Category Archives: teaching

education, Random Thoughts & Life Stories, teaching

What Did Girls Learn at School in the 1930’s?

January 18, 2019 rightfromthestart 2 Comments

There is currently a programme airing on the BBC called Back in time for school . The programme takes modern day children back in time to experience school life through seven eras.

When I was going through my grandfather’s things following his death, I found an exercise book from when my grandmother was at school in the 1934. She had kept it because it contained recipes. The subject was domestic subjects and inside is a treasure trove of information about domestic life in those times and what girls learned at school.

When I was at school in the 80’s, we were taught domestic science which was basically cookery. What my grandmother learned, was a complete guide to managing a 1930’s house. This may be because most women in the 1930’s were homemakers, or perhaps some girls were still going into service and needed to know how to do domestic tasks in a large household. The lessons contain really useful things about baking that I wish were still taught at school, like tips and tricks for making cakes and pastry. The remainder of lessons relate to laundry and domestic chores. Here is an example:-

Method for washing white cottons and linens

First put the clothes to soak to loosen the dirt, if possible over night.
Wash them in hot water with plenty of lather
Rinse in boiling water and wring all the soap out.
Mangle them to get the rest of the water out.
Put them on the line to dry
If they dry too much, sprinkle with water and roll them up
Iron, fold edge to edge and then once more.

In other laundry lessons they learned about blueing clothes, washing and ironing prints, washing silks and starching clothes. No wonder they set aside a whole day for washing! It certainly makes you realise how easy domestic life is in the modern day.

Domestic tasks included how to scrub white wood, cleaning brushes and brooms and my personal favourite – daily work in the dining room.

Daily work in the dining room

Open the window
Take out the rugs and flowers. Shake the rugs and change the water in the flowers
Put the table chairs and cushions into the corner of the room and cover with a dust sheet
Put down the hearth cloth and attend to the grate in the following order, Take out the ashes, keep the large to light the fire and empty the small ones into the ash bin. Clean and polish the grate. Lay the fire using newspaper, sticks, ashes and coal, then light it.
Sweep the floor
Remove the dust sheets and dust all the furniture
Polish the floor
Bring back the rugs and flowers and put everything in its proper place
Lay the table

I’m not really sure if this one is meant for any household, or for those in service, I suspect the latter. It explains a little about how clean and tidy my grandmother was and how she always had a particular way of doing things. It uses to drive us nuts when we were kids and we used to think she was too fussy. As much as I may decry the teaching of such things to girls, sometimes it would be useful to have a system to follow to avoid the overwhelm.

art, children, early education & play, education, imagination, learning environnments, play, reflection, Reggio Emilia, teaching, technology

Reflections on the Wonder of Learning Exibition (Reggio Children):What role does technology play in Reggio schools?

June 27, 2018 rightfromthestart 6 Comments

It is 13 years since I last visited the Reggio exhibition. Education and childhood have evolved dramatically in that time. I was interested to see how the schools of Reggio Emilia have adapted to meet the interests and fascinations of this new generation.

The projects and learning I observed 13 years ago embraced the physical world. Investigations were made through exploring physical objects and environments, through discussion and experimentation, using art, photography, written and spoken word. The documentation of more recent projects followed a similar pattern, except for one key difference. The schools of Reggio Emilio are now embracing technology as a tool for learning and artistic expression. This is not a piecemeal attempt to use technology to teach concepts, but rather a way of using new ways of investigating and deepening knowledge and curiosity, that were not possible before. They have fully embraced it as one of the hundred languages.

Take for example, investigations that occurred during the building of the Malaguzzi centre. The children were taken into the space. They ran and danced around the pillars, making patterns of movement. They were then invited to design their own pillars. Once the designs were completed, they were projected onto a large screen containing an image of the Malaguzzi centre. The children saw, that in the image of the Malaguzzi centre, some of the pillars looked smaller than the others. “Were they smaller?” they asked, “or did they just appear that way?” The children’s pillars all looked the same size when they were added to the image, so they used Photoshop to shrink some of the images and make a realistic picture. I have often seen images of how the Reggio schools use projectors to aid learning but the addition of computer technology added a whole new angle to the learning.

In another project, the children were fascinated by the sound their feet made on the metal stairs. They decided to give the gift of sound to the stairs. To achieve this, they tested ways to make different sounds by changing shoes and using a variety of movements. The sounds were then recorded.

The children decided how they might be able to annotate the individual sounds and used the symbols to create a sequenced map of sound. The children drew a picture of the steps and scanned it into the computer. Using music software, they added individual sounds to each stair to create their desired sequence.

I love the way these projects can take an idea further than they ever could before. In the past the discussion and investigation would have been similar, representation in art would also have been used, but it would not have been possible to make a working model.

Many educators would uphold the Reggio approach as an example of why technology isn’t necessary in early education. Yet, when it is used as one of the hundred languages, it enriches the learning experience without reducing creativity, curiosity or discussion.

It makes me feel sad that schools are often encouraged and expected to use technology more in the classroom, but I rarely see it used in a creative or enriching way. I mostly see teachers using screens to impart knowledge or show examples. I have never seen teachers use music software to investigate the science of sound, use photoshop to create art projects or see it in any way as a tool for the children. It has certainly made me contemplate how we might ‘play’ with technology at home too.

The Wonders of Learning is in Boston until November 2018. Then it will move to Maddison WI.

art, art, art and crafts, early education & play, play, Seattle, teaching

Art Project Inspired by Chihuly’s Macchia

March 26, 2018 rightfromthestart 2 Comments

Dale Chihuly is a local glass artist. His works have been exhibited around the world and can be seen locally at the Chihuly Glass Garden and Museum adjacent to the Space Needle in Seattle or at the Museum of Glass and Chihuly Bridge of Glass in Tacoma.

My daughter did a science project for her first grade class last week, where she showed how colours could be separated using a coffee filter and water. The class were fascinated, so I had an idea to incorporate their interests into our next art project.

One of Chihuly’s famous series are Macchia. These look a little like glass bowls, similar in shape to a coffee filter and are made by experimenting with different colour combinations. I showed the children pictures of Macchia and a short video showing how they are made.

Macchia means spots. I asked the children to decorate a coffee filter using washable markers, adding a variety of colours and including spots in their design. I showed them some examples from home, some had white spaces and some had the whole filter filled with colour.

When the designs were finished the children placed them on an upside down plastic cup and secured them with a rubber band.

They were then sprayed with spray starch. We protected the floor with paper and sprayed each one from a distance so the starch would create a fine mist and the filters wouldn’t get too wet.

This is quite a quick project but the children were keen to make more. Most children made two or three in a 45 minute lesson.

The designs were left overnight to dry.

The finished designs were mounted onto black card. These were joined to make a collaborative display but I chose to put each bowl on an individual piece of card so they could take them home.

The finished display.

early education & play, learning environnments, presents, review, sesame street, teaching

How to Find Treasures for your Classroom with Goodwill Online.

February 5, 2018 rightfromthestart 3 Comments

Disclaimer: Payment was received for writing this post and a gift voucher to try out what Goodwill online has to offer. All opinions are my own.

Teachers make the best treasure hunters. An early years teacher will always find a use in the classroom for bizarre objects you would otherwise throw away and they’re always on the lookout for bargains. If you have a list of weird and wonderful objects you have always coveted, then Goodwill Online could be the answer to all your wishes.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to visit Goodwill to find out more about their online auction site ( think Ebay, but where the money goes to a worthy cause) and learn tips about how to win an auction bid. We were given a chance to look around and I was amazed by all the cool things for sale.

A huge selection of musical instruments.

Bulk bags of Russian dolls

Rock collections

Old curiosities

and a whole warehouse of books

Tips For Thrift Store Treasure Hunting

Tip 1: Patience and a long list is a virtue. Dee Arneberg, America’s top treasure hunter from Spanaway, never enters a thrift store with a specific item in mind. The key to brick and mortar thrift store treasure hunting is a large wish list and multiple visits to many sites over time.

As fun as it may be to spend hours browsing interesting items, teachers are short on time so use the PERSONAL SHOPPER to help. The personal shopper allows you to set up alerts for items you are looking for and get emails every time one becomes available in the Goodwill inventory. Let’s say you were looking for Lego ( which by the way they often auction by weight) then you would enter Lego into your personal shopper and an email would notify you as to which new Lego was available.

Search key words and try properly and improperly spelled words, to catch typos that might lead you to a treasure no one else has found. Program the personal shopper to scan both item titles and item descriptions and create your keyword list accordingly.
Tip 2: Comparison shop to know the treasure’s market value. Develop your list of online comparison sites such as E-bay and specialty sites for specific categories to know the market value of an item.
Personal considerations – such as a collector looking for the last item to complete a collection – can create an artificially high auction sale, so know your item’s value and
how much you are willing to pay.
Tip 3: Household donors will often donate categories in groups,so check to see if one specific Goodwill is listing a group of luxury fashion brands or vintage lamps, or collectibles – all indicators of an estate donation of similar items. With knowledge of a specific Goodwill treasure chest, you can call up the inventory from that region and find other obscure items of interest!
Tip 4: Knowing how to maneuver the site allows you to know how many bidders you are in competition with. You can also activate a cyber ‘proxy” to always
top the leading bid up to a confidential limit you establish. And if you
really want the specific item, plan to be online during the final half an hour
of the auction, as that is when new competitors and a flurry of
bids come in. Real-time bids go down to the last second on some
items so you want to be ready to override your proxy bidder if you
simply must have an item.
Tip 5: When you lose, you still learn … about the field of regular
competitors who are interested in your categories. Each completed
auction lists the bid history which reveals the beginning/end letters
of an email which you can track as unique and learn that bidder’s
tendencies over time. As an example, those same nine bidders for
say “vintage board games” will have two or three who bid in the final minutes and are willing to spend X% of retail market value. Learning the field will sharpen your competitive edge in the final frenzied minutes of some bids. And don’t worry, most of the time another of the same item will surface over time and you will have another shot.
Tip 6: Support your local Goodwill. Each participating Goodwill has a virtual “storefront” where their current auction items are listed ahead of the offers across the rest of the site. Each Goodwill maintains their own auction inventory and benefits only from their item sales. Goodwill’s local online helps support an $8.9 million career training and initial job placement effort across 15 counties in our region.

Watch out for shipping and handling costs and remember to add the price of shipping to what you are prepared to pay. Shipping varies according to weight, size and distance of travel but can also vary according to the chosen carrier. One of the items I ordered, had priority shipping, so the shipping costs were greater than other items using ground delivery. If you support a local Goodwill you can eliminate shipping costs altogether.
Tacoma’s operation is prototyping several new attractive features such as one-cent shipping, and an instant purchase price for an item (“buy it now”). Every local Goodwill offers pickup at their operations with only a small service charge eliminating shipping costs altogether.

My experience of shopping with Goodwill Online

Firstly, be warned, it is highly addictive and you may find multiple items you simply must have. I decided to ask my personal shopper to look for puppets as this is my children’s current fascination. I wasn’t prepared for the search to bring up such amazing quality puppets and it was really difficult to choose the ones I wanted most.

My first bid was for a Muppets Wotnot puppet. I am a huge muppet fan and after a little research, found that FAO Shwartz in New York, used to have a Wotnot Studio where fans could go and make a custom puppet. The reserve on the puppet was $9.99 and postage and handling around $10. As this is a totally unique item, I wasn’t certain how far I would go with my bid but 5 mins before the auction ended, I joined the auction and decided to try a maximum bid of $35. I was really pleased to win the item at this price.

An even better surprise was when the puppet arrived. It totally surpassed all of my expectations. It looks just like a muppet, was larger than I expected and came complete with original booklets and receipts.

My 2nd puppet George was bought for $9.99 and I was the only bidder. There were a number of similar puppets available at this time so I decided on my maximum bid a few hours before the end of the auction. If I didn’t win the item, I would bid on a similar one later. The postage on this one was more that the puppet so be careful to check before bidding.

By this point I had to begin to be really selective about the puppets, as there were so many great ones. I decided only to bid on unique items or collections of puppets. I chose a Big bird and Bert puppet and my girls chose a pair of girl puppets because they wanted more female puppets. Both of these were won for under $20 with postage.

Just when I thought we were finished a 1970’s Kermit and Miss Piggy puppet came up on my personal shopper search. We have a Kermit puppet and a good Miss Piggy is hard to find so I couldn’t let this one pass. With an extra Kermit we can turn one into the evil Constantine.

Now I must stop looking at puppets because each new one that arrives is as irresistable as the one before.

What other interesting things could teachers find?

Building blocks
Overhead projectors
Old typewriters
Outdoor play equipment
Toy cars/trains in bulk
Globes
Beakers and test tubes
Maps and charts
Balance scales with weights
Shells
and my personal favourite, browsing the vintage section to find weird and wonderful old objects like washboards, apple corers , record players, old cameras etc.

If you don’t want anything for your classroom or preschool Goodwill online is also the perfect place to find unusual and unique gifts for the people in your lives who have everything. I think this will be my go to place from now on.

art, art, art and crafts, early education & play, education, teaching

Square 1 Art Lesson: Lions Inspired by LeRoy Neiman(1st Grade)

January 26, 2018 rightfromthestart 2 Comments

Each year, at school we have a Square 1 Art Fundraiser. Last years theme was water. My Kindergarten and 2nd Grade classes painted themselves under umbrellas in the rain . The previous year 1st grade created oil pastel monsters. This year the theme is ‘Be Wild and Wonder’.

LeRoy Neiman’s lions encapsulate both aspects of the theme perfectly and are bright and bold so fit the criteria for square 1 art projects.

Step 1.

Draw the outline of the lion’s face.

We made sure, the face was a good size and talked about different shapes for the face. This shape was similar to LeRoy Neiman’s lion and makes the lion appear as if it is looking sideways.

Step 2.

Draw the lions eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

We tried out different shaped eyes and noses. Once the children were happy with their drawings, they outlined them in black sharpie.

Step 3.

Paint the Mane. I showed them how to make sweeping brushstrokes, starting at the edge of the face and moving outwards. I encouraged them to use lots of bright colours and to try not to mix them too much.

Some used straight lines

Others chose curved lines

And some let the lines move in different directions.

Step 4.

Paint the face. We looked at Neiman’s use of colour – how he used light colours on the nose and chin and darker colours in the shadows. Again, I encouraged them to keep the colours distinct to make a patchwork effect.

Step 5.

Once the paint is dry, outline the features again in sharpie (this helps it to show up when the art work is reproduced by Square 1) and paint a watercolour wash for the background.

This child didn’t want to outline the lion’s face, preferring to let the face and mane merge into one another.

Some chose heart shaped faces

square one art inspired by leroy neiman lions

Some filled the whole page with patchwork colour

Some added ears

and some preferred lions without ears.

I love how individual they all are. Bright, bold and full of personality – perfect for a square one art project. I can’t wait to see how they look once their are printed onto keepsakes.

books, early education & play, parenting, review, teaching

Breathe Like a Bear: 30 mindful moments for kids to feel calm and focused – Book Review

January 9, 2018 rightfromthestart 6 Comments

I used to be a mindfulness sceptic. Being mindful, seemed like a short-term fad, soon to be replaced by another buzz word. My views changed last year, when one of my children had a teacher who promoted mindful activities. My daughter blossomed during that year, from struggling to cope with anxiety when things didn’t go her way, to recognising her emotions were taking over and seeking ways to overcome them. It didn’t stop her rolling her eyes when we talked about being mindful but the strategies helped her to focus, make friends and practice self-control.

Throwing my scepticism out of the window, I decided to review a new book promoting exercises for children to practice mindfulness, “Breathe Like a Bear”. I’m glad I did, because this really is a great book. It is beautifully presented, resplendent with Anni Betts’ vibrant illustrations and contains a variety of simple, fun exercises that won’t make you feel like you are leading a meditation session. The activities are developmentally appropriate for children young and old and might even be useful visualisations for parents and teachers.

“Breathe like a Bear” is written by Kira Willey, a children’s music artist and kids yoga expert. Kira provides enjoyable, engaging activities children will love. The book’s focus on fun, rather than lots of explanations about the mindfulness message, makes it especially appropriate for young children.

The first section focuses on calming, for when children feel they can’t sit still. It is difficult for children of any age to sit still all day and many children become agitated after a period of time. These exercises are designed to encourage children to slow down. They would be perfect for those days when children have boundless energy but can’t get outside to let off steam. The title “Breathe like a Bear” comes from one such activity. The children pretend they are a hibernating bear, breathing slowly in and out through their noses. Each section has a variety of exercises and encourages you to choose the one you feel most comfortable with. You may need to try a few to find what works best for your child or class.

Section two promotes concentration and focus. There are a mixture of activities in this section. Some are slow visualisations focused on breathing and others involve following actions, movement and sound. I particularly like how varied the activities are.

Section three comprises exercises that stretch the imagination. I think these are my favourites and can imagine using them during a rest time for young children, or to calm an older group when they get noisy or over excited. They would also be useful for bedtime. They could be read to children before they sleep or recorded to play in children’s bedrooms.

Section four is for energising children when they are feeling sleepy or lethargic. These would be great for the start of the day, to wake children up or during a lull later in the day. The exercises include moving your facial muscles, clapping hands, making twisting movements with your body and creating various sounds.

The final section is relaxation for when we are feeling stressed. Stretching like a cat or scrunching and releasing sound deeply satisfying to me.

If mindfulness is your thing, I believe you will love this book. If it isn’t, why not try it anyway? You may become a convert, just like me. My next stop is to investigate Kira Wiley’s music, if it is as beautiful as her book, I’m in for a treat.

Amazon Affiliate link for Amazon US Breathe like a Bear available from Dec 2017 priced $10.99

Amazon Affiliate link for Amazon UK Breathe like a Bear available from 13th January 2018 priced £11.99

Disclaimer: links in this post are affiliate links, meaning if you order via this link I will receive a small percentage of the purchase price. No payment was received for writing this review. I received a complimentary review copy of the title.

art, art and crafts, early education & play, education, teaching

Art Lesson -Wire Sculpting Inspired by Alexander Calder’s Circus

December 5, 2017 rightfromthestart Leave a comment

For this months art lesson with third grade, I chose to make wire circus performers inspired by Alexander Calder’s circus. When the children were in 1st grade we made Giacometti inspired wire sculptures. The thicker wire in these sculptures was difficult to bend so I chose thinner wire this time.

The lesson began with the book Sandy’s Circus by Tanya Lee Stone. This picture book tells the story of Calder’s youth, how he came to enjoy wire sculpture, become an artist and create his moving circus.

The Whitney Museum of American Art have actual video footage of Alexander Calder working his circus. I showed the children this video from 1927, but there are many others.

For our project we made trapeze artists. I thought they would look great on a display especially if we could string them across the classroom.

Materials Used

wire
scissors
masking tape
markers
material scraps
wool/yarn
paper
straws
wooden ice cream spoons.

How to make a wire person

Bend the piece of wire in half and twist the top to create a loop for the head.

2. Fold from half way along the remaining wire towards the centre to make arms.

3. Twist the arms, leaving a loop at the end for hands. Twist part of the remaining wire together to form a body.

4. Open the bottom of the wire out to make legs (cut if too long). Add loops for feet.

5. Cover the surface with masking tape. Add extra layers for padding out specific areas.

Decorating

Once the class had made their basic shapes for their trapeze artists, they were given a variety of materials to create, costumes, hair, faces and props. To join the material to their sculpture, some made holes and threaded pieces through, some used tape or glue and some used the wire to wrap around the material, joining it to their circus performer.

Making the Trapeze

Join two pieces of wire to a wooden ice cream spoon and attach to a straw. The children posed their trapeze artists in different positions and we took pictures to remind ourselves of the poses, when we put them on display.

I love the way they turned out and how each child put their individual character into their sculpture. I’d love to have the time to do a full-scale project and create a whole circus. We could investigate different ways of building and making the models move, perhaps with individual groups working on different aspects of movement. Perhaps some of the kids will be inspired to do this at home?

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links meaning if you purchase an item via these links I receive a small commission.

If you love this lesson, pin to Pinterest for future reference. Other art lessons can be found on my Art Lessons Board

books, competition, early education & play, education, imagination, literacy, outdoor play, parenting, parents, play, review, teaching

The Queen is Coming to Tea: Book review & fun activities for a Royal tea party theme.

July 19, 2017 rightfromthestart 3 Comments

Disclaimer: Links to the book title are Amazon affiliate links. This means if you purchase the book from my recommendation I will receive a small financial incentive.

The Queen is Coming to Tea by Linda Ravin Lodding, is a sweet book that children who love to play at tea parties will adore. My girls love to grab a blanket, turning it into a royal cloak and lay out all their cuddly friends for tea parties. As such, they loved this story about a little girl travelling around the world to gather essential items for the Queen’s tea.
Ellie finds out the Queen is coming to tea and with her best friend, Langley the Elephant, travels to Paris, China, Italy, and New York to make sure they have everything they need for tea with the Queen. But will the Queen patiently wait? And what exactly will be waiting for the Queen?

I love the bright colourful illustrations by Constance Von Kitzing, but they may be a little too pink for some boys to enjoy. The illustration of Ellie’s playroom gives clues as to where Ellie’s ideas about gathering items from around the world came from. I liked this insight into the child’s imagination.
The Queen is Coming to Tea would be a great book to read aloud and inspire play and learning.
You could..

Prepare tea and cakes for the Queen using play dough or clay or outside in a mud kitchen.
Bake cakes, or traditional British teatime treats like scones, biscuits and cucumber sandwiches and prepare a tea party or picnic.
Watch footage of real royal events like the Queen’s coronation or a royal wedding and plan your own pretend street party. You could make flags and bunting, make posters or invitations, play games or have races and dance to music.
Taste or smell different types of tea. Which country do they come from? Which is your favourite? How do the leaves turn into a drink? investigate with loose leaf tea, tea bags, warm water and tea strainers.
Make a graph or tally chart of the children’s favourite types of tea.
Could you make tea from herbs or leaves you find in your garden? These could be real or pretend.
Give the children tulle, paper and plastic bags and scraps of material. Can they design an outfit fit for tea with the Queen.
Are there any people from your community who have been invited to tea with the Queen? Perhaps recipients of MBE’s or OBE’s. Invite them to come and talk to the children.
Further investigate some of the places featured in the story – perhaps some of the children have visited them.
Practice squeezing lemons or perhaps try this fruit tea recipe
Peach Mango White Iced Tea RecipeIngredients:
4 Cups Water
3 White Tea Bags
1 Peach
½ Cup Chopped Frozen Mango
1 tbsp sugar plus Sugar to TasteInstructions:
Boil the 6 cups of water; remove from heat
Steep the tea bags about 5 minutes; remove bags and allow tea to cool to room temperature
Add chopped peaches and mango to a mixing bowl and mix with sugar; let fruit soften
Place fruit in pitcher and pour cooled tea on top; add sugar to taste and stir

Giveaway

For a chance to win a copy of The Queen is Coming to Tea and a porcelain tea set enter the giveaway below. The closing date is August 6 2017.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

books, early education & play, education, parents, review, teaching

Growing Friendships: A Kids Guide to Making and Keeping Friends (Book Review)

July 7, 2017 rightfromthestart 1 Comment

Disclaimer: Links in this post are Amazon affiliate links. This means if you purchase this book based on my recommendation I will receive a small payment. All opinions are my own. I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Most kids will encounter friendship challenges at one point or another. My family is no exception. Moving countries was a big challenge. The girls needed to find a new set of friends amongst groups of children who had already formed friendships. Sometimes they felt different to the children here, they didn’t want to play the same games or they were interested in different things. A year group that is very boy heavy made it hard for one of my girls to form strong friendships and she longed for a best friend.

Even for those who make friends easily, keeping a strong group of friends isn’t an easy task. Children want to fit in but getting along with friends is complicated.

Psychologist Eileen Kennedy Moore and parenting and health writer Christine McLaughlin wrote this book to help children learn the essential skills for building and keeping friendships. Growing Friendships, A Kids Guide to Making and Keeping Friends helps children make sense of their social world through practical examples and humourous cartoons and simple exercises. You could read it section by section or dip into the current issues your child is facing.

My daughter said she enjoyed reading the challenges. She liked that they were presented in cartoon form so that she could read through them quickly but also read the advice about what to do. I totally agree, the book isn’t heavy at all and is presented in a chatty, interactive style and a warm, non-judgmental tone.

We also read the book together with her younger sister. It was a good opportunity for them to talk about the things that happen between friends at school. My youngest beamed with pride as she told me how a friend had wanted to play with her, but another friend had a club that she wanted my daughter to be involved in – they invited the other friend to join and all played together.

The layout and language of the book are particularly child friendly. The book begins by explaining how to greet people and build common interests to build friendships. It then examines reasons people may not want to be friends with you like being silly and not knowing when to stop, showing off or bragging, and always needing to be right. It gives simple practical tips on how to change those behaviours and deal with emotions.

As a parent we often hear stories about kids who are mean – I love these tips for reframing.

The book is full of practical examples like this. There are sections relating to the challenges of larger friendship groups, bullying, and moving beyond conflicts and each one gives children examples of the right things and wrong things to say.

As a parent I see it as a wonderful tool to help discuss the social challenges my children face and give them tools to help.

As a teacher, I think this would be a perfect book to share with children. Teachers will clearly recognise the things we hear children talk about every day and that sometimes make us tear our hair out, this could be a way to stop and discuss issues with the class and a helpful reminder for when those scenarios occur in the future. You could display some of the important messages around the classroom.

I wish I’d had this book when I was a child. It’s not easy to know what to say as a shy kid and to be honest some of the tools in the book are also helpful as an adult.

I love this book and I think it is perfect for any child, whether they are having problems with friendships or not. As much as we all want our kids to have friends, it is equally important that they are good friends. This book helps children see that kindness is the key to friendship.

Growing Friendships is available from 18th July 2017.

active learning, art, art and crafts, early education & play, education, expat, learning environnments, Life in the US, outdoor play, play, sensory play, teaching

I Can’t Be a Teacher who Discourages Mess and Noise

June 14, 2017 rightfromthestart Leave a comment

For a teacher like me, who spent her teaching career with under 5’s, I am used to teaching in a messy, noisy environment. Children are permitted and often encouraged to make a mess and be messy.

Young children need to do and create things on a large-scale. They use big chunky brushes, they use oversized pieces of paper, they are developing their motor skills through moving around in a large space, they build with big bricks, look at big books and work on the floor.

Children are developing their language, communication and social skills. They are encouraged to talk as they learn, to ask questions, re-tell events, act out scenarios, explore sounds and negotiate with their peers.

If an early years classroom was always tidy and always quiet, I would be very concerned.

Early years classrooms are well organised. Resources have their place and children are shown how to return resources and take care of them. But when the children are at play they are rarely tidy.

Early years classrooms discourage shouting, teach children to take turns when talking in a group and are building the foundations of listening skills but much of their learning is verbal and kinetic so would not and should not be silent.

It makes me so sad to see children at desks in silence once they start school, children walking around the school without making a sound. It saddens me to see lots of whole class teaching where there is little room to be different, make choices or move around the classroom. Carpeted classrooms where we have to be so careful about making a mess, so there are no painting easels, water trays or sand boxes. Where the kindergartners don’t have an outdoor classroom to extend their space and experiences. Mostly, the teachers know that this isn’t right for the children, they do their best to bring fun into the classroom and make learning as active as possible, but their hands are tied by environments, school policies and by national or state curriculum and assessment.

Sometimes I think I should return to teaching to show that there is another way. Mostly, I think I’d end up demoralised, frustrated and constrained by a system with very different values.

Yesterday, for our final art lesson, I wanted the children to have fun with art, to work on a large-scale and be messy. It was to be an outdoor celebration of art. My plan was to set up a number of art stations outdoors and have a volunteer on each station. This didn’t quite work to plan due to a shortage of volunteers so I scaled it down to 3 activities.

Activity one

I taped paper to the base of a large paddling pool. The children squirted tempura paint in different colours into the pool. I then threw in a variety of balls. We worked together, holding the pool and tilting it to make the balls roll in the paint and make a pattern. The children squealed with laughter. They took it in turns to send the balls towards different members of the class and tried different techniques to make balls of different weights and sizes move.

Activity two

I added powder paint to pots of bubbles and mixed it well. A large piece of paper was taped to the wall and the children used a variety of bubble wands to blow the coloured bubbles onto the paper and make it pop. They enjoyed touching it with their hands as it popped and dripped down the wall leaving splashes on the floor.

Activity Three

I would have done this one outside on a large piece of paper too, but I felt the teacher felt more comfortable at a table, so this activity was moved inside. The children blew paint onto their paper with straws and then used sharpies to turn the shape into a character or person.

My teacher was a substitute. She greeted me with a bewildered look when I described the projects. Her face suggested she was unsure that I had thought it through and that it would be a logistical nightmare to manage.

I suppose our priorities were different. I didn’t care if the kids were noisy and overexuberant. I wanted to see them laugh, explore and take risks. I didn’t mind if transitions weren’t completely orderly. The children were excited by what they had experienced and what they were to try next. I didn’t mind if the children were messy and paint got onto the playground. The paint was washable and the weather would wash it away. I didn’t mind that the end product wasn’t beautiful or particularly thoughtful. I wanted them to see that we don’t always have to sit at a desk to paint, that we can create with our whole bodies and with a variety of materials. I didn’t have a learning goal. I wanted the children to share a new experience and to have fun.

Children from other grades who were out at recess, came flocking to see what we were doing, they looked on with envy. The Kindergarten children were full of joy, they talked freely amongst themselves and to me, without inhibition and they helped me to lay the pieces to dry, placing rocks to stop them blowing away. They enjoyed the responsibility, before returning to the classroom to sit at desks, eat their snack and listen to a story in silence.

If you have thoughts about spaces for children Suzanne Axelsson is collecting information about how space affects children’s play and learning outcomes and also, more importantly, how it affects your teaching…. if you cannot teach the way children learn, then it is going to have a HUGE impact… You can respond to her questions and engage in a conversation about learning spaces here.

Right from the Start

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