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.

When should children be able to read and write?

Reggio Emilia International Study Group 2016

In our lecture today we heard from the pedagogista that many parents in Italy believe the transition to primary school is when children should be able to read and write.

Naturally, this belief and fear results in some opposition to the Reggio Emilia approach. However even the Italian Curriculum does not place this expectation on children, instead proposing that children learn to read and write in the first 2 years of primary school or, as our pedagogista puts it (drawing emphasis to the conceptualisation of language as a code) to "construct their understanding of reading and writing codes". 

At the Loris Malaguzzi primary school they pay very careful attention to the wording of the Italian standards and expectations before applying them to their approach. In this case they believe this 2 years gives full licence to allowing children to freely explore all their other 100+ languages. In the words of today's speaker "Why would we push the pace?"

Mark making

One of the many advantages of outdoor living is Indigo's love of making marks in the earth with sticks. She experiments with the length of her 'brushstrokes', long and short, and is interested in the resistance of the earth. Sometimes her marks are fluid and carefree; sometimes they are angular and intentional.

We were amazed to see how creative the local kids in Palawan, Philippines were with sand - particularly how intuitively they used sticks in the sand to clarify meaning - with drawings and letters - as we tried to communicate with each other.

Indigo also really enjoyed laying out her collected finds on the letters of her name today. She has letters she particularly enjoys identifying and drawing: I, p, o, x and e at the moment. 'I' and 'o' from her interest in the letters of her name. But she has no interest in 'n', 'd' or little 'i'which is interesting.