Making 1 from 20
This year, the Dogwood Community was invited to write the story for a school-wide community celebration, the Lantern Walk. The Lantern Walk is held each year when the days grow shorter as winter sets in. The message below, sent to families each year, captures the intentions of this tradition. The idea behind the Lantern Walk […]
The Possibilities of Loose Parts
When you enter the classrooms of Opal School you will be met with familiar materials that you might expect to see in a lot of Early Childhood and Primary classrooms. You will most likely see blocks for building, colored pencils and markers for drawing, tempera paint and watercolors for painting, and costumes and dishes for dramatic play […]
It Starts with a Seed
As teacher-researchers, we feel strongly about nurturing children’s connection to nature through playing, making, and sharing. Stories are one way we play and share with one another, seeking understanding and connection, and further developing empathy. How might we, through playful inquiry, consider the stories that nature has to tell? What stories might we uncover within […]
Children and Teachers: Co-Researchers of Literacy
At Opal School we are discovering that literacy development is strongest when a learner has rich and varied experiences. Literacy is how we interpret our relationship to the world; how we read the world and share it back. As teacher-researchers, we listen and invite children to share their experiences and ideas through the creative use […]
Sharing what matters
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King, Jr. In observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, we’ve had a long weekend. Much of Dr. King’s encouragement and inspiration ultimately challenges us all to speak up with, as our friend Vicki Vinton has written, with […]
Why Story Workshop?
This week, the staff of Kairos Charter School spent a day at Opal School investigating Story Workshop. They wondered how Story Workshop might support their mission of “cultivating confident creative compassionate leaders.” Story Workshop is an approach that has evolved as Opal School teachers and children in the early grades explore the question, What might […]
Story Workshop – beginning in Beginning School
In the recent weeks we have begun having Story Workshop in Preschool. Story Workshop is a structure we continue to develp at Opal School that supports both children’s literacy and social emotional development. Through playing with various materials such as, collage, tempra paint, small world dioramas, cardboard, or blocks, a story might pop-up or they […]
Meet Mr. Imagine
Your attention, please! I daresay I have found Mr. Imagine himself. Truthfully, though… I think the point … that the following video makes abundantly clear… is that any of us who live with children are surrounded by the authentic Ms. and Mr. Imagine every moment. There are a few other points that this video makes […]
Playful Literacy
At Opal School, we have spent years asking ourselves– What is the relationship between play and language? In Reggio Emilia a decade ago I heard Jerome Bruner state that we learn the syntax of our language to tell stories. I’m sure we are born driven to do this: to connect, express, relate, inquire, research, discover, […]
Inspiration
With all of our talk with Opal 2 students in this first month of school about intentions, some questions have come up about the process of being intentional and thinking about our thinking. Together with the children we’ve wondered: How do you have intentions but still stay open to possibilities? Are there chances to be surprised and […]