Welcome

We began our journey into education many years ago, changing our practice and convictions with each step across two continents where we were sad to still see so many places where kids are 'shut down' at school yet thrilled to discover those where children thrive. We wanted to understand why.

Having a daughter introduced us to the Reggio Emilia approach, of which we are convinced, whilst at the same time adoring the challenge and submersion in nature and the great outdoors enabled by Forest Schools and the secular spirituality of Steiner. We're also very curious about Sudbury Schools for when our girl's a little older. We only learnt this year that for the past five years, Reggio Emilia have been trialling an Elementary school at the International Centre which we got the chance to visit in November 2016. We will continue to explore the benefits of each approach.

Recommended links

Click here

Indy's Ice Project

The past week has seen the best combination of weather in Normandy - brilliant sunny days and cold cold nights. Cold enough to freeze the tops of ponds and create amazing ice blocks from water left out in containers.

Imagine you're a child who's grown up near the equator and this is your first encounter with ice. Well this was the case for our little lamb and she has been having an amazing time. See her inquiries below including her walk on water.

The local cemetery has been the best place to find ice until we found the stash in Nana's garden. Indy's been fascinated with breaking it, first trying with drumsticks, then throwing it off walls and finally smashing it with a...

How wonderful!

Gauguin c. 1895 playing a harmonium at Alphonse Mucha's studio at Rue de la Grande-Chaumière, Paris. (Photo taken by Mucha)

Just admiring

this painting by Gauguin.

Still Life with Profile of Laval
1886
Indianapolis Museum of Art

The Competency of Children - excellent article from teachreggio.org

Click here

Genes Influence Young Children’s Human Figure Drawings and Their Association With Intelligence a Decade Later

Read the research from the project ran by King's College.

Wonderful idea from the Tinker Lab

Colander sculpture

Music at the Playeum, Singapore

Good times with our DJ, Johan and Zara at the Playeum - a child-centred discovery centre in Singapore opened in September 2015 and which strongly identifies itself with the Reggio Emilia approach. This is a place where children's freedom of expression and inquiry is celebrated and where four year olds can use hot glue guns. I would recommend to anyone. We got membership the minute they opened and had a lot of fun over the year watching the concept be 'sold' to Singaporean parents. As the Spanish say: poco a poco. The Playeum might be Singapore's salvation!

Take a look at their website to see how they structure their learning opportunities/ ateliers.

Light/ shadow play at Museo Pambata, Manila

Check out Indy and Alex's moves at the Museo Pambata

The background screen is made from a light sensitive material. A light flashes periodically which captures their outline on the background screen. It is the same concept we also had a lot of fun exploring at the Loris Malaguzzi Centre in Reggio Emilia. See here.

Our spin art - all you need is salad spinner, paint, plastic lids and Blu-Tack

The Secrets of Paper temporary exhibition at the Loris Malaguzzi Centre

Artscience

People's Choice Award

David Maitland, UK

Willow up close

David photographed the crystallised chemical salicin, which comes from willow tree bark. Salicin forms the basis of the analgesic Aspirin – no doubt this is why some animals seek out willow bark to chew on.

Technical specification

Canon EOS 5D Mark II; 50x magnification on full frame sensor; Olympus BX51 microscope; 1/4 sec at 5x UPlanFL; ISO 50; Polarisation Microscopy.

by Artist in Residence at Exeter University, College of Engineering, Maths and Physics, Fluids Laboratory, investigating artistic flow visualisation. Visit website for more.

Light play - Indy creates a complete disco station with Blu-Tack and loose parts!

One finger light quickly becomes four. With no input at all, she sticks each light to shine on the mirror ball. How does she know?

She then spins the mirror ball to create the most beautiful light show (that is impossible to capture in a photo).

Exploring form through loose parts

Indigo has become a little obsessed - as have we all - with Siphonophores. At the same time she wanted me to teach her how to write bamboo yesterday. She really enjoyed it and so we discussed whether she wanted to do a loose parts study of a word or letter and arrived at the decision to do the letter s.

We stand back, except to question whether the long straight sprig best captures the bottom curve of the s. Indigo solves the problem herself, finding a way to capture the curve with many small loose parts.

Indigo is now interested in an s on the side that we had cut out but set aside. She plays with it, animating it like a snake.

Discovering how the 3D s twists and turns, she becomes interested in making a bridge with the s.

Recreating iconic paintings - Photographer Inge Prader recreates Klimt’s Golden Paintings

Unfortunately this series isn't for a younger audience (only half of the above painting and photo shown) but I think kids would have a lot of fun recreating iconic paintings that they've been able to choose themselves and to plan and source all the right clothes, materials and props. They can then assume the pose as a tableau vivant for their friends to sketch.

We are in awe after discovering Siphonophores thanks to the Octonauts

Watch this space for how this inspires our artwork...

Winter celebration of light

Despite there being so little light through a European winter, Indy and I are still finding enough to photograph light through glass. We are working our way through Nana's incredible glass collection! And playing with our distorted glass lenses. Look at the beautiful colours we are seeing and the effects of the distorted glass.

Indy's started learning how to process photos - contrast/ sharpness/ exposure/ colour temperature - using the simple tools you get when you open a photo on the Mac: Preview-Tools-Adjust Color. Indy moves slider while I hold click. And we've been noticing how this simplifies the image.

We're discovering that there are so many possible variations when changing these parameters.