I have been collecting traces of moments with children at the centre that I have been visiting and noticing an interest in mark making and lines using drawing, painting, sand play and loose parts. I wondered if this is connected to their interest in balance and movement that I am seeing in the yard lining up stumps to jump off or lining up blocks along the skirt edging the garden tree or the top of a bench. I decided to bounce back this interest through afternoon play set ups with materials in the emerging atelier using sticky note paper and drawing tools. This is a big attraction for M. and after using a stack of post it notes she decides to make a book for her story to share with family. The next day I offered children a familiar paint invitation but replaced the paint brush to nature using leaves. It was fascinating to observe the children as they ventured into the atelier, a young child rubbed the leaf in the wet paint, then squeezed the paint between his fingers letting it ooze on...

I have been back at school this year working on my ECE certification. Although I have a Masters in Early Childhood it did not provide the proper credits for the basic ECE certification. The course work is done and I am doing one of the things I love best, spending time in different early childhood centres, connecting with seasoned ECE's, children and family.  One of the tasks that I have enjoyed is setting up playful invitations and this block play has been so much fun.  Once I am done, I sit between two areas, and wait for children to emerge from the sleep room, not quiet awake and curious to see what playful invitations are waiting for them. I am thinking about what is gaining the children's interests and noticing how they are reacting to the invitations. This informs my practice and how I select what materials to add to the next day's invitations. I noticed that the child, who comes to the blocks in the afternoon, is interested in connection, so each day I add a new mate...

photo from creativity project When we believe that children are capable, creative and valued we design a classroom that reflects these values and see what happens. A user friendly classroom, with open shelving, includes visual space around materials and everything on the shelves available to the children.  The art materials are on sorting trays for the children to carry to the table for easy set up however they can mix and match the materials to ensure that they are making creative decisions.      photos from The Creativity Project This collage invitation is from the Creativity Project and has been done many, many times in my classroom. To save teacher time, I asked our local plastic shop (who have a laser cutter) to cut out my design in quantities of 40....

I'm going to be doing some workshops over the next few months and one of them will be Playful Learning. As I reflect upon my math program and gather resources for my new group of learners, I thought you might be interested in what playful math activities to offer children as an alternative to worksheets and graphic organizers. We use loose parts throughout our classroom and nature loose parts in our forest program. These flexible math play activities are popular, easy set ups and can be added to your math play trays. While the children have been enjoying lots of fun fall connected play such as pumpkins, leaves and stick, our math focus has been on building stamina, community and counting skills such as conservation, dot number recognition... playing math games. TEN STICKS This partner dice game using a die and ten sticks is from Messy Maths by Juliet Robertson. Many of our favourite outdoor math games have come from her book. We usually play this game in the forest with sticks or s...

Family Inquiry Like many of you I am working with children and family to create a community in our classroom. I use a few tried and true strategies to accomplish this important goal. These strategies all contribute to our classroom community and includes Inquiry Work. Structured Talk Peppered throughout the day I intentionally plan structured talks. These conversations help children learn to think more deeply, listen to each other and encourage conversation. These include: Think Pair Share, Turn and Talk, Interactive Read Alouds, Conversation Circles (eliminate raised hands). Related skills that can develop through structured talks  are opportunities for students to develop strong communication habits and include: Active listening Empathy and understanding Respecting personal boundaries Nonverbal communication Conflict resolution Play I invest a lot of time for free exploration and playful learning. The emphasis is on the process and providing generous amounts of time for thinking, set...

What are your plans for the first five days of kindergarten? I begin with a clean room, pops of nature, large and small spaces and a welcoming smile. My goals for the first week are to ensure that the children feel welcome, qnd that kindergarten is a fun and safe place. I make sure that they enjoy free play every day for increasing amounts of time. We go on a school tour visiting the library, gym, office, washrooms and the kindergarten playground. We set up a family photo wall. I take photos of the children and make sure they are on the classroom wall when they come back for the second day. I don't have everything on the shelves., this helps them to make a decision. The children choose a table invitation already set up or something from the shelves. They can play alone, with a friend or altogether. I make sure that the centres include construction, art, drama, literacy and math. We tidy up together. The book shelf and small world play table have familiar stories they might have had...

The environment that educators create for children reflects the image that they have about the children - Loris Malaguzzi September is around the corner and teachers are heading back to the classroom to unpack and organize for the first week of school. As a Reggio Inspired educator I have designed the classroom environment as a space for children to work and play through easy access to materials. This means that I curate the work and play materials in the classroom.  In our district the children come for short blocks of time over the first 5 school days. This transition helps them to become used to school, routines and expectations. Here are a few ideas which are research based and have worked for me for many years. Declutter A new school year is an excleent time to chose to declutter the classroom by removing materials that are ineffective or not being used by the children at this time. Remove any bins or tubs of teacheer materials.Try to keep the tops of shelves and windowsills clear...

    Mama bird is flying home to feed her babies. She has lots of babies and is really tired! She does not like the clouds and the wind. She is flying from the apple tree where she found worms to her nesting tree.   R. age 3.8 This week I have been working with prekindergarten children on creating stories.  I wondered what would happen if we co-created the materials for a picture story together: would it include richer details? We were building on their recent interest in birds and bird families and after lots of read alouds, discussions and plenty of time using loose parts I wanted to try this approach for storytelling.  Materials: glue stick scissors paint colour samples white paper Method: 1:1 with a educator The child is sharing story ideas, with the educator scaffolding the child. The child is making all of the decisions, adding the glue and placing the details onto the paper.  Steps: Using paint colour samples cut out elements for their story such as a bird or bird family and then...