inching towards readiness

The past bunch of months have been busy ones. I have been snowed under with, starting last semester:

• big, giant assignments in each of my courses
• and then exams
• and then ridiculously busy holidays
• and then the start of school all over again for the new semester

I was barely able to get a breath in there, but things are now coasting in a way where I can reflect and research again, and that feels great. But whoops! Did the bottom ever fall out of this blog for a while.

So, this semester is also busy. I am taking the second half of our research class, and doing a wonderful project on perceptions of safety and how they affect kids' outdoor play, with some stellar group-mates. There is the assessment course where we are focusing on authentic assessment, tools, and critiquing "standardized" testing - it's awesome. I start the week off with a 3 hour class on children and learning with technology, very fun and very profound - with the prof that I'm working on the research project(s) with (thank you Jason), where we are writing our own blog with all the whole class of 40-odd ECE students. It isn't public (yet) but there is some REALLY interesting thinking coming out of there.

I got kicked out of a class due to timetable conflicts (not rabble-rousing) on children in society, and the only class that worked was a class about health promotion and community development on Mondays at 6.30pm, making that day super-long. I was dreading that class a bit, but then it turns out to be absolutely dynamic, interesting and thought provoking filled with great people and a great prof. SURPRISE!

And last but certainly not least - its placement time. I am spending two days a week this semester at the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care - an advocacy group working to secure real, necessary funding for child care in  the province. It is REALLY CRAZY AWESOME, and I harken back to my activisty days in Montreal and Seattle etc. I'm 4 weeks in to placement and have already written a Student Outreach and info guide, edited a booklet on greening child care centres, presented to other ECE students about the role of advocacy, taken on the organizations publications, and helped a bit with coordinating the province wide community forum tour that the OCBCC is conducting to get people revved up - it's a provincial election year, and we need to make sure that the government starts REALLY funding child care. It's just ridiculous, the state we're in. More on that maybe later - ELP, the new Early Learning Program that gets all 4-5 year olds in the province into kindergarten (sweet!) is gutting child care, as a lot of those kids used to be in child care centres, and without the support of their fees centres are freaking out. It's pretty nuts.

Back at school, I have a seminar once a week for that too. On Mondays. It's silly.

Work at the lab is also fun, but I'm not going to write about that now, because this is already long enough and no pictures. That's too bad.

Here's one of Conan, that I used in my post on our class blog about children, the internet, hacking and safety.

protect us, conan

So...that's what's been keeping me busy. It feels really great to put words up here again. Hope all is well with anyone who might read this - best to all those awesome friends I made oh so long ago when I was posting more regularly! Hooray for blogging!

Nerd out!

what's new - SO MUCH!

whoooooo!

I don't know where to begin!

This week has been so busy - coming home from an amazing vacation (more about that in a bit), starting a new job, and settling back into the rhythms of Toronto and home, especially after the recent civil turmoil around the G20 summit and protests - and still struggling with the reality of what's happening in the Gulf...


Everything is contributing to me FREAKING OUT about education - which feels pretty good, actually. Anyway - it's a lot to tackle all at once in one little blog post. I'll break it down a bit to the immediate - that oughta help my roiling thoughts.

So - first things first - we went on an amazing vacation to Vermont and down to Cape Cod to visit my grandmother and aunt, and back again. Vermont...ohhhh I can't say enough amazing things about you...how I love you! especially since we got to stay at this wonderful place - Shelburne Farms. This place is ridonkulous in the most amazing ways. It used to be a wealthy family's estate, but has become an incredible education centre, working organic farm, heritage and conservation site and all around amazing place that focuses on "cultivating a conservation ethic". Explore their website to get a glimpse, but GO GO GO GO GO to get a taste of how actually awesome this place really is.

We were wandering around inside the castle-like barn (no kidding, look at the photo, that's the BARN), and I kept wishing we could run into an educator, when that's exactly what happened!! We met the incredibly kind, welcoming and generous Sarah Kadden, an educator at Shelburne Farms also involved in the Sustainable Schools Project. Sarah gave us a tour of the facility and we talked and talked and talked, and I left in a daze of magic and wonderment, after wandering across the courtyard of the castle, I mean barn, to the Children's Farmyard to gawp at their amazing teaching spaces and pet some sheep, goats and calves, and where you could play fun games like in the following photo
.

It was really great. I feel really lucky that we got to go there, and really grateful for meeting Sarah, who I'll stay in touch with and who's work is so inspiring! AWESOMENESS! Am busy now reading about their very well thought out curricula on teaching the basic ideas of sustainability to kids of all ages, and am beside myself with excitement at the potential it has. I feel like I'm having a mega paradigm shift, and am holding tools in my hands to help kids explore ideas and subjects I hold really dear - community, nature, food, conservation, ecology, justice...it's a real long list, folks.

Then we went to Cape Cod and had a really great time with my Nana and Aunt Pam, who trek from Austin to the Cape every summer. It was so restful and wonderful and we had a ball.

Coming home just in time to witness police brutality and the government spending excessive amounts of money on needless things to impress, and get ready for my stint as counselor and outdoor coordinator at Holland Bloorview Kid's Rehabilitation Hospital's summer camp, at the Play and Learn site. I'm working with a bunch of awesome educators I worked with at my placement this year, and some other fantastic folks. We had one day of HR intake and two days of training and prep, and now Canada Day has descended upon us, long weekend HO! The kids come on Monday, I'm working in the kinder-aged kids classroom, with Allison who teaches kindergarten at Play and Learn during the school year, and Tatiana with whom I worked at High Park! That's when I'm not outside coordinating art, science and nature shenanigans in the elegant and potential filled playground, and I AM EXCITED.  It'll be great to work with young kids again - after Nunavik I need some little kids energy. Am psyched to try out some of the ideas from Shelburne Farms and Sarah and the Sustainable Schools Project stuff I've been reading.

More photos and news and enthusiasm to come - summer AHOY!

get ready for summer - NERD OUT!

sweet-sad endings and the next adventure...whoa.

My school year ends, in fits and starts, over the next two weeks. I can hardly believe that this year has come and gone, slid through my living like water. My History and Philosophy course is over, which is a tragedy as I wanted to keep taking that class forever; my interpersonal class has ended, and it was maybe the MOST RELEVANT educational experience of my life. This semester rocked hard - my courses were deep and influential, and there was SO MUCH WORK.

And on Wednesday, I had my last placement day at the High Park Bloorview Nursery School. It was a sweet day, where we planted bean seeds and sang songs, and as I led my last goodbye music circle, each child said "Goodbye, Noah!" and smiled and waved, which they'd never done with me before, not every single one! I was really touched...it is such a special thing to create relationships with kids. It is a truly powerful thing. I'll miss them a lot there. My placement was really spectacular - I felt welcomed by the educators I worked and learned with, and learned so much with the kids too. The power of integrated classrooms, emergent curriculum, reflective practice, interdisciplinary support teams...the list goes on and on.


And now - just a couple of other things to do...presentations, final interviews, and two exams. And then...it's off to the next adventure.

I can't remember if I've talked about this yet on the blog. I've barely had a chance to think about it, with the end-of-the-year push, and when it was being conceived and organized it was still too far away for it to percolate into these pages. Soooo...here's what's happening next. When you hear about what the heck I'm doing, you'll wonder how I managed to NOT think about it for so long.


I'm flying to the Arctic to teach art for five weeks.

WHAT!!!!!!!!!

I know. I can hardly believe it myself.

Lisa, an amazing artist and friend of mine, has been running an arts and theatre program in Inukjuak, a remote fly-in community in Nunavik for the last 6 years. Last year, she had a baby, and now being up North away from her family would be too much. So she asked me to go up instead. She is also expanding the program to another community, and so another friend of ours Natasha, will be starting a similar project in Kangirsuk.


I can hardly believe that I'm going to have this opportunity. I hardly know what it's all about. I've dreamed of the North in different ways for a long time, and now I'm going to experience it, and get to work with real kids and a real community. Because Natasha and I are both in school, and Lisa's been doing it for so long, she's been organizing it all, and I only have the vaguest notions of this whole thing. The next two weeks are going to be a bit of a crash course. I'll write more about it as I find things out.


So --- spring is here, and the school year's almost done, and I'm starting to get ready to go to an amazing place where there will still be blizzards, you have to fly to get there, fierce beauty and let's not forget the turbulent history of colonialism and general awfulness that our government has smacked the Inuit people with. Whooooo, nelly.

I hope I can do all this justice. Lisa thinks I can, and she's done it and knows. It's gonna be a crazy ride!!!

More soon -

Nerd out.

groooooaan...and twinkle. time for tired.

We are almost there.

My fellow students and I can really see an end to the academic year close at hand. Only a couple more major assignments - finish my paper on sharing and negotiation for my social-emotional intelligence course, and put together my portfolios for interpersonal communication, creative arts, and field education. Oh my...I hadn't written it all out like that yet...yikes.

But considering I've worked through a good two thirds of the majorness, I feel good about it all.

That's not really what I want to be writing about. I want to write about the gazillion new thoughts that firefly through my heart and mind, even when I'm brain crushingly exhausted from working non-stop on final assignments and never hanging out with my loved ones. I want to write about the amazing feeling of watching tulips sprout up with young children. I want to write about the amazing free feeling of playing outside after a cold-weather climate winter. I want to write about reflective practice, and new thoughts on how we can encourage children to talk and plan with each other, and how we can guide and encourage a lot of learning with stories and narrative, or some new picture books I found at the bookstore, or the amazing feeling of the springtime sun on my back as I ride my bike to placement or class. Or the wonderful, warm, exuberant and inspiring community of thinkers and writers spinning threads of connection through the internet to inform and make community. The early learning and education bloggers are doing a wonderful job of weaving a feeling of togetherness right now...very awesome.



But I won't write about that now. The 'soft animal of my body'(thank you universe, for Mary Oliver) needs to rest, and not look at screens for a while. I will write about all of that soon.

nerd out, friends. let's rest.

hmmmm...

I don't know about switching my blog hosting - it's so friendly over here and the blog would have a real different feel. maybe, maybe not - but I guess not for now...

I am totally wiped out - been working on a project that I haven't mentioned yet. Since it's March Break here in Toronto, and placement schools are closed, instead of taking a break and resting and getting a jump on things, I decided to add a pinch of crazy to my week.

A group of visitors from Urawa University in Japan, with which Ryerson has an ongoing connection, is visiting and I got hired on to coordinate our shenanigans and hang out with them. I've been organizing my face off for the last four weeks, on top of school and placement and being sick and everything else. They arrived on Sunday after a 13 hour flight, and we've had a jammed packed educational visit with them. Not that I had anything else to do.


Yesterday it was mostly exploring Ryerson and our ECE program, as well as our lab school the Early Learning Centre. Today it was more exploration of whats going on in our program, and then for a special treat, we went up to Bloorview Kids Rehab, the hospital, school and resource centre for children with extra support needs that my placement Nursery school just happens to be affiliated with. It helps that I worked there, and have many dear friends who have and still do. The folks there treated us supremely well, and gave us a great tour. We are LUCKY!!!

Tomorrow, more site visits and then dinner and the ROM - and then I get to fall exhausted into a puddle of jelly, sleep for twelve hours, and get back to my real life. We're giving a real whirlwind tour, since they're here for such a short amount of time, and it's making my head spin.

Speaking of heads however, I managed to do some fun homework today, in the middle of everything, and when I say fun I'm not even being sarcastic. An assignment in our History and Philosophy of ECE class (LOVE.IT.)is to make links between historical philosophers and everyday life, by examining TV programming for preschoolers and connect it to one of the educational philosophers we've been studying. Did you know that Sesame Street - our beloved Sesame Street - was designed as a televised Head Start program?!?!?!?!? Did you even?!?

Awesome. The idea grew out of a silly little cultural race, when the USSR beat the USA into space and North America FREAKED. Educators were blamed, who then blamed each other. College profs blamed high school teachers who blamed elementary school teachers - all the way down the line to preschool teachers and parents. The US government went ape, invested a ton of money in educational reform, and as part of the War on Poverty Head Start was born, and gave us Sesame Street. That's the nutshell - research away.


Anyway, today we got to analyze Sesame Street, and wow was it ever great. Apparently it is the most heavily researched educational program (not just TV program, but ed. program of any kind) EVER. And here we grew up thinking it was about Jim Henson and sharing and singing and spelling, with counting and stories and imaginary (but not really) wooly mammoths thrown in for good measure. Again, AWESOMENESS.

So, in my little Japanese whirlwind, I got to go to the awesomest rehab hospital for kids and visit their totally RAD Centre for the Arts AND watch TV (and admittedly think about it, and then write it all down). How cool is that? And all I have to do is turn into a puddle of goo after.

OUTSIDE!

It might be spring.

I finally got to get back to the Nursery School, feeling all better, and since the weather has been so glorious (+13 degrees Celsius!!! SUNNY!), we got dressed early (sans snowpants, since it's so warm) and had a blast playing outside. Here are some pics of our space, what we had set up, and the kids going berserk from a little wee touch of Canadian it-might-be-spring fever.






















Wow, it felt good to be outside with them! They played a lot with the dried up leaves from last fall - the play ground was full of them. It was pretty amazing to catch S.J.'s leaf toss - my camera takes the darndest pictures!!

Hooray for outdoor play - I've been wishing and wishing...spring might be here!

nerd OUTside!

in like several lions...

...and stomach flu, midterm papers and fever. And then another cold.

I started getting a little queasy last week, and came down with the stomach flu on Thursday after a feverish night. By the weekend I was feeling better, and was able to pretty much nail the paper we were working on about Maria Montessori and her method. Doing research from bed wasn't that bad, and I just wrote the thing all weekend.

While I'm glad it's done, working as dementedly on it as I did may not have been the best idea, as yesterday I woke up at 4am, coughing to beat the band and unable to get back to sleep. I went to school anyway, because I am a nerdy nerdster and had a crapload of stuff to do there anyway, and by the start of my Social Emotional Intelligence class I started feeling crappy again, and spent another night shivering and sweating in turns. F...

Anyway...early yesterday morning when I was barking up my lungs I tried to do some research for my other paper, and was reading The Hundred Languages of Children, edited by Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini and George Forman, which is the totally rocking book that goes along with the exhibit by the same name that is touring all over, showing folks what Reggio Emilia schools are about. Check it. The book is a wonder - full of all kinds of things I feel like thinking about.

One thing - well, one of many - caught my feverish attention. In an interview about influences on their philosophy with Lella Gandini, Loris Malaguzzi - the director and philosopher of the Reggio Emilia approach - mentioned this crazy school that in the 1970's inspired the teachers who were setting up the schools in Reggio Emilia. It was a school in France that moved every 3 years "where the reconstruction of old, abandoned farmhouses would be the basis of the educational work with the children." (Edwards, Gandini & Forman, 1996, p. 52)

Ummm...hello? RAD! The idea blows the roof off my head - or is that just the pounding of my head cold? The thought of this wandering school, teaching through hands-on experience, coming upon old, falling-down, uncared for places and learning and growing and playing together and then leaving behind rebuilt, loved places...wow.


Anyways, I didn't go to the Nursery School today, so I don't have much fun stuff to report. I hope I'm better enough to go tomorrow. I miss it! Instead, I stayed in bed and slept, which felt great, and when I wasn't sleeping I read picture books, and then slept some more.

Maybe I'll go back and sleep now. I want to get RID OF THIS THING. All I can say is that this month had better end with candy and roses and gentle breezes and fun - or else that saying is full of doody.



nerd out.

yesterday we made that, today we made this, what are we gonna make tomorrow?

The kids at placement are really into the materials we used for the shaker bottles yesterday, so today after we made more shakers, we just played with the materials! So awesome for fine motor development, and scooping and pouring, we ended up transferring the stuff over to the kitchen in the house area and 'cooking' with it. Pretty fun - the kids had a really good time and it got pretty messy. It felt like a gong-show, but somehow somewhere in there it gelled, and I got to witness some pretty high-quality play going on.


Now - I'm coming to understand the value of mess. It's pretty awesome to encourage kids to explore a material until they have a thorough, experiential understanding of it. Usually that can get really messy. I can understand how a lot of educators are a little put off by this - it takes time to clean up, time educators often don't have, or find it hard to invest. It's so much easier to work at controlling the classroom, making sure messes don't get out of hand, do our best to tame the chaos. However, kids are messy, and if they get messy, it seemed to me today that they were really getting a lot out of it. I'm not talking about making a mess for the sake of making messes - that's behavioural and doesn't need to be encouraged - but I think over-controlling kids, be it helicoptering over them, overscheduling their lives, or making sure everything's always neat and tidy impacts play, learning and ultimately kid's civil rights to be kids. Are we so concerned about our kids not getting hurt, or getting too messy, or staying safe that we are limiting them, holding them back from experiencing things fully? Is controlling kids the most effective way of ensuring their safety, health, learning?

Kids need protecting - our society is shaped in a particular way that necessitates that. And I don't want kids to come to any harm, by any means. But the constant mantra of "be careful" and "that's not safe" is starting to sound like walls hemming our kids in. It's exciting to think of alternative ways of being with kids as they learn. Thank goodness I'm in school for this.

Make the messes, my friends. I'll clean it up so we can make more messes tomorrow. I feel like I owe you all that, considering how many messes you're going to get handed in the future by us.


Messy Nerd out.

My Nana laughing

Today I was at placement, thank goodness, and we made some great shaker bottles, practicing scooping and pouring. I'll get some photos tomorrow. Isabel comes up with some great ideas.

I was feeling sick all day long, and so my energy was not that great. Ate some ginger, felt better, and then found out my Nana, my dad's mom, fell yesterday and broke her femur high up near her hip. She had surgery today, got a pin and a cable installed, and apparently is already on the mend. The thing is, she's in Texas, and here I am in the frozen (well, slushy today) north. Far away from family in times of trouble. Doesn't feel so great right now. So so glad that my Aunt Pam and cousin Erica are there. Whew!

My Nana's 87. She got me into reading, by first getting me into Star Wars and then science fiction. My omnivorous insatiable reading habits stem in good part from there, I'm sure. I have deeply felt memories of her reading A Wrinkle in Time, Fantastic Mr. Fox and other books way beyond what was judged to be our 'reading level', and my sister and I eating it up like the best dessert. Nana would laugh at the funny parts harder than we would, probably because she understood them way more than we did, but her laugh is still a deep part of my delight in reading, imagination, story and literature. I'm GLAD she's ok.

Been thinking a lot about outdoor play, due a lot to the weather here and blogs like Teacher Tom, Place + Inquiry, Free Range Kids, and I'm a teacher, get me outside here! . Our half-day schedule doesn't allow us too much time to get outside at Bloorview Nursery School, but the kids do tend to play outside all together when their folks come to get them in the playground outside our classrooms. Alternatively, at the Early Learning Centre at Ryerson, the kids spend about 2 hours a day outside. It so necessary to get ourselves outside, no matter the weather, maybe even because of the weather. I know I feel so much more human when I've been outdoors. I've also been thinking a lot about this video, about outdoor preschools in Norway. I want my life to be kinda like this.

Wouldn't it be amazing to do more of our learning outside. "There is no such thing as bad weather, only improper clothing." Stuff to dream on.

nerd OUT!

reading and reading and reading...

I will catch up. This is possible.

Everyone I talk to in the field and at school - they all agree with me. Placement semester is a gong-show. We have so much to do! A full course load + two days a week of placement + jobs to help us bolster our much appreciated but not-quite-adequate student loans = a lot to do. Not to mention homework, projects and papers.

So the academic powers-that-be invented Reading Week, so that we can attempt to catch up on everything and not become blubbering basket-cases.

HOWEVER, if you're nerdy like me, and get obsessed with all you're learning and immerse yourself in extra projects to explore and inquire even further, and go to your placement on your break so you don't lose connection with the kids (lose your place in placement) because really, is two days a week enough to learn all that this opportunity presents? And read inspiring books and articles and blogs that get you even more excited, ever more sure that you made the right choice, even though your brain feels like it's overheating sometimes.

Then, OH THEN, you need to remember to breathe. And make space. And not get too thrashed up over things. And that way you - I mean I - will become the teacher I want to be and not a burnt-out bonglehead.

And then, when I am that teacher that I want to be, I'll go on to maybe inspire a kid who'll in turn go on to invent a time-machine or something that will enable us to get all the things we want/need to get done in the time allotted to us, or add a couple of extra days onto the week. Or something.

Anyways. in my readingreadingreading, I have bumped into something I like thinking about - in my Creative Arts course text Art & Creative Development for Young Children by Robert Schirrmacher and Jill Englebright Fox (2009), in the chapter about designing early childhood art programs they talk about 4 important elements to include. I think they're all really important -

1.sensory experiences - situations that engage and enliven kids through stimulating all of their senses
2. beautiful and creative experiences - exploring nature, culture and art to create a relationship with beauty
3. time, space and materials for making art - provide a place and long enough periods of uninterrupted time for kids to express themselves, and enough interesting materials to explore and play with
4. an introduction to the world of art, artists and a variety of art forms and styles - what is art? Who are artists? Why do they do it? Beginning to ask these questions, even in early learning, is useful and important.



I really enjoy thinking about this, and picturing how to shape curriculum to incorporate them. Starting to understand different ways of thinking about curriculum, from the very structured plans that seem to be expected in our school systems here, to the more almost philosophical stances, open-ended questions or points of inquiry that seem to underlie emergent curriculum.

OK - I gotta get back to homework. BREATHE and DIVE.



NERD out.

chalk murals

wella wella wella -

These are some photos of the chalk murals I did in the classrooms at my placement at Bloorview Nursery School - High Park. I'm real happy with them, particularly when we were discussing the new tiger one and one of the girls in our class said "What happened to the boat?" Well, sweetheart, don't worry. It's still in the other classroom...all chalkboards are not the same chalkboard.



This is the Tiger I did for Chinese New Year - I peeled away the blue corro-tint to find a green chalkboard wreckage beneath. It was covered in tape and the sticky remnants of some teacher's great idea. It took the better part of an hour, a scraper, goo-gone, two steel-wool pads and a shit-load of elbow grease to get the gummy residue off, and leave an easily chalkable surface. I'm happy to say I feel like it was worth it.




Because sidewalk chalk is so light, and doesn't come really in black, I had to get inventive -- and erasing the tiger's stripes worked really well.

This other mural I did in the classroom we were in at the time, when the kids were captivated by pirates and treasure. It was pretty gratifying to hear the kids talking about mermaids and islands a couple of weeks after it was up - amazing what enters the kids' stories.



I was a bit more aware of my language today - that is going to be an ongoing thing. Good thing it's so worth it, and awesome, and I'm into it. It's a challenging thing, though, and being aware in that way of how I'm speaking and framing things takes a lot of effort. I talked about it with Isabel, who said she'd be happy to back me up if I'll do the same for her. She framed it as having an inside voice and an outside voice, and letting your inside voice say what it needs to -- "NO!" "Don't do that!" or "Hey, buster, don't sit on the table!" -- IN YOUR HEAD -- and translate it into your outside voice saying "Hey, friend, it looks to me like you're thinking of sitting down. Let's go get a chair or a beanbag instead." Awesome. Demanding. Fake-sounding? A little, but I think that's just the constructed clarity and intensified intent that grates on my ear. Practice that for say, ten years or so, and it oughta come out more naturally. It's a good goal to point towards, anyway.

Always learning, even when it feels against my will! Positive attitude, check. Sense of humour, check. Loads of stuff to do, check. Groan!

Nerd.OUT!

reading week...

ARG - just found out that my sister and nephew AREN'T coming to visit this week - which sucks, but there is a silver lining in that I can get the schoolwork done that I need to, study for my other midterm which is coming up, and work away at my projects. It was going to be complicated but worth it that they were here, and now it'll be a bit easier.

I did decide to keep going to placement, and I'm really glad I did. My new project at placement is a personal one, born out of noticing that the language I use when talking to kids is not really the kind I want to be using. Not like I'm swearing like a sailor (do they swear that much these days?), but I'm not always clear and my speech could be a lot more helpful, more conducive to communication.

Teacher Tom, one of my blog education heroes, wrote about it here, and here, and also along the same lines here. Check out his great great blog Teacher Tom. It's on the blog list over there in the sidebar, too. It's chock-full of good teacher stuff, told in great narrative, with real kids and real teacher action.

So, today, I kept messing up how and what i was speaking, and after a particularly wonderous blunder (done out of earshot of the kids, and I'm still chewing on it embarrasedly) I resolved to really really REALLY be mindful about how I speak. Good thing, too.

We also changed rooms again, and this week are in the room I started placement in. I'm not really sold on this room-switching business - I mean, I see some logic (fresh environment, fresh materials, new perspectives) but it just ends up feeling like a whole of transitions for everyone. All the kids did was wander around and explore, really, except in the House Centre where things were familiar enough to dig in and really have a feed-the-babies-wooden-birthday-cake love fest. However, switching rooms means four walls that i haven't really been able to have much effect on, so here we go! Got at it after everyone was gone, and spent most of the afternoon doing new chalk mural for the Year of the Tiger. Again, I forgot to effectively document the thing, but will do better next time, and take some photos of it to post tomorrow.

Also, even tho my mouth wasn't up to par, my play was - totally inspired by Vivian Gussin Paley, I played with the kids in a really engaged way today. It felt great, and a boy who's shy and a bit anxious blossomed and had fun with me after a unusually short interval of shadowing one of the regular teachers first thing. AWESOME.

Nerd Out - for now!

PS - Had a great time in Montreal over the weekend, and went to the ridiculously gorgeous Waldorf school stuff store, La Grande Ourse on Duluth. Wood wood and wood, lovely toys, and wonderful colours - those anthroposophists sure know how to make fetching felt fairies and wooden gnomes. Check it out if you're ever around there, and look at this gorgeous photo of the wooden kitchen, all kid-sized, that they have for sale for an unfortunately enormous price. I found the photo on flikr at pleasurecraft's site.

the book tree

I'm in placement this semester at Bloorview Nursery School, it's High Park site. It's an integrated classroom, meeting the requirements of our second year Children with Special Needs placement - there are about half and half kids with extra support needs and kids with typical needs. I am lucky - it's a really great school, and I'm learning tons.

My field educator Isabel is really great, and encourages me to 'be artistic' in the classroom. We laugh about it, as her background is in performance, and so we're a good match of artistic temperaments.

So...we're decorating the book-nook. I am into this - DEEPLY. I've already done a chalk mural of a pirate ship, following some of the kids fascination with pirates from a couple of weeks ago. But this project feels a little bit more integrated. Anyway, Isabel and i were jamming ideas about how to pull documentation, the kids' art and beautifying the classroom all together, when we realized that making a 'book tree' on the wall above the book area was the way to do it.

I sketched and cut out the bare bones of a tree (one of my favourite motifs) and stuck it up on the wall last week, on my first day of placement for the week. Then, on the second, we started a collage project with the kids, getting them gluing and cutting with different colours of cellophane paper and glue to make leaves to add to the tree.

The kids got right into it, glopping glue on and layering the clear colours on top of each other in a totally unexpected (why didn't i see that coming?) way. A couple of random objects also made their way into it, as well as the inevitable bits of glitter. Isabel and her team-teacher Tatiana continued it with the kids while i was gone, and i got back today to an interesting, still drying (after 5 days, that's how much glue) layered piece of work.



After all the kids left, i got to it with the scissors, chopping up the bigger collage into vaguely leaf shaped pieces, and this is what resulted.



The idea is to start with these leaves, all different colours of the imagination, and slowly add photos of the kids reading, pictures of favourite books and characters, and maybe even letter or words to the tree, tying it all together into a living documentation of creation and literacy in the classroom.




I feel real good about how we documented this too - the only thing is I forgot to take a picture of the bare-branched tree and the collage before i started cutting it up - but I'm a learner, it's ok.

I am proud of this. It feels great to merge two of my worlds, and felt great to put it together like this. I can't wait to see what the kids say tomorrow...



Nerd Out!