Quote | Malaguzzi

“Each child is unique and the protagonist of his or her own growth. Children desire to acquire knowledge, have much capacity for curiosity and amazement, and yearn to create relationships with others and communicate.”

-Loris Malaguzzi
Italian Early Education Specialist

My *Why*

NPR: Blue Man Preschool

I'm going to be playing catch up on the Casa T. blog this week. And it looks like I'll have a logo to reveal here very soon!

Below is a link for an interesting NPR broadcast: Blue Man Group Creates High-Tech NYC Preschool, by Margot Adler. Included in the article is the Reggio Emilia approach and the school's hopes for later program expansion to fifth grade. The article can be listened to or read.

Being the Boss of Your Paintbrush (and so much more!)

What's On Our Shelf This Week
Focus - Love

Art
The children explored the edge of the color spectrum with colors Black and White.



Our exploration began with some introductions. First, with dry paintbrushes. The children have been long using paintbrushes, however, since their fine motor skills are improving at a speedy rate, this is a good time for them to learn how to refine using their tools .



I asked what the children noticed about them. We talked about how the hairs feel soft when you brush them against your hands or cheeks. I then invited the children to experiment with their dry paintbrushes--to find out how gently they need to touch the brush to the paper so that the hair stays "standing up." I explain how if the hair is standing up, they are the 'boss' of their paintbrush. If the hair is squished flat, then the brush is the boss and can scratch their paper and puts its own marks on it. We all looked and compared each others paintbrushes. Some had bushy, short hairs, others had wide and thin hairs. And every other possible combination in between.

Moving on, I demonstrated how to use their brush with paint.



Dip--Wipe--Paint

"Dip the brush into the paint, wipe it one the edge of the jar to catch the drips, paint the paper. That's how we move paint to the paper easily."

Next, I encouraged the children to begin their exploration. We alternated--some children had black paper and white paint. Others had white paper and black paint. As they painted, I continually coached the children how to use the paintbrush.

I cannot wait to show you your children's pieces which demonstrate the striking beauty of these simple colors!

This project lends itself to much further investigation, which we'll be continuing through the next weeks (after the holiday break). We barely scratched the surface with this during this week. Great stuff to come.

Culinary
The PLAN was to make St. Lucy cakes for this week's focus on LOVE. The Wednesday group helped mix the ingredients (they love to stir) and kneaded and pounded the dough. This was great for Wednesday since the weather was so cold and we were inside a bit longer than usual. The dough, however, didn't rise as quickly as the dough has for us in the past, so we didn't get around to baking it. Actually, the dough never doubled in size, so I did what I do often. Improvised and Adapted.

I put the dough in the fridge and decided to have my Thursday group, knead and pound it, and simply explore with it.







Other snippets from the week
When children are working on individual activities such as these botany puzzles, when they come to a point where they can't figure it out, I provide scaffolding, within their zone of proximal development (a Vygotskian theory). These puzzles are more complicated, so when I provide scaffolding, without doing it for them, the children can undertake activities when given assistance.





Yoga
TOTAL awesomeness. We love Ms. Krista.















Next week, we'll continue with the Black and White exploration and the focus will be on PEACE.

Portfolios and Home/School Journals

I had a moment to collect my thoughts about my recent training I received and I posted those on my personal blog, and you're welcome to hop over there see what I wrote. I want to tell you about some additional and exciting things I'll be implementing at Casa T!

Even though things are on a small and intimate scale here at the house, we will begin using a Home/School Journal. I will be sending home these notebooks which will serve as a wonderful communication tool between the teacher and parents (the more communication, the better). Once a week, I'll be taking the time to write about your child--observations, behavioral patterns, interests, etc. I will send this journal home with your child and I'm asking parents to respond within the week. You should use this space to record your thoughts, hope, frustrations, suggestions, and observations.

Documentation is a huge part of Reggio. I've been doing this already with the blog, the many photographs and the detailed 'highlights of our day' entries, but I will also begin a Reggian Portfolio, for each child. Let me further explain about 'Documentation' before anybody gets nervous with that word, as I did when I first heard it because of its connotations it had with my experience as a public school teacher.

One difference between documentation in negotiated learning and portfolios that are becoming more popular in American schools is that porfolios are touted as a more authentic form of assessment, primarily because portfolios are the actual artifacts that children produce as they work, which can include drawing, diagrams, math sheets, photographs, and even videotapes that when studied chronologically and in all their qualitative detail, present a unique path of progress for each child.

Documentation, as they mean it in Reggio terms, is more focused on children than one child. Even when a child is featured in documentation, the intent is to have the viewer treat this child as a representative child. The documentation presents the spirit of the school, the pedagogical principles at work. Documentation tries to raise questions about children's thinking and teaching strategies rather than to mark the progress of all individual children. Technically, documentation is not an attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching for all the children. The viewer is asked to assume that what one sees in the documentation of four children has happened at other times with all the children. Documentation presents the wisdom of the teachers who write the explanations and provocations, but documentation, by itself, is not a systematic evaluation of instruction. These two objectives, evaluation and documentation, should be kept separate.

So, with that being said, the portfolios will focus on relationships, interests, and the ways the children express themselves. They will have a balance of individual and group experiences.

Is your head spinning yet? Don't worry. ;) It's easier than it sounds and with practice, I'll become quick and efficient at it. I just want to explain this to the parents so you are aware of what is being implemented here. I also want to make sure you're aware that Reggio Emilia is not a curriculum; it is a philosophical approach to working with children. It's a wonderful thing.

*Also If you haven't signed up for materials for next week's focus, please check out the post below here and let me know if you have any of the following to contribute. It would be great if they're dropped off sometime this week, so we're prepared to start next week.

THANK YOU!

Love, Andrea

Notes from the Sub

While I was at the Reggio workshop today, Andrea (Mama to Colton) came in and ran things at the house. It was SO strange to leave the children (including my own) with someone else in my place, but I felt very confident knowing the kiddies were in great hands. What was especially comforting was, that Mama Andrea knows all the children, and they know her, so me leaving, was very easy for us all. I thought perhaps Sophia would be clingy or cry as I left. Nope. Even Lulu didn't seem to notice I was heading out. They were all so excited about their visitors today!

I have much to share about what I learned today, and am excited about additional ideas I will implementing and adding to my program, and especially happy about the alliance I have with the owner of the Olive Tree.

What a wonderful and beautiful little school this is going to be! And a great option for S. and Central Austin families. I have Part II of the training on Thursday, but for now, I'll leave the parents with the notes from our 'sub' today. And she even managed to take a few pics. ;)

Andrea, thank you for coming in.

*The beautiful tree in their playground.


All went quite well today! Seemed everyone was on best behavior…er…except for my son who needed reminding of the rules at Casa T. I am sure that was partly due to Mama being the “teacher” today! No accidents but we did have some splashing around the potty and some paint mess so those towels are on top of the washing machine.

Everyone ate well and Sophia opted to eat some of Colton’s quesadillas so that is why her lunch looks barely touched.

I only got Lauren, Colton and Austin to reach in the pumpkin once and then they refused. Austin said it was too messy and Lauren said it was yucky…lol. They did enjoy rinsing the seeds in the strainer and tossing them with a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon before baking.

I read the “Pumpkin Time” book immediately prior to our Pumpkin exploration which was a nice segue as they seemed excited to see the seeds inside. I wanted to capture some pics but then for the first time ever I had low batteries and so just got a few!

Austin put eyes on his bat and then while working on starting Gwen’s Colton added some of his own artwork to her paper so she may need a do-over! The white painting on black paper is Lauren’s picture of Austin’s ghost that he told us all about today.

All in all Colton and I enjoyed ourselves.
Andrea


Photos by Andrea H.