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.

Jean at The Artful Parent was kind enough to interview me about Reggio and how we incorporate art with projects. Thanks, Jean!

I want my children to have high-quality art materials. It shows my respect for their work and, in turn, they treat it more seriously.

That said, if they create 15 paintings in a row, that is a lot of watercolor paper. Can I afford this?

(Multiple by 20 for the classroom version!)

In order for children to work with the best materials, they must learn to work with them as a real artist does. They must learn that before we do an important work, we sketch. We think about what we want to make. We plan. Then we get out the nice materials, when we are ready to do the important work.

It's okay to make mistakes and need more paper, more paint. But when we are exploring and sketching and thinking (with our brains and with our paintbrush), we want to use "regular" paper.

It's also okay to explore with nice materials -- seeing what ink can do on thick paper, how watercolor paints work differently on lovely textured paper. But we name what we are doing, and we make sure that we respect the good materials and don't waste them.

Even small children can fit several sketches onto a piece of paper, then let their teacher (or parent) know that they are ready to paint. This process respects the material, the work, and the artist.

There is a idea that some adults have about children — and it is quite persistent — that children lack control. Youth = immaturity = lack of control. In reality, children can learn to negotiate complex situations and relationships at a very young age. Rather than controlling everything, and parsimoniously eking out the good paper and the best paints, we can help children recognize the value of these things. The children can then move freely in the studio (and in the world), making good choices based on real knowledge, rather than being always at some tall person's mercy, always wishing for more buttons.

We had a lot of visitors to the TPS* and during our post-observation talks, the same questions were raised again and again. A frequent observation by visiting educators was something to the tune of "Our students couldn't handle this."

As in, they couldn't handle the wide-open spaces, they couldn't handle the number of choices, they couldn't handle the sheer amount of art materials they were allowed to choose from.

Anyone who has watched a preschooler glue four thousand sequins methodically to a single piece of paper understands where they're coming from.

There is a look in the eyes of a three-year-old .. eyes darting back and forth .. as they see a large clear container filled with buttons. The look says: "How can I get these buttons?" The look says: "How can I get ALL of these buttons?" The look says: "How can I make sure NO ONE ELSE gets MY buttons?!"

Yet our students worked cheerfully with the big container of buttons right there in front of them and didn't freak out or anything. How did we do it?

There is a certain amount of training necessary. I remember hearing some diet advice a long time ago -- that you should keep a big supply of your favorite guilty food (e.g., miniature Snickers) in the house, so you could calm down and your brain would allow you to diet without sending you freak-out "MUST BUY SNICKERS" messages.

Similarly, you must help the children realize that there are plenty of buttons for everyone. The buttons will keep on coming. There is not a single, limited supply of buttons.

When introducing a studio environment, whether at school or at home, it helps to start with a lot of less-expensive, easy-to-procure items (pencils, paper, markers, popsicle sticks, glue). I like reams of copy paper for drawing; there are 500 sheets in a ream so it's relatively inexpensive, but nice quality. A ream of legal-size copy paper shakes things up a bit.

Start tearing out sheets from magazines before you recycle them, and fill a box with these, for collaging.

Get a bin and throw your clean recyclables into it, along with a few rolls of masking tape for sculptures.

Fill a basket with things from the yard -- leaves, pinecones, twigs, acorns, pebbles, shells, etc. Nature's art materials.

Now you've got a nice starter studio.

We added other materials slowly .. buttons, beads, lacing, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, plastic-coated wire, etc. If our students came in on the first day of school and found a completely stocked art studio, I'm sure they would have wigged out as well. Instead, they slowly grew to know it as a place where neat new things were always appearing, where there was enough for everyone.

We never doled out buttons. "Everyone gets three buttons!" That's the type of thing that makes you feel greedy and desperate. Sometimes, you just have to let them glue and glue and glue until they get past the panic stage. But once they understand you're going to keep supplying them with the good stuff, they calm down. They're able to cast their eyes over a display of materials and choose with care the thing they really need.

Continued tomorrow...

*TPS = tiny private school

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