Balance

Teacher: I had a connection and wanted to bring this word back into our conversations. It actually came up first when we were thinking about bikes.  The word is balance. What comes to mind when you think of balance? We begin a list on the white board as children share: weight – lightness/heaviness strength you’ll …

The Culture of the Atelier – Connecting minds, hands, rationality and emotions

In my last blog post, I talked about the Hundred Languages, the many ways of knowing and expressing that belong to children.  The schools of Reggio Emilia, Italy have given us what Vea Vecchi, who was the atelierista at the Diana Municipal Preschool in Reggio Emilia for 30 years, calls, “The Culture of the Atelier” …

The Power of Materials: A Group’s First Exploration into Foil

Materials, they can draw you in to look more closely. They can draw you in to touch them,  interact with them, …play and dance with them! Children’s attraction to a material can invite them to approach and explore within the arts, to begin a dialog with materials, to begin to think and communicate through using them. Materials offer …

Skills for Life

A few months ago, it was hard to open a newspaper or turn on the radio without running into Paul Tough and his book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (see, for example, this episode of This American Life.)  As the title suggests, the book highlights the fundamental relationship between …