Setting the Table: Loose Parts
How might materials support young authors and thinkers? Teacher-researchers Lauren Adams and Kathryn Ann Myers explore how processes of growing and and revising big ideas…
Tag: materials
Setting the Table: Tempera Paint
What does tempera paint do? So many investigations of a material start with a question just like this. This time is essential for developing the…
Blackline Drawing and Perspective-Taking
We enter the school year filled with assumptions – about each other, about ourselves, and about the world. How might the arts help us bring…
Glimpses into the first week
When people come to visit Opal School, we often hear the question, “What does all of this look like in the beginning of the year?…
designing for tension
“The most frustrating, agonizing part of creative work, and the one we grapple with every day in practice, is our encounter with the gap between…
Developing a reflective practice
Story Workshop began at Opal School many years ago with teachers and children working together to research the question, What is the relationship between literacy…
Confronting the disimagination machine
Friday, a frustrated colleague texted me this worksheet that a teacher in her school had given to the kindergarteners she works with on an “accountable…
Love, Play, and Mail
“In play, children begin with their own set of premises and learn to follow through, step-by-step, scene by scene in the complex process of creating…
Exploring the “We That I Am” Through Character
“A child’s most sought after goal is to recognize himself in others, and to find in others parts of himself.” -Loris Malaguzzi At the beginning…
When I feel sad sometimes I get angry
After cracking open the word friendship, we started investigating emotions through literature, materials and dialogue. After reading When Sophie Gets Angry — Really, Really Angry by…