New Year Organization

Over the winter break, I cleaned out, organized, and added a few new things to the studio. I think for the kids sake it's important to keep most things familiar, but to also add something new as an element of excitement and surprise.
When you walk up to the studio you'll see a new sign hanging on the front door that says, "atelier," which is "studio" in Italian (it is also the name given to the art studios in Reggio Emilia preschools). Of course this is more for me than for the kids, but I found it at an antique fair and couldn't pass it up!Inside the studio, I added icicle lights to the ceiling beam to add some warmth and magic during this cold, rainy winter.
Lately the children haven't been using the chalkboard as much as I thought they would. Why use chalk when you can use paint? So I added some shelving low on the wall for paint cups and fastened a large canvas to the wall for painting. This will now become a rotating wall for various painting projects.
With many new kids this past fall, I created new photo documentation panels to display on the wall. I wanted the new children to feel as much a part of the studio as the children who have been here all along. Seeing photos of themselves on the wall helps them to make connections between present and past work -as well as feel a sense of ownership here.

I'm excited for a new session and a new year!

New Clay Provocation and Watercolor

For our second clay exploration of the session, I decided to present the clay in the form of balls and coils, rather than a slab. The addition of toothpicks and popsicle sticks offers a provocation for a new way of working with the clay (Reggio Emilia early childhood experts use the term "provocation" as a form of provoking, or inviting, children to interact with a material or idea). I set up a workspace for myself as well so I could model different ways to use the materials. I wanted to present the clay in a way that would encourage the kids to build up, rather than out. The toothpicks proved to be great tool to connect the pieces together to create a sturdy structure. The children also loved sticking them into the clay to create spikes.


After our initial exploration with the toothpicks, I began to bring out more tools, water, and extra slabs of clay for the kids to work with.


Sienna celebrated her 2nd birthday with us in class! Happy birthday Sienna!






The kids began to move around the studio and found the easels set up with oil pastels and liquid watercolor paints.



Some of the kids decided to bring the watercolors to the table to use with their clay. As the table began to overflow with watercolor, I brought out coffee filters to soak up some of the liquid, creating interesting effects.
To continue the watercolor theme, I offered each child a large piece of watercolor paper with various stencils and cookie cutters to place on the paper (everyone started with a stencil of the first letter of their name). Then the children sprayed their papers with liquid watercolor and left the papers on the floor to dry.



When they were dry, I removed the stencils to reveal white images of the shapes on the paper!

Organizing the Studio

Before each session, I try to bring new life into the studio. I do a major clean-up, add new materials, and re-organize. It's important for me to reflect on how the children have been using the studio and re-work the environment to fit their movement and curiosities. As they say in the preschools of Reggio Emila, the environment is also a teacher. So it's always a work in progress!
Organizing the collage materials into glass jars and displaying them together on the top shelf adds an element of sparkle and intrigue. Because of the glass factor and organization, they are just out of reach, but always available if anyone asks for them. I also acquired some new buckets to organize the brushes and tools. I'm curious to see if the kids will carry these around the studio because of the handles!



Let the fall session begin!

Tissue Paper Suncatchers and Emergent Curriculum

To celebrate spring and the sunny days ahead, we have been working on "stained glass" tissue collages. Each child was given a canvas of waxed paper, a brush, and a cup of watered-down glue (tinted with color so the kids could see it better). Spread out on the table was a variety of tissue paper. I encouraged the children to first paint the paper, then stick the tissue onto the glue- this helps the tissue stay down rather than getting stuck to their fingers.
Rogan experiments with putting the tissue paper directly into the cup of glue.


This week we also welcomed our new friend, Addicus, to class!
After discovering the scissors last week, Richie asked for them again- determined to learn how to use them.
When the kids began asking for more glue mixture, I offered them squeeze bottles of tinted water so they could add it to the glue themselves.
Pretty soon the glitter came out as well!





The kids were interested in working with the water and glue so I brought out some eye droppers for them to try. The eye droppers help kids develop the "pincer grasp" which is an important pre-writing skill.




For the easel projects this week I set up two types of sticky collages. For the first one, I cut a variety of colored tape and placed it on the edges of the tray for the kids to stick onto the paper.
Some of the kids showed more interest in painting the collage, so I offered them watercolors to use as well.
On the second easel I taped a piece of clear contact paper (sticky side out) for the base of the collage. Then I filled the tray with materials such as paper, cotton balls, and feathers and showed the children how they stick to the paper.
Towards the end of class, the children began to choose different activities to work on. This group wanted to use the spray watercolors, so I set them up outside to create a spray mural.
In this group, Lucia took a break to hang out in the garden with her mom during class. She found a small lizard and a "roly poly" bug that she brought back to the class to show her friends. They all immediately wanted to go outside to find more bugs.
As a believer of emergent curriculum, I want to honor the children's interests and shape the lesson plans to allow them to explore these interests. With half of the class left to go, I dragged out a tarp, paints and brushes and offered them the opportunity to paint some rocks for the bugs. We collected rocks from the ground and everyone took part in the rock painting. I also moved one of the easels outside in case anyone was interested in continuing the collage work.

As we happily looked for bugs and painted rocks, it suddenly began to rain. We all moved back inside where I quickly got out some powdered tempera paint for a rain project. I offered each child a tray of paper and powdered paint to bring out to the rain. The idea is that when the rain falls onto the powder, it suddenly turns to liquid paint.
But when we walked outside, it was sunny again! So I went back to the studio to collect the spray bottles for each child to make their own rain.


Although the spontaneous curriculum adjustments were a little exhausting, it helped me to realize how I can bring more of the Reggio Emilia approach (especially the concepts of emergent curriculum and project work) into my art classes. Which got me thinking about my oldest class... (stay tuned for more about them)