Kitchen Commotion

So something utterly fabulous happened today and I just had to share it straight away.

Noticing this image on Let The Children Play, taken from Child's Play Music (not 100% sure if that's the right link) inspired a spark of an idea

We've been getting quite a few thunderstorms lately, and some of the children have been scared by the big rumbles booming around the centre in the late afternoon. So I got to thinking; what better way to become comfortable with the exciting sounds of thunder, than to make our own noisy wet thundery booms?

We had a metal water trough which had been used maybe twice in the first few months of me starting at this centre (about 7 years ago now) and I hadn't seen it since. Oh joyous cacophany! Metal trough + metal kitchen utensils + pots and pans. A few children got experimental and tested pouring water down the slide. To give them a better outlet I pulled out some old plastic water-course pieces and leaned them against an A-frame for pouring water down a slope into another trough.

Science!! And the perfect lead in to building our own water wall (which I've very much been enjoying collecting resources for).

All the joyous noise making last week initiated some child-led spontaneous music sessions, jamming away on upturned saucepans.

Which led to today.

Today I installed our Kitchen Commotion. I liked 'Kitchen Cacophony' but Commotion was more popular with the children.

Here in Canberra there's a govt. supported business called Tiny Tim's Shed (or something like that, it used to be Revolve) set up at the tip, where you can pick up useful stuff that other people were throwing away for next to nothing. Perfect opportunity for re-stocking our outdoor play resources. I was able to top up our ever disappearing stock of ladles and scoops, and lucked upon some really interesting objects and a back-board for our upcoming water wall.

Speaking tube, just taped on for now.

This set up was amazingly simple. Pots and pans wired to the fort's rails. Some electrical tape to cover the sharp ends of the wire, and a delicious copper basin to store utensils. The children helped me scrub down the utensils before we hung them from the fort.
De-rail: I've been enjoying pushing myself to ask "Is there any good reason why the children can't help me with this task?" It's a great way to keep the children as involved as possible in what I'm doing for them; if we do it together, they'll enjoy the whole process and hopefully care more about the resulting awesome.

We've been getting a lot of rain so the children desperately needed to let off some steam. What better way to unleash all those restrained fidgets than with an unlimited-volume Kitchen Commotion music session? I wish I could share some action shots with you, I'll have to swipe one of my daughters playing

One other addition I love? Our speaking tubes. My resident Mad Scientist came up with these, crafted from random irrigation pipes and the hose from an old dishwasher.

I just love this speaking tube, it has so much personality. Like it's just begging for 2 pom poms with googly eyes, only I know they wouldn't last more than a few minutes.

Now I only wish I knew where we might go next week...

Throwing in a link to 'It's Playtime' from Let the Children Play to share my bit of fun:

Go check out It's Playtime for more wild fun ideas for adventuring with little people.
(pretty sure I've muddled up the button but hopefully it'll get you close to the right place, I'm still new at this)

Language of Learning

In recent years I've made a point of challenging the language I use in my formal observations and interpretations to emphasise the depth and value of children's play.

When my firstborn was in NICU, having been born ridiculously early (27+4 weeks gestation some 4.5 years ago now) we were achingly limited in how much we could actually participate in her care. All bar two of the nurses were incredible; sensitive, positive, excited to share every little milestone with us.

One nurse I didn't like fussed around like a mother hen, dismissing my competence in doing my child's cares (changing her nappy, wiping her face, switching her sats monitor to the other foot, really challenging stuff *note sarcasm*). The other that infuriated me had little quirks of language that devalued my time with my daughter. In the early weeks I would be lucky to cuddle my daughter once every 3-6 days. Whilst setting up for one of these fleeting precious snuggly moments, this nurse would refer to them as our "little cuddles". Little. Little? How is something so immensely significant in my starved relationship with my newborn prem 'little'? How could something I'd been desperately craving for 4 or more days be 'little'?

 

Whilst my daughter was petite, there was nothing 'little' about the emotional realm of these touches.

The language we use is significant.

When the babies in my care are exploring water, they're discovering Fluid Dynamics, gravity, conservation of mass.
When they're exploring the wheat packs and chilled river stones in the sensory trough they're experimenting with Thermal Dynamics, and classification, scientific observation.
As they examine photos of themselves, their families, their peers, the staff, the peoples of the world; they're studying Anthropology.

If I can use the formal scientific terms for the concepts these children are exploring, I value their learning as equal to that of a university professor.

To them, their discoveries are no 'little' easily dismissed thing. Their learning and discovery is as vital as breathing, and crammed full of wonderment to boot.

Process vs Product, Art vs Craft

The educator blogs I've been reading recently have been busy with the ideals of process oriented art vs product oriented art. Personally I'd be more inclined to label product oriented art as 'craft,' even though for me the label craft was a deliciously loaded almost curse word through my Bachelor of Visual Arts.

To digress for a moment; I flaunted that boundary between art and craft back then. As a loose definition within the Art School; a material or method which leant itself (at least historically) to making practical useful objects was a 'craft', on the basic idea that crafts generally follow a repeatable pattern, meaning anyone can do it. That's not to say that Art is 'Decorative' (which was yet another virtual curse word, indicating your art was all surface fluff with little challenge of thought in its design.) So for many mediums there was a significant challenge in breaking out of the craft label; textiles and ceramics being the most obvious.

A piece from my final body of work titled 'Anagram' 2001

The medium that really sang for me at the time was blacksmithing, which is on that art/craft boundary to begin with. In the month or two before starting my final body of work I'd started exploring calligraphy (calligraphy is definitely a 'craft' in the Western world), and somehow the two tunes just harmonised beautifully in my head. Calligraphy in a 3D form, casting shadows, emulating various languages yet saying nothing. With the added bonus that I could make it beautiful and fake the pretentious art wank.

 

 

A collection of my works from my final assessment 2001, my 3D scrolls in the background

So, back to the subject.

Art vs Craft, Process vs Product.

In Art for children they are able to take the invitation offered and create something of their own devising; to make their own whimsical mark on the world. As a teacher you can Inspire them, but you can't control their creation (by definition it's their creation, not yours).
In Craft their personality makes minimal impact on the final look of the piece. This may be due to everyone having to glue this just like that to make identical little mice, or it may be because the mark the medium makes leaves little room for child direction.

Think for a moment. How much control does a child have when blowing bubbles in a cup of ink before taking a print of it? Or rolling a marble around in a flat bottomed tub with some paint and a sheet of paper? How much creative value and thought actually goes into these expressions?

(Photo credit: the crayola website: http://www.crayola.com/crafts/detail/bubble-prints-craft/)

The more control we offer a child over the marks they make, the greater the creative value.

To this end I want to do a series of posts of some of the wildly creative play I've gotten up to with the children in my care. I'm limited in that I can't post pictures of children (I may have to block them out in some shots). I'll be tagging them under 'Meaningful Art' and hopefully it'll become a useful resource for others.

Tiny clay beginnings

It's coming together.
This idea has been bubbling about in my head for a month or two. I made one attempt at sketching/painting out my ideas, and that was enough to show me that I needed to go 3D to really explore my ideas.

We have a Secret Garden for our preschoolers. It's looking a little tired currently, and the cubby that was in there deteriorated within a few months and desperately needs to be replaced.

Over a year ago I went to a workshop with Rusty Keeler from earthplay.net
Some of his ideas got me inspired, some of the images have stayed with me very strongly, bubbling in the background waiting for an avenue to be exploited. One said image was of a children's cubby made from cob; a mix of straw, clay and sand, mixed together by stamping it into a workable mass, then built up; no need for structural support or construction knowledge/training. You just build.

And this year I'm becoming our Outdoor Teacher.
I'm inspired.
I'm hoping to design and construct with the children and families our own cubby, built with our own hands.

So now I have my own little model made now. Which means it's time for some pictures.

The structure as a whole:

Fern impressions in one side:

Shelf/windowsill, bench, sink. This window would face the primary entrance to the Secret Garden.

View in through the doorway, note the little storage/hiding spaces under the bench seat? The intention is for children to make mosaic tiled squares to fit on the seat and windowsills (currently represented by buttons):

View from above, I used beads to represent having wishing stones pressed into the cob around the window. This windowsill is shaped to become a writing/drawing desk for children sitting on the bench. The cut green straws are representing how I want to fit glass jars into the walls to let light in, an intriguing little pocket:

And finally a tree worked in clay to 'grow' up the side, with leaf impressions pressed into the clay, the leaves were dusted with chalk to make the impressions more visible:

I'm nervous about this project. And I'm sure it'll evolve. This is my initial model, I'm looking forward to seeing how future incarnations look after integrating the children's own inspirations. Tomorrow I get to show this model to our Director. I hope she likes it, and isn't too overwhelmed.