Camp Creek Press

Hi Lori,

What a wonderful interview! Thank you for the information. I have been doing some research on Reggio, homeschooling and other philosophies. I currently am a special education teacher in the public school system. For the most part I love my job; however, there are MANY things I don’t agree with. I have a almost 3 year old and 8 month old. I am reseraching my alternatives for them when it comes to education and I have a question for you. Everything I am reading seems to be art based, what if a child isn’t much into art? My daughter for example will paint, color, playdough, etc.f or about 10 minutes tops, but when it comes to running outside, dribbling a ball, or playing on a playground I can’t get her in! I guess I am wondering how she would fit into such models? Thank Eileen

Hi, Eileen - and thank you! While many people focus on the visual arts aspect of the Reggio approach, the Hundred Languages actually embrace kinesthetic learners - children do learn in different ways and can engage with a subject and express their knowledge by building, dancing, performing skits, dramatic play, and in many other active ways.

And while the visual arts (e.g., drawing, painting, collage) are important, an active child might be more engaged with building models, sculpting clay, creating large-scale dramatic play structures (e.g., child-size vehicles, buildings, rooms), etc.

The idea isn't to try to funnel a child toward visual arts, but rather give them a whole smorgasbord of choices - books about buildings and bridges and other structures *with* a fantastic array of blocks and other building materials, a great dress-up trunk *with* a stage to dance and perform on, an art studio with a quiet nook to draw in *and* an array of exciting things to build and scupt with. And when a child shows a particular interest, paying attention and providing them with what they need to take the work further.

If you are interested in the Reggio approach specifically, if you delve a little deeper you will find wonderful garden- and park-centered projects to read about.

Since you already know your child has a strong desire to be outside, you can meet her halfway and provide her with tools for learning outdoors - magnifying glass, binoculars, bug box, field guides, sandbox, outdoor building materials (rocks, shells, pinecones, etc.), a work area outdoors (perhaps a small table), scarves for running and dancing, a garden... We set up easels outdoors with pencils, oil pastels, and paint so that children can paint and play and draw and play - and there are so many exciting things to learn about outside!

You can read the whole interview and all of the comments here.

My friend Jo asked me if I had anything to contribute to this delightful post at the Cookie Nesting blog on kids' art displays. I didn't manage to send her anything because I've been a little swamped.

(Also, when anyone asks me for something, instead of rifling through my photos and immediately sending something in, I tend to think "oh, that won't do .. I need to take new photos" and "I'll wait until the light is brighter" and etc. and etc.)

So, up above is my favorite way we displayed children's art at the T.P.S. — in a hanging room divider of plexiglass frames. These are two pieces of plexi sandwiched together with two pieces of art in the middle — so you can see something different on each side. We drilled holes in the corners and used circle clips to attach them together and make a huge display, but you could easily have the plexi cut smaller (they will cut it for you at the hardware store) and hang them singly or maybe three in a row vertically. A smaller version would look beautiful hanging in a window.

And here are some of my favorite kid art displays from my peeps:

Estea's houses on the windowsill, rickrack art line, and wire book/art display shelf.

Geninne's son Daniel's window art

Kajsa's beautiful kid art line in the kitchen

Eren's drying rack gallery display

And, technically this isn't kids' art, but what a great display idea:

Hannah's little brother's stop sign as magnet board (awesome!) (totally stealing this for the boys' rooms!)

Let me know if you have something cool to share!

Mari Eriksson has some beautiful photos on her blog of her home, including some truly inspirational kid spaces.

All posts on this blog that have to do with children's spaces in home or school are tagged "environment". An explanatory quote from The Hundred Languages of Children:

A Space That Teaches

The environment is seen here as educating the child; in fact it is considered as 'the third educator' along with the team of two teachers.

In order to act as an educator for the child, the environment has to be flexible: it must undergo frequent modification by the children and the teachers in order to remain up-to-date and responsive to their needs to be protagonists in constructing their knowledge. All the things that surround the people in the school and that they use — the objects, the materials, and the structures — are seen not as passive elements but on the contrary as elements that condition and are conditioned by the actions of children and adults who are active in it.

In our school this translated to a classroom that was very open and flexible, with areas that could be transformed according to the children's interests and project work. An open area that had a play kitchen, table, chairs, couch, etc., during one season was transformed into a library for several months, a skating rink, a rocket ship factory.

At home, children need space to build and — I think this is key — room to keep a project out while they are working on it.

Again, we talk about children having short attention spans, but we make them clean up their projects and put them away each evening! How can they do extended work, adding layer upon layer of understanding, if they can't keep an unfinished painting? LEGO structure? block city? cardboard box building?

Children need the opportunity to work on something again and again, until they decide they are finished. One of the things I love about Mari's spaces is that they are so fresh and spacious. Empty space gives ideas room to grow.

Our Reggio-inspired art studio.

Hanging from the ceiling, children's artwork in handmade plexiglass frames, forming a see-through wall of art.

The shelves are inexpensive fiberboard shelves, screwed together, and then backed with galvanized tin, the same material used in the country to roof outbuildings. Eight dollars a sheet.

Shelves displaying art materials and works in progress, handmade by us from simple boards, and mirrored with cheap dorm-room mirrors laid horizontally ($5 each).

Candy-colored lights hung from the ceiling to mitigate the sometimes harsh feel of fluorescent lighting.

My lovely friend Astrid used two of my photographs and some of my words (I think!) for an article on decorating with vintage furniture. Very exciting! Thank you, Astrid! Unfortunately, the article is in Norwegian, so I can't read it. The title above translates to "Trash or Treasure?" I hope they decided treasure, in the end. ;^) Evidently, Norwegians aren't so hot on used furniture. Maybe I changed their minds!

When I started a private school with limited funds (a completely oxymoronic phrase), I began an eight-year odyssey of cheapness that has made me a legend in my own time.

Louise Caldwell wrote that a visitor to her school from Reggio Emilia inquired, Why do all of your (the U.S.'s) classrooms look alike? Because we all shop from the same catalogs, that's why. Except we couldn't afford the furniture in school classrooms. Which fortunately melded nicely with the Reggio philosophy of making classrooms look more like home -- with beautiful wood furniture, lamps, plants, etc.

So our writing center had a vintage wood desk, our library nook had a vintage wood settee, and our books sat in lovely handmade face-out shelves. Which cost $1, $25, and $4, respectively.

And visitors to our school were known to say, "Well, we can't afford such nice things." Really?! Like our handmade light table, which cost $12 in materials and seats four children? Like our lovely mirrored shelves which we made ourselves? Like our wooden loft we cobbled together from two-by-four's? Why, I think you can afford such nice things.

My now-legendary ability to squeeze the life out of every nickel may have preceded my relationship with the school. I'd really rather not say. The fact that I have perfectly nice, new dishes at home but we eat every night in 25-cent antique china bowls? Not important. The fact that we have a nice, new sofa in the living room, but it's my thrift-store chair that has appeared in a magazine and on a design blog? Piffle.

The fact is, old (vintage) (retro!) things are imbued with life and warmth. New early childhood furniture can be cold and institutional. Introducing the things of home brings home and life and family into the classroom.

Read more about it: Aesthetic Codes in Early Childhood Classrooms: What Art Educators Can Learn from Reggio Emilia

"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading." -- B.F. Skinner

Lulu's library (Wondertime)

gardenhoe/sara's son's reading corner

aoneko's reading chair

two straight lines' reading corner

little birds' reading nook

Largo Library children's reading porches