and hiring, but they still serve primarily neighborhood students. This allows them to combine the best elements of standard public school programs (serving ALL kids) with the best elements of a charter school (working outside-the-box, to meet the needs of all learners). Of course, we can talk public versus charter versus innovation later - for now, check out what Sprout City Farm is up to!

Here's some information, from Sydney, the excellent (and coincidentally, Reggio-inspired) preschool teacher at Denver Green:

Hello!

At the school I teach at, Denver Green School, we have a farm in the back of our school. They have been supplying the community and other shareholders with food all summer, however, the most exciting news right now is that the farm has officially been approved to give their produce to the cafeteria- this is the FIRST program of its kind in Colorado, and it's right here at Denver Green School!

The farm is running a Kickstart Campaign to help raise funds to build a new fence, build a greenhouse, and most of all, pay our farmers a livable wage- which has not happened all summer.

Please support our farm!

Sprout City Farms Kickstart Campaign

Marbles and chutes, a metaphor for endless creativity

2011-09-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

I sat down to write tonight, for the first time in several weeks. That's not entirely true. I've written quite a bit over the past few months, but it's been in such a different genre. Work e-mails, presentation scripts, professional development proposals - not the stuff of blogs, but it did all take some creativity, not to mention time and energy.

And I fell into the not-enough-to-go-around trap. I sincerely believed that my day job was somehow devouring every drop of my creativity and writerly spark. An e-mail from Lisa reminded me that it doesn't have to be that way. Energy is never wasted, it's transformed. The energy I spend writing and creating each day, actually feeds my other ideas for writing and for projects (not to mention my parenting).

Tonight I was looking through photos from the summer, and found these from our visit to Washington. The images and the memory reminded me of abundance, in the realm of creativity, and in day to day life.

The marbles keep flowing through the chute, as long as you want them to. You can block the flow of marbles if you'd like - take a moment to enjoy the silence, admire the line of waiting marbles, or the empty chute.

But you get to make a choice, and you can set the action in motion again - that's how the toy is designed to work. When the spirit moves you, get those marbles going! There's great joy in the action, even though it can be repetitive. And there are plenty of marbles, no matter the exact number - you have the perfect amount.

What do you do to get your creativity flowing? What do you do to give yourself a break from too much motion? How do you balance the two?

10 important things, that I'm still trying to learn

2011-07-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Margie Clayman wrote a lovely post about 10 things she hopes her readers could learn from her. I loved the idea and began thinking about what I would write, if I were to write a post like that...

I jotted down various ideas, thinking the most about Reggio-inspired parenting and teaching. But when it came time to actually write these ideas out, I really struggled. Mostly because the very things that I hope anyone reading this blog would learn, are things that I'm still working on learning, every single day. I still had to write the list (it was keeping me up at night), but just know that some of the ideas are works in progress for me, and probably will be for my entire life!

1. All children are capable.

This one sounds so simple, but as adults, we often unconsciously (or consciously) assume that children aren't capable. You may have heard the terms 'blank slate' and 'fill their buckets', in reference to children. I really hate these terms! Current research is showing just how much children know and can do from birth (check out Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky for a comprehensive synthesis of current brain research).

2. Presume competence, in every person that you meet.

Our school district is working to improve the inclusion process for preschool students with special needs (or special rights, as the great teacher Leslie Gleim says!). As we worked on organizing for better inclusion processes, the term "presume competence" came up often. It's also a very simple concept, but one that many in our society don't get. If a person has physical challenges, it doesn't mean they're any less competent than a guy who runs a marathon every weekend. If a person has cognitive challenges, it doesn't mean they're any less competent than that person doing the New York Times crossword in ink. The word competent kind of bugs me, but I still think the idea is important - basically, don't judge a book by its cover.

3. Almost anything can be washed or repaired.

So, go ahead, splash in the mud puddles, eat the grape popsicle, try fixing your bike all by yourself! I know that there are cases that go further than mud, grape juice, and axel grease. Like a gallon of paint spilled on carpet (ahem, shout out to Jenny Fischer, right here!). But in general, kids (and adults) should just be allowed to let loose and get messy, way more often. If you live in a house that is decorated exclusively in shades of white, cream, and melba toast, well, chances are you aren't reading this blog anyway!

4. Move at the speed of kids.

This one can be tough. I'm currently walking with a one year old who wants to do certain things all by herself, like put on shoes. Slow going. And sometimes I do rush her, if we have to get out the door for an appointment, or if she's decided she wants to stand in front of the open refrigerator to 'investigate'. But for the most part I try to slow it down and respect her process. Of course, at the same time I want to move faster to keep up with the five year old in the house - the search for balance continues. It definitely becomes even more challenging when I'm working full time.

5. There is no 'right' way to do anything.

Just as Reggio-inspired educators talk about the 100 languages of children, there are an infinite number of ways to parent and teach. What works for one family will sound ridiculous to another. So as you let your children express themselves in hundreds of ways, allow yourself the same grace.

6. Allow for exploration.

I believe that art materials (and other materials) were made to explore. There really is no right way to use watercolors, or clay, or glue, or any other material you can think of. Kids and adults can learn so much, just by freely exploring materials. Some would argue that teachers and parents need to teach specific techniques, so that kids can reach the results they want. I believe that kids learn even more through trial and error.

7. Find ways to experience abundance.

This sort of goes with #6. I've been completely guilty of saying - No, there's not enough of the nice watercolor paper. Or, No, you can't use that much tape. But there really are ways for you and your children to experience abundance, and not stress about how much that paper cost! For art supplies, we like to use recycled materials. We've also found great materials through freecycle and craigslist. And don't underestimate the abundance of nature. Depending on the area you live in, you're likely to find something in abundance, right? Whether it's water, rocks, sand, mud, sticks, or flowers, there's something available to you in great supply

8. Allow yourself to learn from children.

I love to hear the solutions to problems that kids can come up with. Their creativity is truly limitless, but often adults don't fully listen to or appreciate their ideas. A seven-year-old friend told me today that, "...the worst is when adults listen and pretend to believe what you're saying, but you can tell that they really don't believe you at all." Yes, kids can tell when we're just placating them.

9. Find your own way to play.

Adults need play as much as kids do. It can feel hard to fit play in, especially if you're struggling to pay the bills and keep up with our hyper-speed society. But there are always moments, when you can make the choice to play. I have a friend who is going through a lot of life change and stress, but she's still smiling into the rain and looking for rainbows, as she makes her way to the bus stop after challenging days at work (you know who you are!). The kids in our lives know when we're happy, and it really does rub off on them.

10. Don't plant your radishes too close together, or, the wisdom of thinning.

Huh? It must be getting late - how does that relate to the rest? We planted a little garden this year, and I thought that of all the veggies, I'd definitely get lots of radishes. They're supposedly the easiest plant in the whole world to grow. So we sprinkled out two sweet little rows, and started to count the days until harvest. And when lots of little radish leaves sprouted up, we were all very excited. So excited, that I neglected to thin the radishes. By the time I realized the mistake, we had weird, skinny radish roots, that weren't really edible. Even though there must be 100 ways to grow radishes, I will thin out the plants in the future. Of course the analogy goes to our everyday lives - if we're committing to too many projects, or over-scheduling, our lives suffer. I am, admittedly, the worst about this. I get really excited about a lot of ideas, and have a hard time saying no - double trouble.

So now you know what I hope you'll learn from me. What do you want the world to learn from you? If you write down your ideas, I'd love to read them and learn from you, so let me know if you do a blog post based on this idea.

Happy learning to you!

Play - So many cool resources!

2011-07-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

There are so many amazing blogs about play-based learning out there! I had some extra reading time this weekend and I really fell in love with the An Amazing Child site. This is the blog that I wish I was writing! Kate has combined the best ideas of Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio-inspired learning, in a very comprehensive, easily accessible format.

I also admired (again) Play at Home Mom, Counting Coconuts, Play Based Learning, Let the Children Play, and Teacher Tom.

I hope you'll check out these writers, and that they'll inspire you as much as they inspire me.

I also had a wake up call this weekend, and realized that sustaining my own blog on a daily basis isn't very realistic, especially as I head back to full time work this month. As always, my family and job have to come first. I plan to scale back - I'll keep this blog space, but may just be doing weekly photographic posts. I still hope to share the writing of some local friends too - when I do post, I'll cross-reference with twitter and facebook.

Thanks to those that have been so supportive - may your journey be filled with exploration, learning, and lots of play!

Images of the Week - What we found in the back alley!

2011-07-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

Exploration - Connecting Across Time and Space - Social Media for Parents and Teachers

2011-07-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

This topic has been on my mind for the past few weeks, so I wanted to write a little bit about it, as my own area of exploration.

I've been quietly blogging along for about two and a half years, never sure if anyone but my mom has been reading (Hi Mom!). It's definitely been about the process of parenting, documenting, learning, and writing. I've enjoyed the process, and I've met and connected with some pretty cool people along the way.

Lately I've been happy to find more blogs and web-sites that address similar topics, although I don't get a lot of blog reading time, so I know that I miss a lot of great writing. I guess that's why I love visual posts!

Love of photos has led me to a few new avenues of inspiration gathering - pinterest and instagram. I know that I should also get more dialed in to flickr, but I also like to/want to keep up with Facebook and Twitter. I think I'm at my technology max (and still haven't really figured out tweeting), but if anyone has other great ideas they'd like to share, please leave a comment below! I'd love to hear about how you use social media, either to document your family life, or in your work as a teacher (or both, of course!).

If you leave a blog address in the comments, I'd love to check out your work and possibly link to you - I'm working on moving categorized blog links to one of the menu pages above. I've also added a page for linking to Reggio-inspired programs, both in the US and around the world.

And here's my other contact info - if you follow me on one of them, please let me know so that I can follow you too!

Facebook: http:yoyoreggio.blogspot.com
Twitter: yoyoreggio
Pinterest: Elise Edwards
Instagram: eliseedwards

Finally on the subject of making connections, I highly recommend checking out The Blog Library, curated by Margie Clayman. She's doing an excellent job bringing together interesting blog posts from many sources.

Happy exploring and connecting!

Book Study - Self-Directed, Engaged Learning

2011-07-07T22:04:00.000-07:00

I finished reading Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky tonight. And now I'm ready to go back and read the whole book again! It's such a rich resource, with so many important ideas that can be applied to all learners, of any age.

The final skill Galinsky writes about is Self-Directed, Engaged Learning. She outlines seven principles that can support self-directed, engaged learning. As in past chapters, the ideas are very much in line with Reggio-inspired systems. She also re-visits the idea of supporting a child's 'lemonade stands' - those projects and areas of learning that fascinate a child to no end.

I especially love the seventh principle - CREATE A COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS - We teach best when we are learning (p.347). Galinsky writes, "In study after study that my organization has conducted on parenting or on early education, we arrive at similar findings: adults who continue to learn about children - about parenting them and teaching them - make the best parents and the best teachers."

I was having a conversation with someone about blogging, and the downbeat of the conversation was - What's the point? Why are you doing this? For me, it's a way for me to further my own learning - about parenting, about children, about teaching and education, and about myself as a learner, a teacher, a mom, and a person in the world. This blog is my own lemonade stand.

What is your personal lemonade stand (or stands)? When your kids or students see you engaged in self-directed learning, how do they react? If they don't get to see that side of you, how can you make your own learning process more visible to them?

Thanks to those who've tracked down Mind in the Making and read along! I've enjoyed the process, and will continue to host some type of book or article study each Thursday. Even though it's been out for a while, I'm thinking about doing the same process with Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. I'm also going to be on the lookout for other short articles or book excerpts that readers could download for free - if you've got an article to recommend, please mention it in the comments below!

Outside- the Water Wall work begins!

2011-07-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

I've seen some cool photos of water work and water walls, so we're beginning our own. We were also inspired by the toddler water play session at the Children's Museum this week- it was geared for Isabel's crowd, but Sam was able to experiment a little. At home, he'll be able to take his ideas further, and not worry about splashing other kids and parents- just his own, who don't mind getting wet!

I haven't shown Sam any images of other water walls- I kind of want to see where his own creativity leads him, just using what we were able to find in our backyard, garage and kitchen. But we might buy some plastic tubing within the next few days.

Are you doing any water work this summer? What materials are you using? Have you made any surprising discoveries?

Play - "Those are some HOT wheels!", and returning to Multiple Intelligences

2011-07-05T20:27:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, I was planning to write a series of posts about play in relation to Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence work. I did a little reading and research, but something wasn't sitting right with me. Maybe I didn't find the best sources, but so much of the writing on multiple intelligences and learning styles takes the conversation on a one-dimensional track - i.e., if you have high physical intelligence, you'd make a great gym teacher; if you have high logical/mathematical intelligence, you'd make a great engineer. The pieces that I found seemed very limiting.

Most people draw on many areas of intelligence, depending on the context and the task at hand. I suppose that the ideal learning environments would draw on all of the areas of intelligence, in ways that are meaningful to the learner. So writing about different types of play that could fit in separate intelligence categories would be furthering that idea of compartmentalizing learning.

Instead, I'm going to focus on recognizing and encouraging the many types of intelligences/learning styles that naturally pop up in our day to day play.

I've also been thinking a lot about the many ways that we play. When we're relaxed, anything can be seen as play. Today, putting away the clean dishes became play, for Sam and me, while Isabel cruised around the house with her own set of plastic plates, playing as well. We also played at the Children's Museum, in our water table outside, at the grocery store, and in our little studio downstairs.

And then, there were the Hot Wheels. Both kids really like to zoom them around the house, so they're the real stars of today's play post! Hot Wheels are also the first multiple intelligence test case - let's see how they stack up...

1. Spatial - sometimes the cars are sorted by color, sometimes by style or function.

2. Linguistic - there's a lot of talk that goes with car play, believe me. Not to mention the awesome sound effects. And, when seeing a new batch of Hot Wheels lined up on the carpet, the proper response (according to Sam) is, "Those are some HOT wheels!"

3. Logical-mathematical - lots of counting and comparing who has more cars at any given moment.

4. Bodily-kinesthetic - I think this goes without saying? At least for my kids, the whole body is involved when racing cars around the house and yard.

5. Musical - This one is more of a stretch! Isabel likes to use the cars to drum on other objects.

6. Interpersonal - I see a lot of cooperation and negotiation happening during car play.

7. Intrapersonal - This is an area of Gardner's studies that I need to learn more about!

8. Naturalistic - I think this one is a stretch too. While some of our car play happens outside, or in relation to natural objects, it's not necessarily furthering a deeper relationship with nature.

What did you play today (adults and kids)? What areas of intelligence and learning styles were represented in your play?

Images - Red, White and Blue

2011-07-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day, to those who celebrate!

We watched fireworks last night, at Sloan's Lake - a perfect view from the east side. Today we were all about water play, and we did a red, white, and blue scavenger hunt throughout the day. Here are some of our finds:

I'm an instagram fanatic at the moment - hope you like the hipster filters :) We also saw 17 American flags on our evening walk, and topped off the night with some classic lemon pie.

Exploration - Shoes!

2011-07-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

It started with the pink bunny slippers. Even though they're a little big, Isabel decided that walking would be easier, if she had the slippers on. Probably something to do with increased surface area, like snow-shoeing, right?

Now, her interest in shoes has expanded to include Sam's, Mom's, Dad's, and any others that she can get her hands on. I think this is pretty common for one-year-old, beginning walkers. It makes sense - they see how well family members can walk, when wearing shoes, so why not borrow a pair? Today, she was putting on Sam's shoes, toddling to the front door, reaching up for the door knob, and pleading, "Go? Go? Go!"

We leave a lot of our shoes near the back door, so this is now a favorite hang out spot.

Book Study - Taking on Challenges

2011-06-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

Chapter Six of Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky is called Taking On Challenges, and the topic was very meaningful to me this week.

Although we have a blessed and relatively low-stress life, we also ride a roller coaster of emotions on any given day. Sometimes I see blogs or web-sites about families and parenting, and I let myself believe that other families are somehow happier, less stressed, and more balanced. My rational brain knows that it's simply not true, and that every family experiences a full range of emotions, sometimes within 5 or 10 minutes. The picture perfect snapshots aren't always true representations of the complexity of being alive.

I hope that my own writing here on this blog doesn't gloss over that fact. Every day, whether it's during my work year or when I'm home with the kids full time, I experience great joy, but also frustration, sadness, boredom, and sometimes anger.

A certain amount of stress is a normal part of life, and Galinsky writes about the importance of being honest with children about that reality. If we pretend that we don't experience a full range of emotions, we're doing them a disservice. We also need to give kids tools to productively work through their own emotions, which includes a lot of modeling on the part of parents and teachers.

Galinsky addresses important factors that affect how children take on challenges and stress, including the child's temperament and parenting styles. These factors can play off of each other in ways that benefit the child, or the interaction can swerve in a less positive direction. For example, if a child is naturally sensitive or reactive (the temperament he was born with), and the parent reacts to the child's reactions in a way that is either alarmist or intrusive (p.276), the child will struggle more with his own sensitivity.

I mention this example specifically, because it's an area where I want to improve. I'd say that both of my kids are somewhat sensitive, and I know that I sometimes react to their distress in an alarmist way, particularly when I'm also stressed or tired. As I wrote above, I know that I can't (and shouldn't) aim to be 'perfect' in my reactions to them, but it's something I want to be more aware of, so that I can start giving them better tools for reacting to the challenges and stresses that they'll inevitably face in the world.

While all of Galinsky's suggestions at the end of the chapter are great, I'm focusing on the following this week:

Suggestion 1: Manage your own stress (for me, exercise and sleep are huge priorities)

Suggestion 2: Turn to others who can help you manage your own stresses

Suggestion 3: Take time for yourself

What do you do to manage your own stress? What do you do to help your children manage stress and take on challenges?

Outside - Into the Woods

2011-06-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our last day in Washington, and all of the cousins took a big hike into the woods on the Roth property. The destination was a fort in progress, that my younger sister began building years ago. We didn't get to rebuild very much, but I look forward to seeing the fort evolve and grow over the coming years of family reunions.

Play - The Light Table

2011-06-28T04:55:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to get a light table for several years, but it just never happened. Until I saw some of the Play at Home Mom light table photos on Facebook, and realized how easy it would be to make our own.

This literally took us about 2 minutes to make - digging out the Christmas lights from the storage closet took longer! We just put the lights inside a clear organizer bin, and plugged them in - voila!

I'm staying near while the kids play with this, and I don't like to leave it plugged in for too long, since the lights get warm. So far we've just used the tissue paper squares, but Sam is looking forward to finding other translucent and transparent materials to play with.

Image - Paint!

2011-06-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

Materials - Clay

2011-06-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

It's another visual post - Sam loves clay, especially in his Grandpa's pottery studio. Thanks again to my husband Michael, for taking such wonderful photographs.

Book Study - Critical Thinking

2011-06-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

Chapter Five of Mind in the Making, by Ellen Galinsky, has so many connections to Reggio-inspired work. All of the skills she writes about connect to Reggio-inspired work, but this section on Critical Thinking really struck me as being pertinent.

Too often, people hear Reggio, and think it's just a creative arts based approach. While exploration of artistic materials is important, there are so many more facets to the work. Although Galinsky doesn't write specifically about Reggio-inspired programs (or parenting) the parallels are there. Below are a few of her suggestions to parents, that made me think about the hundred languages of children.

Suggestion 1: Watch your child forming theories about how things work

Suggestion 2: Promote your child's curiosity

Suggestion 3: Promote your children's "lemonade stands" (i.e. long-term, child-led projects!)

Suggestion 4: Be an expert - try to provide accurate, and valid information to your children

Suggestion 5: Help your children find other "experts" to learn from

Suggestion 6: Help children evaluate information from others

There are more suggestions, and Galinsky provides great examples of promoting critical thinking during real-life situations, which is why I highly recommend reading the entire book!

As we spend this week on vacation in Washington, I've been thinking the most about Suggestions 1 and 2, in relation to both of my children. Promoting curiosity is pretty easy when you're on sixty acres of beautiful farm and wood-land, with a pottery studio at the center of it all. It's the paying attention to those inklings of theories that can be more challenging. Especially when we parents are tired (ahem...), or there's a lot going on around us (cousins! dogs! birthday parties!), those formative theories can easily be overlooked or dismissed.

My mission for the rest of our time here at the farm, is to really tune in, to the variety of theories about the world that both Sam and Isabel are forming.

How do you promote critical thinking, for your children/students, and your self?

Outside - On the Farm

2011-06-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

It's a photographic kind of week! Thank you to my husband Michael, for capturing so many great shots, while Isabel stuck close to me.

I forgot that even though we've traveled to a place very familiar to me, it's brand new to her, so she wants to stay as close to mama as possible - while still getting up close and personal with dogs, tractors, horses, flowers and chickens.

Play - Spatial Learning and Play

2011-06-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

Well, the spatial learner in our family is having trouble getting to bed, on this longest day. I'll be writing more about this soon - for now, an image of some very exciting visual/spatial work on the farm!

Images - Hands/Horses

2011-06-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

So far, we're having a wonderful vacation, at my childhood home in the Pacific Northwest. There's so much to see and do every day.

It's the perfect place to be thinking about visual/spatial learning, which I'll be writing about over the next few days!

Outside - 2nd Hand Sensory Table

2011-06-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

We've been enjoying this small sensory table that we found in the alley behind our house. Yesterday, we poured a big jar of smooth wood pieces into the table (courtesy of Celine, via Costa Rica). It was interesting to observe - Isabel wanted to run her hands through the wood, while Sam immediately wanted to start categorizing - Let's put all of the small pieces on this side, and set all of the square pieces in another spot...

Once Isabel had her fill of the tactile experience, she began to carefully, diligently drop the smallest pieces, into the round holes that you can see on the rim of the table. Much to Sam's distress :)

We left some of the wood in the table, and added water today. We were surprised to find that some of the pieces floated, while others sank to the bottom. Sam's theory is that they aren't all actually made of wood, and that only the wooden ones float. How can we test that theory?

Play - Multiple Intelligences

2011-06-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

Today as I was playing with the kids (and watching them play), I started thinking about Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. The realms he talks about really mesh well with Reggio inspired systems (100 languages=multiple intelligences).

While there are overarching themes and patterns within play, ultimately each child plays differently, and that's okay! Corralling a child into playing with blocks, or puppets, or even clay and paint, if they're not feeling it, isn't following the child. Maybe you've seen 'free choice center' charts in preschools, where the children are not actually given free choice, instead they're rotated through what the teacher wants them to experience. I don't know about you, but if I had to play with puppets for twenty minutes every day, I wouldn't be too thrilled about being at school. More on that later...

For now, here are the multiple intelligences as Gardner sees them:

1. Spatial
2. Linguistic
3. Logical-mathematical
4. Bodily-kinesthetic
5. Musical
6. Interpersonal
7. Intrapersonal
8. Naturalistic

While all people can have strengths in many of the areas, I think that dominance in one area can have huge implications for parents, teachers, and kids. Critics of traditional educational systems have noted that schools and teachers tend to value linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. If you're a child who has more strength in other areas, you might not fit in, or feel valued. I wonder how often this happens in families as well.

Over the next eight weeks, I'll be examining each of Gardner's areas of intelligence more closely, and relating each area to play. I'll start next Tuesday with spatial learners/intelligence.

Until then, what do you think your learning strengths are, based on the short titles above? What are the strengths of your children?

Image - Try something new!

2011-06-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about being a parent (and about being a teacher as well), is being there to see a person chart their way into completely new territory. As Isabel takes her first brave strides, I can't tear my eyes away. The combination of perseverance and joy is beautiful.

It's a reminder to push myself, to take some risks. In that vein, when we were in Breckenridge on Saturday night, Sam and I went ice skating! I hadn't been in at least 20 years (!), and it was not easy. But I did feel great joy, despite one ouchy fall. It wasn't easy for Sam either, but he had that same look of joyful perseverance that Isabel gets.

What have you done to push yourself lately? What risks have you taken?

Exploration - 100 things to do this summer

2011-06-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

Summer has officially begun. And I'm at a little bit of a loss! I'll still have work to do, and there's always plenty to do with Sam and Isabel, but in the interest of kick-starting my own joy about summer beginning, here's a list of 100 things (in no particular order)... And I'm making them BOLD when we've done something (though some will happen more than once!).

1. Do nothing, as often as possible. This is prescribed by Martha Beck, in The Joy Diet, and I've been diligently fitting in my nothing-ness time over the past few weeks. So why am I making a list of 99 other things to do? Because I love a good list, and I love the process of brainstorming - Beck also prescribes play and creativity, so I think I'm doing all right.

2. Library Summer Reading Program! All four of us are signed up...
3. Go see my family in Washington.
4. Make popsicles.
5. Lay out in the grass, watching bugs.
6. Go for long walks.
7. Paint our art trays with chalkboard paint.
8. Drive to the mountains (Breckenridge, tomorrow!).
9. Go camping.
10. Make splatter glow paint jars.
11. Go swimming in a lake.
12. Wade in a creek.
13. Make stuff with clay.
14. Go to a drive in movie.
15. Have a birthday party!
16. Hang out at a pool.
17. Sleep in.
18. Stay up late.
19. Watch the stars.
20. Make block stilts.
21. Write letters to people we love.
22. Throw a block party...
23. Go to a water park.
24. Paint.
25. Paint some more!
26. Water fights :)
27. Have picnics.
28. Go to some outdoor concerts.
29. See the new Cars movie.
30. Make presents for people.
31. Learn to make our own sidewalk chalk.
32. Go thrifting.
33. Bike rides.
34. Camp out in our back yard.
35. Make s'mores.
36. Go to the Lookout Mountain Nature Center.
37. Take a lot of photos.
38. Fly a kite.
39. Make a pinata.
40. Go to the Railroad Museum.
41. Go to the Art Museum.
42. Find all the outdoor sculptures we can, and take pictures of them.
43. Make our own outdoor sculptures, and take pictures of them.
44. Climb to the top of the highest skyscraper in Denver.
45. Go to a Farmer's Market.
46. Pick strawberries, somewhere.
47. Make strawberry jam.
48. Go to the fountain at the Museum of Nature and Science.
49. Watch fireworks.
50. Sparklers.
51. Go to a concert at Red Rocks.
52. Run to the top of Red Rocks.
53. Dance a lot.
54. Play loud music and sing along.
55. Go to the Botanic Gardens.
56. Go tubing on a river, somewhere.
57. Go for a boat or canoe ride.
58. Watch a Fourth of July parade - we watched the Egg Day one instead!
59. Put playing cards in our bike spokes.
60. Climb a tree.
61. Go hiking.
62. Go to Jazz in City Park (is it still happening this year?)
63. Play frisbee.
64. Hula hoop.
65. Manicures and Pedicures.
66. Dare I write it? Go to Elitch's
67. Do a scavenger hunt.
68. Play tag.
69. Play hide and seek.
70. Build a fort in the back yard.
71. Learn to do cartwheels and handstands.
72. Go to library story times.
73. Skype with friends :)
74. Skype with family.
75. Make vision boards or collages.
76. Spend the night in Glenwood Springs.
77. Sketch and draw.
78. Go to the aquarium.
79. See if five-year-olds can use the climbing wall at REI.
80. Shaving cream play, outside.
81. Run a lemonade stand.
82. Have a yard sale.
83. Go to Casa Bonita (since we've never been before)
84. Build a sand castle.
85. Make waffles for dinner.
86. Make an obstacle course around the yard and house.
87. Collect rocks.
88. Collect sea shells.
89. Collect leaves.
90. Press flowers.
91. Dye play silks with Kool-aid.
92. Make ice cream and cookie sandwiches.
93. Hang our clothes out to dry.
94. Send people postcards.
95. Make t-shirt bags.
96. Make blocks.
97. Make games.
98. Make cards.
99. Make music.
100.Take naps!

Okay, NOW I'm excited about summer! And now, I've got to get some sleep, so we can get started on this list, first thing tomorrow morning.

What are you doing this summer?

Mind in the Making Chapter 4 - Making Connections (With Games!)

2011-06-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

I'm tarrying with Chapter 4, of Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky, because there are just so many good ideas to think about. We're especially interested in Suggestion 10: Develop games that adapt the researchers' tasks for making new connections (pages 196-198). But she includes an important caveat:

Remember, however, that executive functions are orchestrated by the prefrontal cortex of the brain, a part of the brain that doesn't really begin to mature until kids are older preschoolers. So while you can play some of these games with younger children, it's important not to push children beyond their developmental capacities - an experience that would be frustrating for you and even more frustrating for them. Games must be fun in order to be effective, so if you find that your children don't want to play, stop and wait for a better time or better age.

Sam has been showing more interest in games lately, so we've definitely been following him in that direction. He was able to join a mini 'game club' through his school's after-care program. They mainly focused on checkers, Othello (which I haven't played yet), and some type of Lego game that the coordinator knew the kids in the group would lock on to. Because of game club, we finally bought a few new board games for our home.

They're very mainstream, but Sam is overjoyed to own them - Battleship, Candy Land, and Chutes & Ladders! He chose Battleship for himself (he convinced me to buy it, because of the math coordinates), and told me that the other two were for his sister. Of course, since bringing them home, we've played Candy Land and Chutes & Ladders many times, and Battleship just once - funny how that works. Battleship is definitely beyond his developmental level - the game necessitates a lot of perspective taking, but he loves the idea of the game.

Beyond the store bought, I have plans to make more games, based on Galinsky's suggestions. These are the some of the ideas we're going to start with:

"Dimensional Change" cards for sorting (for example - photos of dogs with spots and dogs without spots)
Color cards
Size cards
"Flexible Item Selection Task" cards (for example - you set out three photos - a dog without spots, a dog with spots, and a cat with spots, then ask the child to pick 'two pictures that go together in one way' - they might pick the two dogs, they might pick the two animals with spots, etc.)

I'm also going to make a few sets of memory/matching cards - I've seen some nice tutorials on-line, for making colorful felt and fabric memory cards, and for making cards with photographs of family members. I'll share back what I make next week. And I should be ready to move on to Skill Five: Critical Thinking.

Until then, what are your favorite games to play as a family (or in the classroom)? What games do your children play independently? I'd love to gather more suggestions!

Outside - What's Growing?

2011-06-08T20:27:00.000-07:00

TWO healthy pumpkins are looking good. We're very, very hopeful for October! Radishes, lettuce, and kale are all promising too. Eggplant sprouts are coming up, but I'm not sure if we're way too late to see anything this summer. It's most fun to watch the progress with Sam. Isabel still wants to pull everything out, today!

Play - Play At Home Mom

2011-06-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks, I've really been enjoying the Facebook page, Play at Home Mom - Activities and ideas for moms who stay home - and even those who don't. I'm not 100% sure that I can link to Facebook through this post, so if that doesn't link up, you should be able to search 'Play at Home Mom', within your own Facebook page.

Here's their description:

	We are a group of moms who have a firm belief in positive parenting and play based learning. We hope to inspire, educate, uplift, and empower you all to be the best moms (and dads) you can be. Our contributors consist of moms (obviously), educators, and therapists. You will find a little bit of everything on this page. We hope you enjoy it, learn from it, live it, and share with us as much as possible.

We are a group of moms who have a firm belief in positive parenting and play based learning. We hope to inspire, educate, uplift, and empower you all to be the best moms (and dads) you can be. Our contributors consist of moms (obviously), educators, and therapists. You will find a little bit of everything on this page. We hope you enjoy it, learn from it, live it, and share with us as much as possible.

Good stuff! I'm especially loving their photos of environments, clay work, and light tables. Even though I don't stay at home full-time, I'm definitely inspired by their page full of quotes, ideas, and photos. And beginning THIS SATURDAY, I will be playing at home for the rest of the summer, with those sweet-cheeked kids pictured above!

Quotation - Vea Vecchi

2011-06-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

"...the organization and management of public schooling needs cultural, anthropological, ethical and aesthetic choices, guided by philosophy and long-sighted vision.

It needs to draw on the strength and awareness that come from the layering and enrichment acquired through real experience, experience that has itself been the product of experiment and research containing reflection, discussion and interpretation of contemporary life in the light of trans-disciplinary thinking."

From Art and Creativity in Reggio-Emilia by Vea Vecchi

Exploration - Swing!

2011-06-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

Isabel has been very interested in our outdoor porch swing lately. It's not that surprising since I rocked her to sleep there, for the first 6 months of her life, or so, when she was colicky. Now, she'll crawl over and try to climb up by herself. Usually I'll sit next to her, with one arm near her. She'll impatiently push my arm away every time. She doesn't want anyone to interfere with her full enjoyment of the swing, the higher the better!

Book Study - Chapter 4-Making Connections

2011-06-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

I love Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky! Just when I think I've certainly reached maximum 'resonance', I move to the next chapter and get excited about her work all over again. Chapter Four focuses on the skill of making connections. Galinsky doesn't necessarily mean social connections (though her definition could expand to fit those), but refers more broadly to "connections among different facts, findings, or concepts".

Of course, I made a lot of connections as I read the chapter. I spent today with teachers and administrators, at our district roll-out of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Whether you love, hate, or feel ambivalent toward academic standards, what I like about the CCSS is that they are designed to engage students in higher-level reasoning and critical thinking - and Galinsky's ideas and tips about helping kids to make connections also ultimately build reasoning and critical thinking skills.

I'm excited to try many of the ideas she presents in this chapter. The activities/ideas roughly fall into the following categories:

Encouraging an 'object sense'
Encouraging a 'space sense'
Encouraging 'number sense', particularly approximation, and adding/subtracting small numbers
Encouraging time and space for creative arts in children's lives

And guess what? Block play can be connected to all of those categories! Not to mention guided play, board games, matching games, and categorizing games. What kind of connections are you making?

There's so much more to think about in this chapter, so if you haven't tracked this book down, I hope you will soon. I'm plotting a book give-away, at some point this summer, so check back on Thursdays. I'm also starting to think about what book or type of article to choose for my next focus of study - suggestions are welcome!

Outside - Gardens, Hula Hoops, and Sidewalk Chalk - Summer has arrived!

2011-06-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful evening here, so we spent a lot of it outside. We thinned the radishes, and Sam checked the progress of his green tomatoes.

The hula hoops are new to us - the after-care staff at Sam's school did a mini-fundraiser, making and selling custom hoops. There will be lots of hooping this summer!

Finally, we brought the little paint sample blocks outside - they ended up in lots of configurations, and we've decided we need to make thousands more. I've put more photos of them on the Block Party blog.

Hope your almost-summer evening was just as wonderful, where ever you are!

Play- It's a Block Party!

2011-05-31T19:38:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to announce that I've gone and started a sister blog for Yo-Yo Reggio! The idea for Block Party began percolating a few years back, when I made something called Nameblocks for Sam. I subsequently stowed the Block Party idea in the faaaaar reaches of my mind, but it just kept reappearing, in unexpected places. Funny how that works...

Then I began a full-scale procrastination effort, with two main excuses- 1. The ideas weren't 'perfect' enough yet, and 2. Someone else was probably already out there doing something similar, so why try?

I finally woke up this past weekend and decided that those are very silly excuses. Perfection is way overrated and my own craftiness is indeed unique. Hallelujah! I also have to credit Danielle LaPorte, and the kick in the pants I got from getting started with The Spark Kit (formerly The Fire Starter Sessions).

So without further blah, blah, blah, here's the low down on the Block Party! and what you can expect when you join us there.

Weekly, easy, open-ended block making tutorials - flexible toys that will spur creative thinking, without breaking your bank
Live events, for you and your kiddos to meet up with other block fans, to make-and-take your own super amazing creations
A sprinkling of research and ed-type articles about why block building rocks, and helps us all, as we build our brains

The party has started - crash it any time!

Materials - Use what you've got!

2011-05-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

Again, from a kindergarten classroom!

The corks remind me of the giant jar of corks that Buffy and Fiona bought at a yard sale last year. I hope you find that jar...

And the bottle caps remind me of the generic beer that my dad drank in the eighties - they had funny rebuses printed inside - does anyone else remember these bottle caps, or am I making it up?

Happy Friday!

Book Study - Chapter 3, Continued

2011-05-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Well, this is weird. I've been thinking about writing about this tiny section of Chapter 3, of Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky, for weeks now. But I've had some sort of mental block against it. And I don't quite know where to begin. So I'll start with an excerpt from another researcher, Stanislas Dehaene:

From, Reading in the Brain - Chapter 6. The Dyslexic Brain

Some intelligent and well-rounded children experience disproportionate trouble in learning to read—dyslexia. In most cases, this problem is linked to an impaired ability to process phonemes, and an entire causal chain from gene to dyslexic behavior is now being uncovered. The brains of dyslexic children present a number of characteristic anomalies: the anatomy of the temporal lobe is disorganized, its connectivity is altered, and several regions are insufficiently activated during reading. The disorder is suspected to have a strong genetic component, and four susceptibility genes have been identified, most of which control neuronal migration, a major event in the construction of the brain during pregnancy. Any disturbance that affects this episode can lead to a disorganization of the layers of the cortex.

I shouldn't have any trouble with writing about learning to read - my field of study was/is language and literacy. It felt easy to study topics like dyslexia, and even to work with kids with a huge variety of reading challenges, as a reading teacher, and a literacy coach.

I wanted every student I worked with to succeed, and to feel the joy and accomplishment of 'exploding the code'. Many of them made great progress, and we celebrated every minor victory. But I went home every night to my own life. My own life that didn't include a reading disability.

As a kindergarten teacher, I tried to allay the fears of parents, who worried that their children weren't learning to read quickly enough. I discouraged intervention, telling parents to have faith that with plenty of exposure to great literacy experiences, their child would be reading soon enough. And still, I went home every night to my relatively simple life, that didn't include any real experience with learning disabilities.

Now, I'm the parent who's bringing up dyslexia, in reference to my son. And many dear friends and colleagues are quick to dismiss this.
He's just turning 5, you have no way of knowing.

The speech patterns you're worried about are common at this age.

Letter reversals are a normal part of learning to write and read.

Relax.

He's fine.

But now I understand the perspective of so many other parents, whose children struggle in any area of learning, in any area of life, for that matter. If there's possibly something that's not working for your child, you want to find any means you can to help. Galinsky includes some excerpts from Dehaene's work, but I think I'm going to seek out Reading in the Brain, to read next. Because even if he doesn't have dyslexia, I want to do anything I can to support him now - I don't want to wait until second or third grade (the typical grade levels when dyslexia can be diagnosed).

And don't worry, I'm not getting crazy and pushing Sam to do flashcards, worksheets, or My Baby Can Read... We're still just reading a lot, telling a lot of stories, and letting him be an almost-five-year-old boy.

If anyone in the Land of Blog has any stories or experiences to share about dyslexia, I'd love to hear them. If you have an older child who's been officially diagnosed with dyslexia, were there early signs that clued you in?

Outside - Garden in progress!

2011-05-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

A small fence has been installed... Part of Isabel's experiential process has been pulling up plants, roots and all. If I can channel that energy toward dandelions, it's going to be a beautiful garden. No, it will be a beautiful garden no matter what, because we truly have enjoyed the process of creating it together.

Play - Mentors, revisited

2011-05-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

When I heard Deborah Leong speak last month, she mentioned the idea of 'play mentors', and the idea keeps coming back to me, in various contexts. When I watch Sam and Isabel playing, I see beginning mentorship in action. If Sam is working with a material, Isabel is close behind, desperate to investigate. The same goes for actions - if Sam is jumping on the bed, then Isabel is trying the same.

I know that when Leong spoke about the idea, she was referencing higher level play - particularly the play of four- and five-year-old kids. For Leong (and I'm paraphrasing, big time), a play mentor is a child who is slightly older, or slightly more sophisticated in his or her play. The mentorship happens when the older (or more experienced) child teaches a playmate how to play - simple as that. To an observer, this can sometimes sound like plain bossiness.

Okay, now I'm going to be the chef, and you be the waiter. You write down what the customers want, and bring me the ticket, so I can cook the food, okay? No, you have to go ask them what they want, like this...

The play mentor might serve as the director of dramatic play scenarios, the enforcer of game rules, and the instigator of project ideas and plans. But over time, the children being mentored also learn the roles, the rules, and the ways to make projects happen.

Back in the good old days, when neighborhoods were safer and packs of kids roamed freely over the weekends and summer vacations, play mentorships were pretty easy to come by. There were always big kids to boss the younger ones, who in turn moved up to their rightful place in the pack, when the time was right. If you were an only child, you could still be mentored and eventually mentor, because kids of all ages were in the 'hood, playing all the time.

I believe that these play communities still exist in many neighborhoods, it's just harder for adults to see them, because, we're adults now. If you slow down and pay attention to the kids around you, chances are you'll see some play mentorships in action, and not just for the four- and five-year-old crowd.

Image - I'm looking for more of these...

2011-05-23T06:11:00.000-07:00

I may need to hit up our local carpet and flooring supply store. We've got one cardboard tube at home, that's used as a ramp, tunnel, cannon, etc.

The photo above is from another kindergarten classroom. I've been really impressed with the block, construction, and dramatic play areas I've been seeing in so many classrooms.

Materials - Two Years Ago

2011-05-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

We bought these little magnet rods at the thrift shop in Volcano. They're still going strong, and lend themselves to lots of open ended play.

Book Study Thursday Morphs to Ellen Galinsky link

2011-05-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Well, two Thursdays in a row, I've geared up to continue writing about Chapter 3 of Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky, only to find that I've left my copy of the book at work, or far, far away, locked in my car in the garage :)

So this week I'm just going to share some links, that I found through twitter.

The first is to a NYT article, Fast-Tracking to Kindergarten, by Kate Zernike, about the rapid growth of a tutoring franchise called Junior Kumon. It's a pretty discouraging read, so if you jump over, be sure to come back and read the second link - Ellen Galinsky's response via the Huffington Post.

Next week - Chapter 3 discussion continued, even if I have to retrieve the book from my car at 10 p.m.!

Outside - It Builds Character

2011-05-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up, a phrase I heard altogether too often was, "It builds character!" This always came from my eternally cheerful father, as he assigned us some type of tedious farm task. You wouldn't believe all of the jobs that are character-builders. Stacking wood, raking grass, picking tansy, taking out the compost, and weeding row upon row of corn - these chores will all result in kids with mega-character. You should meet my older brothers - they have even more character than me...

Of course in retrospect, I'm very thankful for all of the character building. And since I'm naturally kind of book-ish and nest-y, I'm glad that so many of Dad's chores took me outside, and ultimately taught me to love that land, and love being outside.

In that vein, we've begun some character building here on our tiny plot of land in the city. The difference is, I don't have to convince Sam to join in the fun. He's been so excited about moving rocks, busting up dirt clods, and choosing plants and seeds. And he's never met a shovel that he didn't like. So I guess I can't really call it character building, until I'm convincing him to do something he doesn't want to do! That suits me - we'll just revel in garden-building with him, for as many years as we can.

Play - The Museum of...

2011-05-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

I just learned this week, that Rochester, New York is home to The National Museum of Play. How cool is that?!? The web-site is full of interesting links, about play in general, and about their extensive collection of toys.

I was especially interested in the six major elements of play, laid out by "The Strong":

1. Anticipation
2. Surprise
3. Pleasure
4. Understanding
5. Strength
6. Poise

There's are more detailed descriptions and explanations of these basic elements, if you follow the link above.

Hope you had the chance to play today!

Blocks! And Frogs!

2011-05-16T19:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, a little blurry, but I'm always so happy to see big block areas in classrooms that I visit. And, this was in a kindergarten classroom! All of our preschool classrooms in the district have block areas, but that's not necessarily true of kindergarten rooms.

I especially like this assemblage, created on a raised platform. This was a wonderful classroom, full of animals, insects, books, and kids who were so excited about learning.

To top it all off, a new frog arrived in the classroom, via overnight mail, while I was visiting. He was delivered straight to the small pond at the center of the classroom. Yes, a small indoor pond, complete with pump and plants. The teacher has reported that since delivery day, students have been writing and recording the sounds of the frog. It turns out that the sound of a frog isn't really, 'Ribbit, ribbit." The children observed the movement of the frog's throat, and wrote that the sound of a frog is more like, "ccccrrrrraaaaarrrrr".

Wouldn't you love to be in a kindergarten classroom like this one?

Inside out, Outside in

2011-05-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

While we get a few days of wonderful, much-needed rain (snow), I've been making all sorts of plans for using our outside space this spring, summer, and fall.

I realized that we have all sorts of spaces outside, that correspond to the spaces we use inside. So if we were really motivated, we could just live outside, all summer long.

That reminds me of a couple I read about recently - they made the decision to sleep out in their back yard, every night for a year - and they lived somewhere fairly cold, like Massachusetts.... I've got to find that article...

At any rate, our indoor living space really is replicated in our back yard - here's the break down:

Living Room = Wooden swing and lawn area
Kitchen = Grill for cooking and garden beds for planting food
Dining Room = Patio table and chairs
Studio/Office= Big table and art area under the covered porch
Bathroom= The whole yard :)

The only thing missing is a really cozy place to sleep. I'm looking for the perfect, shady spot to hang a hammock and add some huge pillows.

And until it gets warm again, we're also bringing the outside in, watching a camellia branch slowly come to life, in a glass on our dining room table.

What do you do to bring the outside in, and what do you do to take more of your indoor life out?

Play - Mentorship

2011-05-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'm going to write more about this topic next week, so for now I'll just put out the provocation. Do you think that kids need mentors in play? Do you remember a friend or sibling being your play mentor, when you were young? What about adults - how could we benefit from mentors in the area of play?

Basket full of...

2011-05-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

Toddlers Love Colored Pencils Too!

2011-05-06T19:51:00.000-07:00

She sat on my lap, at our desk in the studio, and carefully chose one pencil at a time. She would hold each pencil up in front of her face, looking with great intention. And then she'd draw on the paper (and a little bit on the desk). She also tried markers, but I had to do more ducking, so I wouldn't end up with temporary tattoos all over my face :)

Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky - Skill Three: Communicating

2011-05-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

I was making dinner one evening, and I suddenly realized that Isabel was awfully quiet in the next room. I peeked in, and saw what had captured her attention. She was sitting on the floor, methodically examining a stack of Sam's books. She looked up at me, a huge grin on her face, and said, '/k/! /k/!' That translates to 'Book! Book!', and she was very proud of herself for saying it.

It's not surprising that the focus of Chapter 3, Communicating, is one that I'm especially dialed into right now. With one child on the cusp of a language explosion, and the other flirting with the mysteries of reading and writing, there's a lot of communication going on. I'm also fortunate to do work that focuses on supporting kids in public schools in these same realms.

Galinsky cites important work by Catherine Snow, David Dickinson, and Patton Tabors (The Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development). As I've been out and about, observing in school programs in our district, I've found that the summarized findings of the study (p.130), are often exemplified by our best preschool and kindergarten teachers:

1. Teachers use "cognitively engaging talk".
2. Teachers use more complex, sophisticated words when talking to children.
3. Teachers have a content-oriented curricular plan.

This has reminded me of how important it is to give teachers the time to see and hear themselves teaching, so that they can continue to build and grow in these areas. And it reminds me of our need to continue to promote authentic rigor and professionalization in the field of early childhood education. So thank you Ellen Galinsky, for the shot in the arm! I'm hopeful that we may be able to start a larger scale book study of Mind in the Making within our district, to promote more conversation around all seven of the life skills.

At home, I think we do a pretty good job at encouraging early literacy (despite the ubiquitous iPhones...). It's still been a nice affirmation to read this chapter. I love the list of ways to encourage early literacy skills on pp. 132-133 - I'm including it here in an abridged form:

It's about expression!
It's about understanding, not drills.
Surround the process with enjoyment.
Connect the visual with the verbal.
Give children a concept of printed words.
Talk, listen, discuss, and imagine.
Encourage children to talk about their ideas.
Make it fun to crack the code.
Promote expression in all its forms.

Galinsky goes into more detail about each idea, and again provides a list of practical suggestions for parents (and teachers!) at the end of the chapter.

I'm going to extend the study of this chapter for a few more weeks - next week I'm going to focus on reading and dyslexia, and the week after we'll delve into communication as it relates to English language learners. As always, it's not too late to track down a copy and join me!

Outside - The Curious Garden

2011-05-04T19:33:00.000-07:00

Since Mother's Day is approaching, it's nearly safe to really start planting here in Denver. We've been lulled into believing it was spring-y enough a few times already this year, only to wake up the next day to snowflakes and chilly wind storms.

On a recent frigid spring day, I picked up The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown. This beautiful book was recommended by Angela - I don't know if she reads this blog, but if she does, Thank You Angela! It's a wonderful book about a dreary, grey city which seems to be devoid of any plant life, until...

...well, it involves the love and care of a boy, and the curious-ness of some very tenacious plants. And it makes me want to plant anything I can, everywhere that I can. Roof gardens! Vertical gardens! Vegetables mixed in the flower gardens! It also reminded me of Grow Great Grub by Gayla Trail:

I can't wait to start planting!

Play - In Small Spaces

2011-05-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

Here is the alien's den, between a living room wall and an ottoman. It includes a telescope for spying on approaching space ships, and there's a spot for parking a monster alien truck, if you so desire. It's a very small space, but later in the day I was invited in. And Isabel invited herself in. Sam and I talked about how it was just the right size for the three of us, but only if we wanted to be very still.

It reminded me of the thousands of versions of forts and hideouts made throughout my own childhood. No matter your age, consider building a fort for yourself this week - take some time to sit inside, think, dream, and play. You might be surprised by the brilliant ideas that pop up in your mind, when you've got your own little space for play.

Picking up is fun...

2011-05-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

...when you can use tongs and tea straining spoons! This is actually from a year ago, but I'm going to revisit the idea, for use with legos.

One hundred...

2011-04-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

...free or very inexpensive art supplies. If you think of more, add them as a comment! This is an exercise in divergent thinking...

Outside:
1. sticks as paint brushes
2. plants/leaves as paint brushes
3. plants/leaves for making prints or stamps
4. rocks for print making
5. rock sculptures
6. rock and stick outdoor maze
7. water painting on sidewalks
8. discarded charcoal for drawing on sidewalks
9. certain rocks for drawing on sidewalks
10. mud for sculptures
11. mud splatter paintings
12. making mud tracks, with feet, tires, other rolling objects
13. pinecone sculptures
14. drawing/painting with black walnut husks - very messy and smelly, but fun!
15. making dye/paint from plants
16. weaving grasses and plants into a fence
17. flower necklaces
18. flower crowns
19. dried leaves
20. found feathers

Recycle Bins:
21. cereal boxes
22. oatmeal tubs
23. yogurt containers
24. tin cans
25. office paper
26. card stock
27. mat board (especially from picture framing shops)
28. newspaper
29. drafting paper
30. newsprint rolls
31. toilet paper rolls
32. paper towel rolls
33. the rolls from inside rugs/carpets
34. old magazines
35. milk cartons
36. plastic bottles
37. old phone books
38. glass bottles
39. salad containers
40. shredded paper
41. styrofoam beads
42. straws
43. cardboard
44. bubble wrap
45. coffee cups
46. coffee cup sleeves
47. plastic grocery bags
48. paper grocery bags
49. plastic mesh produce bags
50. plastic lids

The Kitchen:
51. flour and water paste
52. bread dough shapes
53. egg paint
54. milk paint
55. macaroni noodles
56. dried beans
57. ice cubes
58. food coloring drops
59. jell-o blocks
60. potato or apple prints

The Bathroom:
61. shaving cream
62. soap remnants
63. old makeup
64. old makeup trays
65. old nail polish
66. broken jewelry
67. cotton balls
68. makeup sponges
69. old makeup brushes
70. old toothbrushes

Odds and Ends:
71.buttons
72.candle remnants
73.corks
74.bottle tops
75. twist ties
76. marker lids
77. toothpicks
78. foil
79. candy wrappers
80. scratched cds
81. empty thread spools
82. games with missing pieces
83. torn clothes
84. broken dishes
85. popsicle sticks
86. shrunken wool sweaters
87. single socks
88. wire hangers
89. bobby pins
90. paper clips
91. old towels
92. paper plates
93. extra bathroom or kitchen tiles
94. discarded small appliances
95. paint sample cards
96. paint stirring sticks
97. junk mail
98. small lengths of wire
99. safety pins
100. old utensils

The world through someone else's eyes - Skill Two: Perspective Taking

2011-04-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

As with the first chapter of Mind in the Making, Ellen Galinsky's second chapter is full of insights and practical ideas, all based on current research around brain development.

The skill highlighted in the chapter is Perspective Taking (hence the photo of Isabel, wearing my huge sunglasses). As I've read this chapter, I've made a lot of connections to our family life, as well as to my own work (with both adults and kids).

Perspective taking is a skill that most of us know is a good thing to be able to do - it can allow us to do things like help a friend in need, defuse a tense situation, and, of course, build relationships. But there's definitely a difference between knowing that something is good to do, and actually doing it, right? I think that most of us can probably quickly remember events when we just weren't able to see the perspective of a person we were interacting with. And the lack of ability to see the other perspective probably resulted in negative emotions and subsequent events that weren't so desirable. Like the escalation of a temper tantrum...

Most mornings at our home, my husband and I have the opportunity to see the world from the perspective of a energetic four-year-old boy. When we take the time to see his perspective, we usually get out the door on time and feel pretty good about ourselves as parents. When we rush and dismiss his perspective - well, things can go dreadfully wrong, and at least one person leaves the house in tears.

So, his perspective in the morning:

"I'm awake... Where's my mom and dad? I'm gonna go find them and say good morning.... They're still sleeping, and Isabel is sleeping in there with them. Why does she get all of the attention now? I miss sleeping with my mom and dad - that bed is still big enough... Okay, I'll just tackle my dad! That was fun... Hey, I'm really, really, really hungry all of the sudden, but I don't really know that I'm hungry, or how to tell them that. I know what I can say - I WANT WAFFLES!!!! We don't have any waffles? Well we had waffles last week, and my mom usually buys waffles every week, so why wouldn't we have waffles today? I don't really believe her, so I'm just going to keep on asking her for waffles until she gives them to me - that should do the trick... Okay, this is not working, so I'm just going to storm around and maybe even slam a door. And they still aren't even out of bed! I am completely fed up with this situation, so I'm going to jump back on their bed, so maybe they'll finally get up and give me some waffles. Now my mom is nursing the baby, but not getting me anything to eat?!? This has really gone too far - I know, I can roll around and bump into Isabel - then maybe she'll stop nursing and my mom will get up and give me some waffles!"

And that's just the first five minutes!

Of course I don't really know that he's thinking all of that (and our waffle phase was completed months ago), but I think it comes close.

Galinsky credits MIT researcher Rebecca Saxe and others for the finding that perspective taking requires the use of the executive functions of the brain. Remember those from chapter one? Those include inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and reflection. When we're pressed for time, stressed out from too many responsibilities, and deprived of sufficient sleep, all of those functions suffer.

I feel like we were pretty good at taking Sam's perspective during his first three years of life - we weren't 100% perfect, but we tried hard. And then I was pregnant again. And then Isabel was born. And then taking his perspective became a lot harder. But we keep trying, and some days it feels like it's getting easier again. The suggestions in Mind in the Making that support perspective taking are great techniques - I just need to figure out a way to remember certain ideas in the heat of the moment.

I'm going to start by just focusing on Suggestion 1: Practice What We Preach (page 88), for the next week. A relatively simple place to begin - just working to see the world from others' perspectives, whenever I can in the next week. Care to join me?

Outside - Every minute counts

2011-04-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

Today was much better. Maybe it helped that I spent the day with Lily Wong Fillmore (really, truly, in person, not just figuratively by reading books or articles by her!). It also helped to be whisked away to dinner at La Cocinita, right when we got home. But the best part of the day was after dinner, when we hung out in the back yard for a few sunny minutes.

I've decided that when it comes to time outside, every minute really does count. So what if we can't go for a week long backpacking trip (or even a day, right now)? If we can carve out minutes in our own back yard, and really be outside, that is enough. I'm not saying that we won't aim for longer trips and wilder places in the future, but right now is right now, and right now our back yard is our best resource.

We breathed in the chilly evening air. We watched the wind blow through the tree branches, and then predicted where the bubbles that Sam blew would fly. We all laughed, relaxed, sighed.

No Play Today...

2011-04-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

It was just one of those days. Out of the house at 7, not home until 6. Everyone grouchy from the car ride home. Not seeing anything as an opportunity for play or joy. Just a series of small battles...

I know I can and should count my blessings on days like this. Everyone has settled down, and here I am in a warm home, well-fed, surrounded by those that I love (and they're all sleeping peacefully now!). But I want to do better. I really want to find more balance between work and play - by finding more time for play when we're at home, and by finding more ways to make the work I'm paid for playful.

My only remedy right now is to sleep on it...Maybe I will play in my dreams :)

View from the Top

2011-04-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

She is a risk-taker. She's not walking yet, but she can climb to the top of Sam's bunk bed, all by herself (with Mom spotting). When she reaches the top she smiles triumphantly, bounces up and down a few times, and then checks out the contraband toy situation. Here's to strong and independent girls! Though I should say interdependent - her number one motivation for reaching the top is the chance to be closer to her brother.

Materials - Pencils

2011-04-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

Colored pencils have been a favorite material at our house for a long time, but in the past few weeks, Sam has become more interested in specific colors. Tonight he decided to do some color tests, while eating his dinner.

He likes to ask me to read the color name from the pencil - and then he decides if the name is special enough - think, lemon yellow, orchid, violet , then the pencil qualifies as special as well. Pity the plain Crayola pencils, they'll never get face time again.

It definitely reminds me of the colored pencil project (With A Pencil in My Pocket, created by Lea Redmond) that Lisa has been involved in.

Book Study- Chapter 1, continued

2011-04-21T21:18:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Chapter 2, of Mind in the Making, by Ellen Galinsky, on perspective, but I feel the need to hang out with Chapter 1 a little longer.

I attended a conference over the weekend and heard Deborah Leong speak, all about executive function, and of course how high level play can help children build self-regulation. Everything she said was so interesting, but two points really made me sit up and take notice:

1. Tattling is actually a normal and important part of development.
2. Parents who intricately plan play dates for their kids might be knocking themselves out for no reason...

Intriguing, no?

Okay, the first point first. As kids develop more mature play, they need to be regulated by others within play, regulate others, and finally, learn to self-regulate. The chance to regulate others is not so easy to come by. Adults don't often allow the children in their lives to regulate them. But regulating another child, a peer, is more attainable. But the first manifestations of this are bossiness and 'telling' on other children.

As a kindergarten teacher, and even as a middle school teacher, I remember squashing students' tendency to tattle tale way too many times. Leong's approach is to simply respond to a 'tattle' with the phrase, "Yes, that is the rule we have". This response acknowledges that the child is right to tune in to the rule (regulation) that's been established in the
classroom, and it doesn't make the child wrong for attempting to regulate the behavior of a peer. Sam doesn't do much tattling at home, but now I'm almost hoping he will, so I can try out this response!

It's getting late here, but I thought the topic of play dates was important too. Leong was somewhat critical of most modern day play dates. She feels they're either overly structured (think parent driven crafts and projects), or they center around television and video games. She feels that we parents need to release kids to more open-ended, imaginative play dates, and be willing to jump in and play ourselves, rather than sipping Starbucks on the sidelines. Then, parents can almost serve as 'play mentors', modeling all of those levels and forms of regulation, that it takes to engage in really imaginative play.

I know I steered away from the actual book this week. I'll be back next Thursday for Chapter 2. Is there anybody out there in blog world reading along with me?

Outside-More Water Painting

2011-04-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Even though the weather was cool on Sunday morning, Sam decided to change into his swim trunks and shirt, so that he could do some water work with his dad in the yard. That morphed into making footprints and tracks with water. That changed to making prints on the concrete using different toys and items he could find in the yard. That evolved into using a broom as a giant paintbrush, to make water drawings. No photos of that, because I got involved in the painting process.

Play - More Blocks

2011-04-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

This week we're playing with origami blocks. They're so easy to make, and you can use any kind of paper. The ones in the photos are from small squares of origami paper, but we're also playing with making them from larger sheets of heavier, recycled paper. Pages from recycled calendars look especially nice. And although the versions made from thicker paper are harder to fold, they're also harder for Isabel to squish.

10,000 hours

2011-04-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

I recently listened to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell on cd. Very thought provoking. If you haven't read it, I hope you will soon.

In one section he writes about mastery of any given subject matter (really, anything- kayaking, Italian, computer programming, haberdashery- anything), happening in about 10,000 hours of practice, give or take a few minutes. Gladwell gives examples of people who have done fantastic work in the world (often people who are labeled as geniuses or prodigies), and these people have always had extraordinary circumstances in their lives that have allowed them at least 10,000 hours of practice in the given field.

One of the most striking examples is that of Bill Gates. As a young teenager, Gates, through a series of fortunate strokes of what some would call luck, was able to spend hundreds, and then thousands of hours in the brand new field of computer programming. He had access to a computer (which very few others had) and he had time to devote to practicing. Of course, he also had an interest in the filed and the passion necessary to sustain all of those hours of practice. You can read the details in Gladwell's book, but we all know the outcome of Gates' 10,000+ hours of practice.

The vignettes in the book definitely spurred my thinking. What have I spent 10,000 hours practicing in my lifetime? Besides sleeping and parenting, I don't believe I've been able to sustain the practice of anything for that long. But I am very good at sleeping, and sometimes I can be a pretty good parent. I'd like to believe that it's never too late to start your 10,000 hours of practice, as long as you're doing it because it makes your heart sing.

Of course, the idea also has huge implications for learning and teaching. Within most current educational paradigms, students may spend 10,000 hours studying, but it's often chopped up into shallow foci on 10,000 facts spread across the widest curricular net you can imagine. What if the precious 10,000 hours of learning time allotted to a child were focused on some of the following:

Play
Creativity
Problem solving
Relationships
Time in nature

I think we'd see some interesting changes in our society and culture.

So, what will you do with the next 10,000 hours of your life? What opportunities will you give to the children in your life, for their next 10,000 hours? I'd love to hear your thoughts and dreams!

Explorations-Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference

2011-04-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

The last two days have been different than normal. Denver was host to the first annual Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference. It was a big event, held downtown at the convention center. There were hundreds of presenters and vendors, but the highlights for me were the following:

Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children's Zone was the keynote speaker on Friday! Inspiring doesn't even begin to describe him, and his vision.

Today started with a great presentation on executive function, by none other than Deborah Leong, of Tools of the Mind fame.

The presentation by Ellen Hall and her colleagues from the Boulder Journey School blew me away. It was so thought provoking, and I'm tempted to run off and sign up for an internship there. At least I'll try for their summer conference in July.

Finally, Dr. Jerlean Daniel was the keynote speaker today- she's the executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). She spoke so eloquently, on the idea of going beyond cultural competency to cultural humility.

No visuals today, it's been a very busy week, but I hope to write more about each of these amazing presenters, soon!

Book Study: Focus and Self-Control

2011-04-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

It's time for Chapter One, of Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky!

I've enjoyed reading this week, but knowing that I'd be blogging about the first chapter on Wednesday night did indeed help me to have more focus and self-control than I might normally exercise.

Not coincidentally, these are the two traits that Galinsky highlights in chapter one. According to studies by Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Adele Diamond, and others, the measure of these attention skills, or executive functions, can be as predictive of later success in life as IQ. So if we (parents, teachers, and others working with kids) want to give our kids the tools to succeed, we'd better pack a lot of focus and self-control in from the beginning.

Like so many things in life, we've got to practice what we preach, if we really expect those around us to give it a go. To support you in examining your own life first, the author includes quick quizzes to measure the following for your self:

1. Focus
2. Cognitive Flexibility
3. Working Memory
4. Inhibitory Control

I scored high on cognitive flexibility, average on focus and working memory, and a bit lower on inhibitory control. These aspects can vary in a person, depending on the circumstances of the moment. I thought that this quote from Adele Diamond was brilliant:

"Executive functions are very fragile - so no matter how good your executive functions are, your executive functions will look terrible if you're sleep deprived [or] if you're stressed."

Over the past year, I've fallen into the sleep deprived and stressed category way too often. And I realize that my executive functions have taken some nose dives. Which has directly affected the executive functions of both of my kids, but probably Sam the most.

I can't go back and re-do the past year, but I can do better as I move forward. And, in the final half of the chapter, Galinsky provides almost twenty practical suggestions for strengthening executive functions in children (and adults). My favorite is #17: Make sure your child is well rested and has breaks.

Which is what I'm going to do this very minute, now that my kids are both tucked in to bed!