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 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.

Loose Parts - Inspiring Play in Young Children

Today we received a wonderful gift from the lady who was really our Reggio mentor and massive inspiration in Singapore. It's called Loose Parts - Inspiring Play in Young Children. It is not only wonderful because it conveys its message predominantly in photos, but because the authors create a really useful framework for loose parts play with many mini case studies, interpreting and categorising children's intentions when they play with loose parts.

Here is their framework:

Senses

Colour
Texture
Sound

Creativity

Art
Design
Symbolic Play

Action

Movement
Transporting
Connecting/ Disconnecting

Inquiry

Construction
Investigation

Correlation

Caine's arcade - what kids will do with a resource rich environment

I was amazed when I first saw Caine's arcade, but not surprised - kids are amazing and with access to the right resources, they have a chance to show us that. Caine's story made me wonder whether the fact that his Dad just left him to it (because he was working) was key? If his Dad had designed and built with him, whilst it could have been great bonding, would Caine have run with this like he did? But we know (from Sugata Mitra's work as a good example) that encouragement can play an important role. Was that the role his Dad played that made this the perfect recipe for Caine? What else played a part?

Dear ISN kids, here's an idea from Indigo

Indigo started with a pencil drawing. Then she followed the patterns of her drawing with loose parts before picking up the pencil again to add more detail. We're not sure why she circled areas before then clearing away the loose parts.

Why do you think she circled areas before clearing away?
What do you like most - the loose parts drawing or the pencil drawing? Why?
Would you like to try this?

Reflections on our Nexus and ISN projects: Environment

In June we completed our outdoor learning project in the Nexus International School Nursery/ Kindergarten playground and we have just completed our outdoor learning project at the International School of Nice and are very much still buzzing from what we've learnt.

We wanted to focus on one of the bigger areas which is environment.

Building on our growing awakening, these two projects confirm our conviction that motivation, progression and deep learning are intrinsic within the child WHEN the environment allows it. Our role then as educators is to OBSERVE the child at work to interpret where their curiosity is taking them in order to furnish them with the resources they need to take each next step. We also PROVOKE by adding unexpected resources. Each and every time the child will always do something that we couldn’t have predicted and that is why we must stand back and let the magic happen.

So what is this environment? It is resource-rich and open-ended. It challenges, awes, inspires, provokes and even disturbs - a great example being the Living Organisms atelier at the Loris Malaguzzi Centre. See photos below:

The environment seeks to reach and enliven all the senses.

Outdoor learning at ISN

It's great to be back in France and to start our exciting project with the International School of Nice. Follow this link to find out what we and the kids are doing on our blog for the project.

We brought in our loose parts tray of all the treasure we've been collecting on our drive to Nice from Portugal for the Student Council. It was the first time they've even seen a loose parts tray, though they agreed when we proposed that they had probably been playing with loose parts all their lives - on beaches, in forests, rummaging through Gran's sewing box etc. 

The wonderful thing about the Reggio Emilia approach is that it levels the playing field. Let me explain - I grew up in a crazy house. My Mum is a hoarder, so there were little treasure troves all over the house to play with, in addition to all the natural finds that we hoarded on our walks. Our neighbour's house was, by contrast, minimalist with purpose-built toys neatly stored in play boxes. I envied the tidiness of it but the truth was, there was nothing to discover - there were not the same opportunities to express yourself with loose parts.

Some initial symbolic play before a theme of faces and bodies appears:

Some members splinter off from the group to draw natural finds from the loose parts tray:

Symbolic play

Indigo creates a bed and pyjamas for her new horsey friends to take a nap with her collected finds today.

Treehouse pulley

We put together this pulley with some loose parts from the allotment and some rope. The collaboration and communication it encouraged made us feel it was a great resource but for the Forest School facilitator you could see he was weighing up the pros of collaboration and communication against his desire for all learning to be child-led. This was an ongoing discussion as shown in the next post.